Cracking Kiwior
It’s like Nicolas Jover knew I was working on this. At approximately 9:29 PM (GMT) on Saturday 24th Febuary, Jakub Kiwior glanced home his second league goal for The Arsenal, with a finish so destined for the back of the net that Lewis Miley couldn’t help but ensure it wasn’t robbed of its divine right. It acted as a delightful stamp of success for his first proper stint in the side, filling in for the oft-absent Alex Zinchenko amid a whole load of tactical tweaks and changes that has seen Arsenal unbeaten in England since the winter break, scoring a cool 28 goals whilst doing so.
Kiwior’s integration into the side this last month+ has been a real triumph for Arteta in my eyes. The easiest criticism to level at our San Sebastián Saviour has always been his rotation, or lack thereof: it’s arguably cost us at the business end of two successive seasons now, and whilst some of its not his fault (Cedric Soares is shit, after all), some of it is most definitely his fault (Rob Holding is shit, after all). This for me is why this acceptance to adjust his strict tactical regimen to accommodate the fringe boys means a whole lot more than just ‘tweaking’, and so I’d like to celebrate it — through the medium of a 24 year-old 6ft2 Polish man.
For this, I’m obviously going to be looking at bit at set-pieces later on (as I think there’s some really valuable stuff there), but primarily will be viewing Kiwior’s weird first year at the Emirates through a tactical and general fit lens, to cover a few things that I normally wouldn’t — as a fun little risk that could embarrass me.
Anyway. Into it.
Part 1: Integrating Issues
As we know, it wasn’t all super happy fun times for Jacky Kiv in the famous red and white. He joined in January 2023 for ~£17m to provide some nice left-footed cover at CB (and potentially LB) and allow for some rotation in the run-in which Arsenal were in need of — especially given Oleksander Zinchenko’s injury history, Takehiro Tomiyasu’s injury history, and Kieran Tierney’s injury history. Shortly after he joins, and after a short stint on rotation duty in the Europa, Arsenal’s RCB and back-up RCB both go out with season-enders, and Kiwior is resigned to further bench duty until the title it basically done and dusted; getting a short but sweet run of games after the forever hauting 4–1 loss to Man City.
This season it has been mostly similar, accompanying Ramsdale on the bench for 90% of the season, with sporadic home appearances at LCB before some testers at LB again when injuries hit, as they always do. This was until the Liverpool FA Cup game in January, which marked the start of Kiwior’s run of 5 90s and 1 delightful 45 out of 7, all coming at that lovely LB spot.
So what happened, and why so late?
A lot of this has come from some teething and gelling issues — ones that are quite specific to the position he was filling. Kiwior was fairly clearly brought in nominally as Gabriel-lite, given his similarities in aggression, footedness, and general physicality, with some added bonuses of being multi-positional that at this point we can fairly assume Gabriel isn’t. Gelling Kiwior isn’t particularly a ‘must-have’ in the same was as Raya or Trossard, considering we have and/or had an established group of defenders, as well as some back-ups higher up the food chain like Tomiyasu. All we needed really from his role is a body that wouldn’t break, in order to not necessitate a full squad in the ~other competitions~, and a base level of defensive competence to act as valuable late-game filler as and when — gelling is something that could come with time, which it couldn’t with Trossard who came in with starting XI expectations and necessitations.
Given the problems in the aftermath of The Sporting Incident, it makes sense that Arteta didn’t want to bed in a newbie in a double-lefty environment next to Gabriel, nor fill in for one of the only consistent and regular players we had in the XI, especially when the pressure was very much on for a title win, and especially given Kiwior isn’t the most technically sound to be able to just gel instantly: and so he didn’t, until one of those issues was off the table.
This isn’t to say Kiwior isn’t technical; he just offers a more ‘piercing’ possessional presence to one that we needed. In my eyes he’s the equivalent of a LCB Partey rather than a Jorginho, meaning we need to be more ready to accept his punchy passes than him being able to generate passes and possession naturally, like Saliba can. This nice scouting report of him suggests this comes from the directness of Spezia determining his style, which makes sense, and there’s perhaps a reason a lot was made of his longer driven passes than anything else when he joined.
