Today’s date has some resonance around Arsenal squad-number changes.
In 2013, after seven years wearing number 2 for Arsenal, French midfielder Abou Diaby switched to 24 in the wake of goalkeeper Vito Mannone’s departure.
Then, five years on, Héctor Bellerín – who took 24 after Diaby left in 2015 – dropped to 2 to reflect his status as the first-choice right-back.
Since Bellerín returned to Spain, the Arsenal number 2 shirt has belonged to William Saliba, who is of course a centre-back – his partnership with Gabriel (6) giving an Argentinian or Liverpudlian feel to the Gunners’ defence.
While the numbers 2-6 are all occupied by defenders at Arsenal, only Gabriel could be considered to properly sync up with the traditional British way of numbering a defence.
Incidentally, since the introduction of squad numbers in 1993, number 6 is the only one in the 1-11 bracket to have only been worn by players who all share or shared a position: Tony Adams, Philippe Senderos and Laurent Koscielny had it before the Brazilian.
While Mikel Arteta’s side are unlikely to ever start all of the players who are numbered 1-11 at the same time, all of them are viable first-teamers and in 2023-24, for the game at Nottingham Forest – Emile Smith Rowe’s second-last start for the club, they did have a front five numbered as well as one could wish for.
Since then, Eberechi Eze has taken the 10 that Smith Rowe vacated but the other four players remain; at the back, there has been a little bit more churn.
David Raya had 22 during his first two seasons at the club but is now the number 1 in status and listing while last summer also saw the numbers 3 and 5 re-assigned.
Kieran Tierney leaving at the end of his contract had been flagged for a while but neither of the two main occupants of the left-back slot in 2024-25, Riccardo Calafiori and Myles Lewis-Skelly, were minded to switch to the newly-empty number 3 from 33 or 49 respectively.
Instead, the shirt went to Cristhian Mosquera when he joined from Valencia in late July – the centre-back eschewed the opportunity to take 5, which instead went to Piero Hincapié when he arrived from Bayer Leverkusen just before the end of the transfer window. While the Ecuadorian can play in the middle, and has done so this season, he is primarily a left-back and has featured there most often.
That was the case in Sunday’s North London derby against Tottenham Hotspur, with Saliba and Gabriel in the centre while number 12 Jurriën Timber manned the right-back slot as usual. Ben White – who took 4 (Saliba’s old number) when he signed from Brighton & Hove Albion in 2021 but has since become more of a right-back than a centre-back – was not on the bench and so, when Timber was replaced, it was Mosquera who came on for him.
It meant that Arsenal finished the game with the numbers 2, 3, 5 and 6 in defence, but not in the format one might expect.
And so the question is – is a ‘wrong’ low number better or worse than a high one? Martín Zubimendi arrived before Mosquera or Hincapié and, rather than picking 3 or 5, both of which he has worn before, went for 36 (his first senior number), which in turn necessitated third-choice goalkeeper Tommy Setford switching down one to 35.
Of course, Zubimendi isn’t even the highest-numbered regular midfielder, as Declan Rice has only ever worn 41 at club level, first for West Ham United and now Arsenal.
Our own view is that being in the wrong ‘line’ – e.g. Diaby wearing 2 in midfield – is worse than the wrong ‘side’, like Mosquera having 3 at right-back (as Bacary Sagna once did for Arsenal) but we accept that other views may vary.
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