Sunday, June 12th, 2011 « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade
By Phil Gregory
After a season that ended in so much disappointment, many fans are calling for changes in the system we play, as well as the personnel themselves. Leaving aside transfer stories for now, let’s have a look at the tactical issues Arsenal had last season.
As the most widely criticised area of our side, it makes sense to start with the defence. The goals conceded stats are not good viewing: we conceded significantly more goals (ten) than Chelsea and Manchester City and it was only by outscoring those sides that we managed to stay within three points of them in the table.
According to stats I pinched from a Guardian article, we conceded 53.5% of our goals from set pieces, which is a substantial number. Only three teams in the league conceded a great number of goals from set pieces, all sides who conceded vastly more goals than us anyway (Sunderland, West Brom and Aston Villa). So it’s clear we have a big problem at set pieces. How do we remedy it?
Well, the traditional pundit prescription is a big, English centreback. Whilst anyone who watched England versus Switzerland recently knows that the best England has to offer may not remedy our defensive woes , there is another flaw in that plan. When you look at the sort of defenders Arsène buys for us, they tend to be good on the ball as well as capable defensively and he does that for a reason. Whilst not all commanding English defenders play hoof-ball, the attributes of aerial dominance, pace and ability on the ball rarely go together. Factor in the English price tag, and you can see why Wenger is wary and looks abroad. Interesting then the stories of £16m for Phil Jones (though he can play in midfield, so can surely pass)…
Many may think that that approach is wrong, that if we signed a brute defender and had one ball playing defender we’d defend set pieces better for negligible loss to our play going forward. In my view that’s not true: look at how many players are in the mixer at set pieces, and the ball can only go to one of them. This mythical aerial monster of a centreback can’t mark the entire opposition, and even if you set him up marking zonally, aiming to attack the ball as it comes in, there is still a lot of places the ball can go to that he couldn’t attack it from. Near post, far post, deep etc, one defender can’t cover all those positions. Clearing out all our centre backs for Roger Johnson types isn’t an option either.
Are we too short? While I didn’t fancy calculating the average height of every team in the Premier League, the evidence seems weak. None of our centrebacks are small, whilst players such as Diaby and Song are bigger than most midfielders. Anyway, height is largely irrelevant to aerial ability. I’ll take a 5’11” centreback with a good leap over a 6’3” clogger who is glued to the floor any day, as my man will get higher in the air, despite his starting handicap.
For me then, the problem is simply one of coaching. I can’t remember the game (it might have been Stoke away) but an opposition player scored simply by chesting in a cross/corner. If my Saturday morning team conceded goals like that I’d be livid. Notions that Wenger doesn’t know how to coach defences are ridiculous – the Invincibles, anyone? – but clearly something has to be done once pre-season training starts. Perhaps we just struggled this season as it was all change in the defence (compared to last season, you can argue that all of Squillaci, Koscielny and Djourou are new arrivals in some shape or form, whilst Vermaelen was AWOL for the majority of the season). For me, it is a matter of getting busy on the training ground and rectifying basic errors. Who is tracking who, who is marking where… working on the cohesion of the defensive unit on the pitch and getting the tactics board out to look at positioning. Considering the majority of our goals come from set pieces, improving the defence from those situations even 50% would bring down the number of goals we concede overall down massively: a silver lining perhaps?
For me then, it’s not all woe. Our defending at set pieces is shockingly bad considering our targets in the Premier League, but with a never say die, 6’4” Pole in goal for a full season and greater understanding between the defenders and keeper next season, we should see a substantial improvement. If not, we really need to be calling for Keown and Adams (though surely Bould has a word from time to time?)
This article turned out to be quite a longer than I anticipated, so I’ll do it as a multi part series. Part two: playing out from the back and goalkeeper distribution.
Note: As you know we accept articles from people who want to write for Untold. For the moment Tony Attwood is enjoying a holiday and will not be able to come online. So if you have written an article and there is no hurry to see it published you can send it to the usual mail address. If you want to see it published in the next days you can send it to my mail address walterbroeckx(at)hotmail.com and then we can see that it gets published as soon as possible. Walter