The solution to put Holding in kinda made sense given there’s relationships on the RHS you couldn’t break, and he’s the safest pair of hands to not cause a big restructure in the same way Kiwior perhaps would’ve — but, to do so without even slightly changing the tactics is mental and a huge part of why we got cooked for about a month straight. This is the core of the Arteta rotation argument, especially as Kiwior then eventually came in at RCB, and demonstrated that aggression and speed he showed regularly at Spezia —stamped with a notably great performance at Newcastle, before grabbing a goal against Wolves in the Granit Xhaka testimonial. This, at the time, was Arteta at his worst — tied to his principles and ensuring his players felt the pull of that tether at all times, manifested by asking Rob Holding to cosplay as William Saliba.
Kiwior’s run at the back-end of the season was refreshing, but not without it’s caveats. With what I’ve said in mind, in terms of core structures and passing style, I think it comes as no surprise that Kiwior’s bedding in comes when Jorginho is given a central midfield role rather than Partey — to help act as a lubricant for the technical deficiencies of our back two and bring some possessional balance that could easily have been lost. It’s also valuable to note here that Kiwior’s only three games with Partey to date have been as opposing “full-backs”, vs Nottingham Forest A, Wolves H, and Fulham H. Him, Gabriel, and Partey are not particularly guys you want to have all in the same area, in my mind at least.
First issue of integrating Jakub: Partey was very important, Gabriel was very important, and winning was very important, so fitting him in was kicked down the Holloway Road, for when hopefully one of the three was less so.
This season then, the issue has been a bit more interesting, as Arsenal and Arteta have been making strides to improve the general rotational quality of the side — making sure in crunch time we’re not looking to the three guys who put Gary O’Driscoll’s kids through private school.
This included Kiwior getting some rare time at LB/LCB during the “is Gabriel going to Saudi Arabia” period in the 2–2 draw to Fulham. This was also part of a wider experiment of Partey inverting, alongside the other experiment of Havertz L8, alongside the other experiment of Shøøtegaard, alongside the other experiment of Rice lone 6 — do we see where perhaps there’s an issue here?
This is a team that has been experimenting a lot since the dawn of the season, and perhaps did so too aggressively, leading to some struggle watches with Arsenal becoming increasingly reliant on set-plays and penalties to break and re-break deadlocks. Within this, the unfortunate casualty became Jakub Kiwior, as the men he would be replacing offered the greatest hope in avoiding these issues: Gabriel and Alex Zinchenko.
Zinchenko is for obvious reasons, as without Partey and with recently-Moyes’d Declan Rice, Arsenal needed a second-line progression helper, and had no-one (at the time) we were confident on inverting with, and didn’t fancy a full change-up without it being forced upon us.
For Gabriel, it’s this set-piece threat. It’s something I’ve noted before, wherein Gabriel’s immense quality in both boxes in set-plays, in ensuring an edge whilst the team was collectively losing other ones, made him completely undroppable, and frankly still does. Although he only scored his first set-piece goal of the season in December, when open-play problems had mostly been figured out, the presence of our serial aerial threat allowed the team to dominate sides — with the best marker typically being reserved for him or Kai. This combined with his growth on the ball means that the potential gains for taking Gabriel out are getting increasingly diminished by the losses.
One of my biggest issues in scouting Kiwior a while back was his headers are a bit weird — he’ll lean back and never really head with conviction, meaning aerially he’s hardly a reliable source of Jover-based delight. He managed 0 goals in Serie A in 2 seasons, with his last goal full-stop coming in the “Slovak Super Liga” in 2021 — even his Wolves goal is on the floor.
Replacing your core leader in the penalty area with a man who’s shown few signs of repeating that is a silly move, and hence Kiwior’s chance as a rotation was limited to games we either 1) didn’t care about or 2) felt hyper confident about. See his fixture usage below:
We’re caught up to this run now — so what’s changed?
Part 2: Kiw the boy a chance
Well, a couple things changed.
