Arsenal/Tottenham. Before we head for Liverpool here’s the tactical review. « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade
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by Arvind
Yay. I finally caught the replay of the Spurs game and thought…that it deserved a tactical look at it. Which naturally translates into an article on Untold. So I caught the game after the Saha goal and am basing all my thoughts on the game after around 8 minutes. This isn’t a minute by minute translation of things; there’s enough stuff online that does that : )… but more my own thoughts on some very interesting things I saw during the game … and would love for them to be confirmed by you guys.
1) The High Line and the importance of the BFG(Arseblogger)
For starters our best defense IMO must have Mertesacker in it. No he’s not slow and stupid as the AAA would have you believe. He’s almost always there at the right place. I’m willing to hedge a reasonable bet that it’d have ended 2-1 to someone had Per been playing on Sunday.
For starters I don’t believe Saha will even reach the through ball right at the start..Mertesacker would have almost certainly got there first. I also have my doubts about Bale bursting through that easily for the second goal. I played most of the game on mute (obviously) but listened to a bit this time. Stuart Robson was commentating and he made one valid point about Arsenal being vulnerable to the ball played in behind them. Now what does this mean? Why were we vulnerable? It can mean a few things:
— A poor offside trap being sprung
— Crappy defenders who have no aerial ability
— A non vocal goalie like Almunia
— Gung Ho centre backs
I’m reasonably sure it’s a combination of 1 and 4. And that’s where Mertesacker is important. To compensate for his relative lack of pace; the whole team will play the offside trap nearer to goal and the 2nd CB will also largely try and remain behind the halfline most times.
Here, because Vermaelen and Koscielny are both very quick; the psychology of the team is… “Hey let’s play further up; let’s play offside further up” because they both can get back quicker.
To add to that both of the CBs also love getting forward so you have a very very offensive backline if you add the full backs and the keeper as well. Now this can work…if we’re keeping the ball. If we’re not and we’re playing a speedy counter attacking team; there’s a high chance of getting ripped on the counter. This isn’t because ‘Song plays like Ronaldinho’ or ‘We should have got Gary Cahill’… its the system that’s flawed.
Our possession game needs to be super super good for this to work. And lets face it, we haven’t been great at times with our possession at times this season; so the role of Mertesacker is really important.
2) The importance of ‘versatile players’ and a tactically aware manager
For a large part of the last two years, partly due to Cesc, we switched to a 4-3-3. But we never fully exploited that due to him being injured too often. Now Arsene is usually loathe to change things and prefers stability in formations unless we’re badly messed up and we end up in a 4-2-4 or something. But this game made me see something very interesting.
He didn’t start with AOC for a reason I thought; or Gervinho. It was because he wanted to keep the ball better. That’s why Benayoun and Rosicky played. And I think it worked. The energy of both these very under rated players and the way the ball stuck to their feet was very enjoyable to watch. Took me back to when we played with Csec, Hleb and Rosicky in midfield in the year Eduardo’s leg got cracked. Movement. Possession. Drifting everywhere. But I digress..
The other very important thing is the role of Theo Walcott. For a year or two now AW has been talking about him ending up centrally one day. I think we’re seeing signs of it this year. Yes he’s still part of an advanced 4-3-3 but watch carefully the spaces he’s taking up these days. Its much more central with RVP playing off him.
Look at Theo after the 2-0 and how forward Sagna was playing. Its more central. And I’m reasonably sure that if if if RVP signs on AND Theo signs on(and I think they will) we will have a very very dangerous frontline.
Now its all about balance. If Theo goes up front; 1 good diagonal ball onto Sagna’s wing can mean a counter and a Spurs goal. So if we’re effectively playing 2 up front we almost certainly need to switch to 4 in the middle with a proper DM.
And that’s exactly what Song did alongside Arteta. Dropped back deeper along with Rosicky and Benayoun as well. And here is where you’re suddenly glad you’re playing these 2 instead of Gervinho and AOC; high work rate and better defensively. It almost becomes a very mobile 4-4-2 with roaming ‘wingers’ if you can call them that .. in Rosicky and Benayoun.
And big big credit to Alex Song for ‘sitting’ in the second half. It’s what you’ll increasingly see him do if Theo plays up top. Which I think he will. So much for tactically incompetent managers and prima donna players.
3) Plan execution – near perfect
For the first time; in a long long while I saw a second half as perfect as that. No, not in a football sense. We’ve played far more attractive football many a time before. But from an ‘efficiency’ perspective; it was near near perfect.
I couldn’t count 1 person who played badly or less effectively. I saw Rosicky running everywhere for 90 minutes; ditto Benayoun to keep possession…deep along with Gibbs.
Song and Arteta were more than a match for Scott Parker (good on him for apologizing by the way), Modric and Sandro. RVP was magical with his ball control and even the much maligned Theo who was nowhere as terrible (I’ve seen tons worse) as the match commentators would have you believe had great games.
Iron Man Bac refused to lose and the rest of the defense while quiet…did very well too. I can’t pick a MOTM really. So if there was ever a time to spout a cliche…this is it. It is the TEAM that won this; not an individual player. And that’s all it is really..if we play to 80-90% of our abilities ..every game we’ll have a very very good chance of winning a game. So efficiency wise…this was IMHO one of the best games I’ve seen.
Those 3 factors IMHO were three very interesting things I noticed; which helped us win. I thought it was worth an article on Untold. I’m due one anyway ; ). What do you guys think?
We haven’t finished yet – more thoughts on the match against Tottenham
17 years without a trophy: how Arsenal finally got some silverware