Arsenal’s youth can provide leadership Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang never did after Leeds victory

The Gunners secured a comfortable 4-1 win over Leeds United on Saturday to strengthen their grip on fourth place

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There is no football club which oscillates quite so relentlessly between abundant talent and comic self-sabotage as Arsenal.

Every time they appear to have pulled together a string of positive results and strong performances that could lead to a sustained period of progress, something seems to go ludicrously, laughably wrong at the worst time.

This week it was Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang back at it again, stripped of the club captaincy by Mikel Arteta for returning late from an unauthorised trip abroad just as the team was strengthening its grip on a top four place.

Now, you might well question why a man who had to effectively be barred by the club from engaging in a public friendship with a member of a fan media YouTube channel who regularly chastised and abused his team-mates in front of an audience of millions was still the club captain anyway, and I would not blame for you that. But the fact remains that, for whatever reason, Aubameyang remained Arsenal’s designated leader until this latest round of acrimony in the middle of the busiest spell of the season.

And so the Gunners went to play a fixture without him, again, at Elland Road in the only game of the day which did not succumb to the wave of Omicron sweeping not just the United Kingdom as a whole but the Premier League playing ranks too.

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Arteta’s men did not look like they were missing their talisman, though, as they decimated Marcelo Bielsa’s men in a ruthless first-half in which they counter-attacked well, exploited spaces in a 3-1-3-3 shape Leeds look far from mastering this season, and capitalised on defensive dallying around the penalty area to lead by three at the break.

Yes, Leeds are suffering an enormous injury crisis, and yes, they had only won three matches from 17 prior to kick-off this evening. But there were still signs in Arsenal’s attack that the young lads up-front are capable of replacing and improving upon Aubameyang’s goal-scoring and leadership.

It was a combination of quick movement, accurate first-time passes and high-pressing that allowed the Gunners to run up the score and put the game to bed before even half-an-hour had been played in Yorkshire. The three players in behind striker Alexandre Lacazette — Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard and Gabriel Martinelli — mixed technical quality on the ball with graft and harrying to hustle Leeds into errors and create opportunities with ease.

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Martinelli’s brace, his first in the Premier League, saw him step inside from the left-wing and firat curl a finish around Illan Meslier before clipping one over him in finishes reminiscent of his former captain in his pomp. Saka, meanwhile, toiled away around the edge of the box until he won the ball back with a tackle and scored a deserved goal via a deflection which beat Meslier at the near post. And after coming off the bench, Emile Smith-Rowe scored his sixth league of the season after regaining possession of the ball in midfield. 14 Arsenal goals in the Premier League have now come from players aged 21 or under, five more than any other side in the league.

Playing behind them in midfield was the previous Arsenal skipper, Granit Xhaka, who once waved sarcastically at home supporters as they booed him off at the Emirates, and continued his one-man crusade to earn a Premier League player’s wage while being suspended for as much of the season as possible in the second-half here when he stamped on Raphinha’s ankle but somehow avoided a red card.

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Both he and Aubameyang were shown how to lead by the young men dovetailing behind Lacazette, whose tenacity, hard-work and quality can be the basis for a new form of on-field leadership if Mikel Arteta can harness it correctly.

Arsenal do not need a big, burly brute of a man to shout at referees and kick people to make the laughter stop. They need a strict example to be set and followed, and their young attacking players have proven they can provide it.