Firstly, and unsurprisingly, Zinchenko got injured again, opening up a nice LB slot as Tomiyasu jetted off to the Asia Cup in the new year. Whilst I want to give Arteta credit, and I will, he does do his best adaptive work when his hand is forced into the gambit.
Secondly then, Arteta gave the boy some help.
I’ll try not to understate how important this bit is, as before Arteta had been fairly insistent on Kiwior adopting the inverted role, as he had with KT before him. But with the LFC cup game and the subsequent systems, Arteta seemed to be affording his player some wiggle room, and building dynamics that worked from his skillset.
What do I mean by this?
1. Keeping wider
After starting as this inverted ‘thing’ in fairly poor starting berths vs Fulham and Luton A, Kiwior has since operated primarily as a wider LB, with a focus on defensive stability and with a fluid movement of Kai, Martinelli, and Trossard to aim for ahead of him when he has the ball, using his aggressive driven passing to move us up on this side.
Versus Liverpool he was especially brought in as a lockdown artist versus their RHS, fitting with our ‘sit in a midblock and piss them off’ strategy, but against West Ham and Burnley this evolved somewhat into wide progression specialist.
His wide defending isn’t perfect — he’s no Gabriel in this regard and struggled vs Porto and Conceicao at times — but if we can work to fit his ‘spaces’ where he isn’t working alone and in acres, his timing of tackles are excellent.
2. Bye-bye to build-up
Another core help has been keeping Kiwior out of the primary first-phase build-up, allowing the ever-improving Gabriel alongside Rice, Saliba, White (now inverting!), and Fløategaard to do all the heavy lifting.
Following from point 1, Kiwior has been generally absolved of build-up which he has somewhat struggled with — here the technical security of the other players in the centre meaning we can accommodate someone more intent on forward-thinking work.
I’ve included a collection of passing maps from his early games and his more recent — this should illustrate these first few points quite nicely.
3. Raumdeutering
A lot of the stuff that I’ve enjoyed in this rejuvinated role comes at the top end of the pitch, where Kiwior has been allowed to roam a lot more as a final 3rd presence.
Whilst the RHS dynamics and being rejigged, Arteta is letting Kiwior off the leash somewhat on the LHS to make up for White’s less consistent overlapping, and this really suits him. We spot it first vs LFC, popping up in deep “Polar Bear x Arkansas” territory to nearly clinch a 3rd, but this continues versus West Ham, with Kiwior crashing the box hard throughout the second half — helping to unlock Martinelli into a more ‘floaty’ role, and also offer a deeper threat. He also pops up in the far side of the box for Kai’s goal vs Burnley, sniffing around for scraps.
This is also neat as it doesn’t damage Gabriel’s value as an excellent channel defender either, and Kiwior’s general speed on recovery means this isn’t destroying our structure for too long (you don’t get the club sprint record over Bellerín for nothing).
4. SET-PIECES BABYYYYY
Ah, we have arrived.
A vital part of Kiwior’s value growth within this team set-up is his integration into the defining trait of Arsenal’s season — the set-pieces.
Part of this is more in appearance than in any tangible impact (until Newcastle that is), where Kiwior is another 6ft+ red-and-white-robed body in a box with ~5+ of the bastards, ensuring a favourable marking situation somewhere. This combined with his Kai-esque quality of having crazy stride length and speed means that he can operate from deeper and wider, using this to get good beats of his markers.
You see this for his goal: he starts deep, man-marked tightly as Newcastle do, and manages to sprint off him *and* around the zonal front-post markers to get the flick-on. It might not seem much, but that is a valuable and impressive skill I’ve only really see Kai and maybe Saliba once do to a top level (for us, I might add — Spurs were always excellent at this under Gianni Vio’s tutelage).
Even if’s not in pursuit of a goal, he is an excellent blocker and marker dragger — you see vs Porto his commitments to the front-post continually create space for teammates, and later it’s this pattern reinforcement that allows him to be favourably positioned for some deeper corner attempts (sadly unsuccessful).
