Arsenal may enter Friday night’s Premier League opener as overwhelming favourites, but Frank Lampard has spent around £130million building a Coventry City squad with a very specific plan for competing at the highest level.
Mikel Arteta’s champions have already been given an 80.4 per cent chance of victory by Opta, highlighting the scale of the task awaiting the newly promoted visitors at the Emirates Stadium.
ReadArsenal examined those numbers earlier on Thursday, including Arsenal’s remarkable 45-game unbeaten home league run against promoted opposition.
Coventry are unlikely to arrive believing they can match Arsenal player for player.
Their summer recruitment suggests Lampard has instead focused on making his side physically difficult to play against.
Coventry’s £130m rebuild creates Arsenal set-piece challenge
The Guardian reports that Coventry have spent around £130m this summer, with six of their eight additions standing at least six feet tall.
That includes club-record £26m midfielder Caleb Yirenkyi and 6ft 6in Switzerland centre-back Aurèle Amenda.
Lampard has openly explained the thinking behind it.
The Coventry manager believes physicality will be crucial to surviving the jump from the Championship and revealed that set pieces have been taken particularly seriously during the club’s recruitment process.
For Arsenal, that provides a clear warning about where Friday’s contest could become uncomfortable.
Arteta’s side should dominate possession and territory, especially at home against promoted opponents.
Coventry therefore need other routes to threaten David Raya’s goal.
Dead balls, aerial contests and second balls offer exactly that.
Arsenal defensive absences increase Coventry opportunity
The timing is also interesting given Arsenal’s defensive availability.
William Saliba and Jurrien Timber remain unavailable for the Premier League opener, forcing Arteta to reshape a defence that nevertheless kept Manchester City out in the Community Shield.
Coventry have suffered their own major blow.
Haji Wright is expected to miss around 12 weeks with a quadriceps injury, removing the striker who scored 17 Championship goals last season.
Without Wright, the value of Coventry creating danger from elsewhere could increase further.
Lampard has also made clear he does not want his players to approach the Emirates passively simply because Arsenal are champions.
That mentality, coupled with the deliberate recruitment of bigger and more powerful players, provides Arteta with a tactical problem that an 80.4 per cent win probability cannot capture.
Arsenal should have too much quality.
But Coventry’s £130m rebuild appears designed to give them a route into matches where technical superiority belongs overwhelmingly to their opponents.
Keeping Friday’s opener away from physical duels and cheap set pieces could be one of Arsenal’s most important tasks.
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