Arsenal star Myles Lewis-Skelly has been one of the major success stories in Mikel Arteta’s side over the last year or so.
At the start of last season, the teenager was on the periphery of Arsenal’s squad, hoping to get a first-team debut and pick up minutes here and there: now, he’s a fully-established member of Thomas Tuchel’s England squad and one of the recognised in FourFourTwo’s list of the best left-backs in the world.
But trajectories in football are rarely straightforward – and Lewis-Skelly’s appears to be on a new direction, after signing a new deal in the summer in N5.
You may like
Does Myles Lewis-Skelly have a future at Arsenal competing with Riccardo Calafiori?
Riccardo Calafiori has started more for Arsenal this season (Image credit: Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
Lewis-Skelly broke into the Gunners team as an inverted left-back following a spate of injuries at the back, usurping the likes of Oleksandr Zinchenko and Kieran Tierney in his first senior season: but with Riccardo Calafiori back in the side this season, it seems as if Arteta is going in a new direction.
The Basque began his managerial career relying on Tierney and even Bukayo Saka overlapping from full-back, before Zinchenko changed the game to add numerical superiority to the centre… and now, we’re back where we started with Calafiori and new signing Piero Hincapie in the fold, it appears Arteta wants more width from his left-back once again.
Now, MilanLive.it has reported that another Italian left-back is on Arsenal’s radar, in the form of Davide Bartesaghi, with the Gunners prepared to “challenge big clubs” to sign the teenager.
Lewis-Skelly, meanwhile, has been a revelation: he signed a new contract over the summer and the North Londoners aren’t about to let him go – and Arteta has even suggested that the England man only found minutes in defence by accident.
“The only way I could think [to give him a chance in the squad] was to change his position,” Arteta explained in January.
“I spoke to him and said I think this is where you’re going to have it, because I think it fits a lot of his qualities, the way that we play and it fits because we had necessities in the position, so we started to work on that.”
Since then, Lewis-Skelly has played exclusively at left-back – even slotting in there in the weekend’s 1-0 win over Crystal Palace, as Arteta switched to a back five to protect a lead.
You may like
Could Lewis-Skelly have a role in midfield?
Lewis-Skelly made his name in youth football as a midfielder (Image credit: David Price/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
It’s important to remember that Lewis-Skelly is still just 19 years old, and that Arteta bringing in other left-sided defenders could purely be a numbers game to ensure that the Hale End graduate doesn’t burn out in his youth.
But watching Lewis-Skelly storming through the centre of the pitch against Atletico Madrid last week, the comparisons with Mousa Dembele were clear – is Lewis-Skelly’s future really at left-back?
The teenager broke through as a no.8 in youth football, and could well be an option there in future years for Arsenal, just as Saka switched away from left-back after his breakthrough there.
Lewis-Skelly is a good fit for the left-sided central midfield position under Arteta, as a left-footer capable of carrying the ball, recycling possession and showing diligence out of possession: he spends much of his time inverting into that area anyway, and with Arteta wanting his left-back to stay a little wider now, moving Lewis-Skelly into midfield full-time makes sense to emphasise his strengths.
There’s competition there, too, mind: Declan Rice is first-choice, with Mikel Merino his deputy, though with Merino turning 30 next year, there’s scope for Lewis-Skelly to perhaps succeed him.
It’s clear that his future could well be as a world-class central midfielder: the only issue is that MLS doesn’t exactly fit the physical build of what Arteta has asked from his left-sided no.8 over the years.
Since Arteta switched to a 4-3-3, he’s used Granit Xhaka on the left of his three-man midfield: he was replaced by Rice and Merino, with all three tasked with being low-touch, physical box-crashers able to win headers and steam into scoring positions.
Lewis-Skelly is not cut from this cloth: he’s a player you want on the ball, rather like Martin Odegaard – and rather like just about everyone Arteta has played at left-back over the past two years.
So whether Lewis-Skelly becomes a midfielder doesn’t just depend on his own development but Arteta’s: will the Gunners boss evolve his ideas to potentially field Lewis-Skelly alongside Ethan Nwaneri in the centre of the park… or is MLS simply a left-back, now?