The unselfishness of Kiwior within the routines widely is something I just like. It sounds silly to praise a player for following instructions and not adlibbing a corner routine, and it slightly is, but this acceptance to be part of a cohesive unit is what will make you an asset for Jover et al. Having another aerial threat in the box also allows us to place really good shooters on the edge, e.g. Trossard/Martinelli, as well as not having a significant loss in size when Rice is taking, which is a nice niche adjustment that has likely helped the new taker set-up.
Defensively we’re still slightly working out what his best role is, which is fine and makes sense as we test him and the relationships he builds here, but visually he adds a lot versus Zinchenko, who for all his pluses regularly loses his man at corners (see WHU H, SFC H). Even if he takes Zinchenko’s role directly, it improves the physical quality of our man-markers massively, and leaves us far less prone to straight-line moves and blocker strategies, which are the two ways we’ve been dunked on in corners so far.
Beyond corners, I need to make a big fuss of his throw-ins. He picked up an assist vs Burnley with an absolute launch, and I’ve talked briefly about it before, but I’m coming round on how much of an asset this is. In the perpetual absence of Partey, Arsenal seriously lack a long thrower, with Zinchenko preferring shorter interchanges, and White going flatter or his longer variants being intricate moves involving Ødegaard, Saka, and my heart. Kiwior helps this problem a lot, as he can just throw it. We’ve seen it briefly before, but he uses it to launch a fantastic counter vs Liverpool as well as the Kai goal vs Burnley.
The long throw is really helpful for us in a few ways. Obviously, it prevents us with a nice plan C/nuclear code option of ‘get it in the mixer’ from all angles, which we’ve only really tried once with Kiwior for minimal results, and a few times with Partey for much the same. It also stops us getting aggressively penned in for a press-bait, like LFC were really looking for. See in the image above, Ødegaard can drop about 5–10 yards out of the press-bait prison as Kiwior isn’t beholden to the same distance limitations we have elsewhere. This space outside is way more open as a result, and springs our quicker attack. This may not be a regular problem, but given throw-ins are generally quite shit for an offensive team, having a deeper threat is a nice tactical ploy — even better it comes from a player who should be on the sidelines anyway.
I’d also argue there’s a core value in the abilty to dictate speed a lot better with Kiwior’s throwing quality. Again, with previous takers, and even with Partey’s longer throws, speed choice is slightly more limited. White’s control of it is primarily in the timing of taking relative to runs rather than speed of the ball, Zinchenko’s in his tight control, Partey limited by his power, but Kiwior can “hurl this shit”, meaning it’s far easier to spring quick moments regardless of the time before it. It’s a very niche point but it’s in much the same way that Raya’s handling and throwing present us with a new core way to alter the pace of a game. Once again under Arteta, the match is on our terms.
All of these adjustments are made in accordance with Kiwior’s skillset, rather than in battle with it, and it makes such a vast difference in how he plays but also how it feels to watch him play. He’s been able to shed the image of ‘that weird back-up’, and it now feels like we’re watching his game instead of a pale imitation of Zinchenko’s or Tomiyasu’s. Whether this would’ve happened without Arteta’s hand being forced — with the removal of his Zinchenko HT sub safety blanket he employed vs Luton and Fulham — who knows. But what I do know is that we’re all the better for allowing ourselves to be more fluidly defined by our players, and moving out of the stale and nostalgic rigidity that defined August to October.
Conclusion
Kiwior has, for the most part, always had these qualities, it was more an issue of how to fit these within a fairly technically unforgiving system. It was never a failure of scouting that our third most popular January 2023 signing could never get meaningful game-time, it was more a by-product of success, and in turn a by-product of previous scouting successes manifesting beyond our expectations. The fact we’ve managed to move beyond this, into an evolving system with caveats allowed for players, is a sure-fire sign of a manager who has spotted and learned from his mistakes, and ensuring he doesn’t repeat them.
So here, raise a glass for Jakub Kiwior! A glass, to the Pole from Italy, who showed us that the man who demands the “fogging estandards” might have allowed his players a few new routes to reach them.