Crystal Palace's Co-Captain is set for a long spell on the sidelines.
The rumours about James McArthur's injury likely won't be officially confirmed until the pre-match pre-conference ahead of the Burnley game, but they leave the team with a gap in their new-look midfield.
Yet, with newfound depth in the squad, all is not lost, and the manager will have options to rework his team.
McArthur's Role
As Naveed Khan described earlier in the season, James McArthur has been the player to mesh the team together. Whereas a box-to-box midfielder moves the play vertically, McArthur moves the play side-to-side. This movement links together the attacking emphasis of Gallagher with the anchor role of either Kouyaté or Milivojević.
His role-change this season was to be a feature article in its own right, but now becomes a footnote in trying to gauge who can help replace him in just a playing sense. His calm leadership will be sorely missed but leaves a space for Palace's next generation to step up in his absence.
What McArthur has been producing this season comes with the context of the role being asked to play. His defensive work stacks up very well against the rest of the players in his position in the Premier League, as shown with his player card.
His per 90-minute statistics show a player excelling at pressuring other teams (opposite Gallagher) whilst sitting in the 95th percentile for blocked passes/shots. Whilst he isn't a "ball-winning midfielder" in the formation, his combined tackles/interceptions is also at league-average.
What McArthur does best for Patrick Vieira is to facilitate the players around him, to link them together.
At the moment, the team is asymmetrical in possession. Mitchell goes forward, Ward sits. McArthur works into the spaces, Gallagher charges forwards to exploit gaps. These differences give the two central midfielders different zones to influence.
In his left-central midfield spot, McArthur can be a player that gets the ball into the feet of Palace's attacking outlets down the left, primarily Zaha and Mitchell.
Going back to his player card, he is frequently on the ball, has the freedom to drive the ball into the space created by those left-flank players, but is more compact in his passing rather than expansive.
Yet, he is still having a very successful season, especially for a player deemed to be far beyond his peak years as a central midfielder in age alone.
Unfortunately, whilst these contributions for this season will be on pause, how can Patrick Vieira and Crystal Palace look to replace James McArthur?
Plan A: Like-for-Like Replacement
Why was Will Hughes signed? Well, let's dust off the player profile we wrote back in August.
As a manager in charge of transfers/recruitment, Dougie Freedman followed a logical thought process to build a team that ultimately won a promotion. He appears to have more freedom to plan ahead with a more flexible manager in control, while using that same logic.
There is clear reasoning for signing Will Hughes in a position that may not have an immediate "need". James McArthur's age and subsequent injury highlight it.
We have a single season of Will Hughes as a central midfielder in the Premier League in 2019-20. Watford would be relegated but would display Hughes in a role similar to what he could fulfil at Crystal Palace.
If Patrick Vieira is looking for a player able to maintain the engine room, pressing, harassing, and winning back the ball higher up the pitch, Hughes ticks those boxes. His development as a defensively-sound central player contrasts the creative wunderkind at Derby but makes him a better-rounded prospect.
He won the ball back for Watford at a much higher rate than McArthur has this season, in a per 90-minute comparison. Yet it would appear his contributions on the ball are "lacking", but that is less of a concern, as Watford registered the 4th lowest number of passes attempted in the league during that season. If we were to take a Roy Hodgson central midfielder and compare them to a league-average for passing volumes, they too would look "lacking" in this department - even James McArthur.
Placing Hughes into a passing team will boost these numbers, and if he has overcome some of the back issues that have left him off the bench recently, he is one option to cover McArthur.
Plan B: Rebalance the Midfield
Conor Gallagher FPL owners - look away now.
How could you replace McArthur without changing the formation? By using Conor Gallagher.
Gallagher has the versatility to play in a more conservative role in possession, as he showed at Charlton and WBA, which will remove his touches and influence further up the pitch. But he can still have the same impact on the pressing side of the game.
His influence on matches for Palace is concentrated down the right side of the pitch and in an advantaged position, trailing only Wilfried Zaha for touches in the attacking 1/3 of the pitch.
Compare that to his heat-map from his season at WBA, which shows a more balanced role across the entire range of the midfield. Getting touches deeper in possession and playing a more defensive role in a more conservative team - compared to the 2021/22 Palace side.
Enter Jeffrey Schlupp and a newly healthy Eberechi Eze.
Palace then has two options with the freedom to get forward from a central position, getting into the areas in which Gallagher would typically operate and looking to replicate that attacking role. In the case of Jeffrey Schlupp, the football statistics website fbref.com lists him as highly similar in playstyle and stats to Gallagher. Thus, it would not be far-fetched to envision Conor Gallagher taking over James McArthur’s role, while Schlupp slots in the box-to-box midfielder position.
Score when you jump off the bench in 48seconds.⏰..
— George Addo Jnr (@addojunr) October 3, 2021
Jeff Schlupp🇬🇭⚽️✅#CPFC #CRYLEIpic.twitter.com/68agNSd7DR
Schlupp taking over the role would rekindle his long-standing partnership with Wilfried Zaha, who has lately been used by Patrick Vieira on the right wing, while Odsonne Édouard has been preferred on the left. Using Schlupp in this role would also introduce a left-footed player next to Zaha, who is primarily right-footed, which would offer a variety of choices for the duo (cutting inside, hugging the touchline, deep runs into the opposition half).
Schlupp's defensive output, whilst featuring as a wide-midfielder for Palace, matches up to being a very good defensive-winger against Premier League opposition. Sitting in the 98th percentile for tackles/interceptions per 90 minutes (over the past year), he has the physicality to be a pressing central-midfielder in this system, much like how he has been used to close out wins recently.
There is one more attacking wildcard the club now has available. Palace will likely view Eze as a "number 8" in this team instead of a winger, having seen glimpses of him playing in a 4-3-3 formation under Roy Hodgson.
Comparing Eze to a central midfield position, using his output from last season, he has a skill set that no other player in Palace's squad can display. His ability to carry the ball at a defence showed up in last season's highlight reels against the likes of Sheffield Utd and could help to break through teams when Palace are comfortably ahead in possession.
As a player who thrives on the ball, going from a team style likely to stifle his touches, this Patrick Vieira team is entirely the opposite.
As the first real test of the strength of Palace's squad, it's time to see if the team can overcome injuries. This won't be the last.