But those 2 players don't exist as separate entity, it's all part of the team. How the defensive compromise will have an impact on TAA or VVD is something we don't know.
Fabinho, Henderson, Milner/Wijinaldum midfield is as blunt as it comes when it comes to creativity but Liverpool as a team never struggled to score goals because they complimented other players so well which provided great base for their attackers and FBs. Likewise we are yet to see how playing 2 attack oriented players in the midfield will have an impact on the rest of the team.
Yes, our midfield wasn't great last season and one of the reason was lack of legs. something we have added this season. It's not great even now as we don't know how the addition of one more hard working player will work out but it's improvement on last season on paper.
Outside of Arsenal's old guard, we don't know how any of these midfields will do - United's might gel and be amazing; Liverpool's might splutter - but theoretically, and based on what's already known of these players and these teams, there's a lot more question marks over us than either of the other two. Our backline also has to learn how to invert and support Casemiro, asap! Before we kill him with all the extra load if those two ahea of him are as porous as I expect them to be.
Liverpool are a considerably better front foot team as a unit than us currently and we're working hard to become verticality monsters ourselves, but in principle, they have more players who know what to do and when to do it to ensure the oppressive states than we do, so the element of catch up to make our unit operate like an oppressive team does, is there, which is where more questions are on our shoulders than theirs in questioning theoretical effectiveness. For me, I expect theirs to work (outside of the unknown variable in Szoboszlai) whereas I'll need to see ours in action to start to believe in it.
As I said in my OP, we'll see where each midfield is at in November, which will be a fair juncture for the first assessment.
