It took some quite a while to realise and to come to terms with Zinchenko’s importance-- even whilst Tierney was doing a notable ‘Zinchenko impression’ whenever Zina was hurt last season.

There are a small number of others who would argue that we should be starting Tierney, rather than that we would: some for less sensible reasons, some for more sensible ones. This wasn’t prediction but disagreement with Arteta-- which is of course reasonably possible, if difficult and likely fruitless.

The most sensible version of that argument (which I’ll admit I still didn’t find persuasive) was that while Tierney offered much less in the buildup, he offered more in defence and in the final third: specifically in the effective width he offered, which would allow the LW (especially Martinelli) to play more consistently inside, and have had the LCM (Xhaka, now Rice orHavertz) sitting more or less where Zinchenko did and still does.

Arteta clearly wants the wingers to hold width (and provide the lion’s share of our crossing) and values their movement inside more than their presence inside; he also clearly wants more diversity in our buildup, and really values what Zinchenko offers both there and in the final third, where he’d rather see the wingers and CMs attacking, and the FBs only overlapping and attacking the box occasionally. (Interestingly, while there is a general impression that White does this more, his per 90 crossing is almost identical to Zina’s.)