In another life, Arsenal’s next game could have been very different for Martin Zubimendi.
Had he gone through with a proposed transfer to Liverpool in the summer of 2024, the Spain international midfielder might have taken to the Emirates Stadium’s pitch tomorrow (Thursday) for the visiting side. Instead, he decided to stay at his boyhood club Real Sociedad.
A year later, he joined Arsenal for a fee around €65million (£55.8m; $76.6m).
Before Zubimendi arrived in north London, most of the talk centred on what he would offer Arsenal in possession. As a No 6, the focus was on his ability to dictate the tempo of a game and play line-breaking passes. Now, six months later, it seems another side to his game went under the radar.
The Premier League leaders’ 3-2 away win against Bournemouth on Saturday served as the most notable example of his defensive work: Zubimendi won possession 12 times during that match — the most by any Arsenal player in a game this season.
But many fans had spotted this willingness to put a foot in in pre-season, particularly in the friendly against Real Sociedad’s Basque rivals Athletic Club, when the 26-year-old made a game-high four tackles (one of which was made after he had been nutmegged).
Just over halfway through his debut season, of those who have played 90 minutes at least 10 times in all competitions for Arsenal, Zubimendi ranks sixth for the number of tackles made per 90 minutes (1.5) and second for interceptions (1.2).
When compared to central and defensive midfielders across the Premier League, he’s not the most aggressive without the ball. He ranks 28th for true tackle attempts (a metric that’s a combination of tackles won, tackles lost and fouls committed while attempting a tackle, intended to give an impression of how often a player ‘sticks a foot in’).
Instead, Zubimendi makes sure his positioning is right to counter-press and is often on hand to cut opponents’ passes out, which makes his ranking of 10th for true interceptions less surprising.
Against Bournemouth at the weekend, his defensive awareness was on show within 10 seconds of the opening kick-off, as he prevented Antoine Semenyo shooting at goal from inside the box.
As the game progressed, he made timely interceptions on the halfway line to stop attacks before they began, as well as clearing crosses that were fizzed towards the edge of the Arsenal box.
It’s something he also did expertly to help see out a 2-1 defeat of Brighton & Hove Albion last month…
Against Crystal Palace in October — another game Arsenal won by a one-goal margin — Zubimendi’s positioning meant he could again easily clear low crosses that might have cost his side all three points.
Zubimendi is a keen chess player, something which was widely reported when he joined Arsenal. At age 11, he won the Under-12s Gipuzkoa (the province he hails from) Chess Championships.
Similar to fellow Arsenal summer signing Eberechi Eze — another keen chess player — the assumption would be that the skills taken from the board game have helped Zubimendi be a step ahead in enticing and then bypassing opposition players. However, in November, Zubimendi revealed a more subconscious benefit to playing chess.
“It’s the concentration more than anything,” he told Sky Sports in November. “It’s a game in which you can’t give away pieces, you can’t give away any squares, and you have to be focused all the time. In football, it’s the same.
“In the Premier League, you get distracted for a second and they (the other team) already score, which happened to me the other day (for Tottenham forward Richarlison’s goal in the north London derby).”
Another surprising element of Zubimendi’s game has been his aerial prowess, despite standing at 5ft 11in (180cm).
The first graphic in this piece shows that he ranks eighth across all central and defensive midfielders for aerial wins in the Premier League this season, with a ratio of 63.3 per cent. When viewed through a club-only lens in all competitions, he is sixth for aerial duels won per 90 (2.2), behind Gabriel, Mikel Merino, William Saliba, Piero Hincapie and Riccardo Calafiori, but has the best win ratio of those players (64.6 per cent).
Arsenal’s 2-1 comeback win against Newcastle United in September showed Zubimendi at his best: he beat Joelinton (6ft 1in), Nick Woltemade (6ft 6in) and Dan Burn (6ft 7in) in the air that day.
And in the 3-1 Champions League defeat of Bayern Munich in November, Zubimendi sprang above Harry Kane (6ft 2in) and Konrad Laimer (also 5ft 11in) to win a header. He then chased after the loose ball, took it off Laimer and won the corner that led to Arsenal going 1-0 up courtesy of Jurrien Timber.
Some might have expected Declan Rice alone to win those headers or harass the opposition in that manner, but the partnership between these two is about more than just Zubimendi allowing the England midfielder to burst into goalscoring areas.
After their first start together in pre-season, alongside Martin Odegaard in that game against Athletic Club, manager Mikel Arteta said: “We saw another evolution today.”
That was in relation to how neither Rice nor Zubimendi were limited to operating in one area of the midfield. At times, Rice dropped deep in possession. On other occasions, it was Zubimendi. Both could switch places within the same passage of play, something which has been seen at different points throughout the season.
Out of possession, Zubimendi ranks first at Arsenal for tackles in the middle third per 90 (0.94), while Rice is sixth (0.63). Although a factor in this is that the latter covers a larger area with his defensive actions, as seen below.
It will also partly be due to Rice’s ability to cover ground quickly to pick up loose balls. Only Moises Caicedo of Chelsea and Nottingham Forest’s Elliot Anderson have made more ball recoveries per 1,000 opponent touches than him this season among Premier League central midfielders. It means Zubimendi often doesn’t have to cover as much distance and can focus on getting his positioning right.
Speaking about his on-field relationship with Zubimendi after that Bayern game, Rice said: “Usually, to build a connection with a player takes a while, but from the first moment we had with each other in pre-season, I could just tell I was going to play some good football with him.”
Following the Bournemouth win, the England international added: “He’s not the biggest or strongest player, but the way his brain works allows the team to function in such a good way.”
Arsenal’s first half in the 4-1 home win against Aston Villa a week ago — when the visitors continuously broke through the middle of the pitch — was the perfect example of what happens when their partnership is split up, in this case by Rice’s knee injury.
But that has been rare. Rice ranks third at Arsenal for minutes played (2,018) and has started 22 club matches this season, while Zubimendi is their most-used outfield player, having played 2,111 minutes and made 24 starts. Arteta has looked to ease his countryman’s load by not having him train on certain days.
Assuming he starts again tomorrow night at the Emirates, Zubimendi will be hoping to show Liverpool what might have been.