Arsenal Tactics Talk

[Tir Na Nog]

While a lot of people can focus on individual errors today what I couldn't wrap my mind around was Özil and Xhaka in the first half.

They kept swapping positions so Özil was playing deep while Xhaka would then ponder up the pitch in a half-run. It seemed a very odd tactic to try to break Palace down leaving both Özil and Xhaka in tasks that were not suited to their skill sets.

The other thing was it really seemed like Sanchez-Özil-Xhaka were playing with each other much of the first half and ignoring Welbeck and Walcott completely with Monreal and Bellerin occasional contributors.

It does seem like the divide on the training ground might be affecting the play on the pitch. Either that or I don't know. the tactics this match are hard to understand for me

This tends to happen quite a bit depending on the circumstances of the game, used to happen all the time with Özil and Alexis only really looking for each other and Cazorla. It's clear some of the players just don't trust some of the others in possession.

As for Özil dropping deep, I believe it was because he was being tightly marked by the Palace player (can't think of his name, it's a hard to spell one) who scored the penalty and he just couldn't get on the ball in the number 10 role and went looking for it deeper. Once that player man-marked Özil it seemed like our entire game plan just went out the window and we were almost improvising in terms of how to try and break them down with people just doing whatever they wanted without much thought to the overall structure of the team.

 

[MutableEarth]

Our tactics in buildup always result in us playing safe and spreading play from wing to wing. F*cking does my head in, it leads to nothing 99% of the time. It's bloody boring as well.

A consequence of us having no plan.

 

[RoadrunnerReloaded]

This tends to happen quite a bit depending on the circumstances of the game, used to happen all the time with Özil and Alexis only really looking for each other and Cazorla. It's clear some of the players just don't trust some of the others in possession.

As for Özil dropping deep, I believe it was because he was being tightly marked by the Palace player (can't think of his name, it's a hard to spell one) who scored the penalty and he just couldn't get on the ball in the number 10 role and went looking for it deeper. Once that player man-marked Özil it seemed like our entire game plan just went out the window and we were almost improvising in terms of how to try and break them down with people just doing whatever they wanted without much thought to the overall structure of the team.

That's definitely true about Santi, Mesut and Alexis. I think its less noticeable with those three though as veteran Santi works in the flow of the game much better than the more raw Granit. It just felt like too much of that possession was kept within the predictable triangle instead of creating more options throughout all our players to stretch play more.

What you say for Özil makes sense but personally I'd think him swapping with Alexis or even Welbeck to be more effective with both Monreal and Bellerin getting more involved to bypass the high press. Bellerin is just a mystery. Sometimes good on the ball and other times just makes baffling decisions.

 

[Aevi]

A consequence of us having no plan.

Those are my thoughts, but I don't want to actually say it in case I just don't understand what plan we might have. A lot definitely points to a lack of actual tactics though, so much of what we do looks on the fly, even our goals. We rely so much on quality players like Özil to create chances because it seems that's kind of all we have to build something.

 

[karl]

Arsenal has never really been interested in defence, but now there is no creativity or penetration in this either. I think tactics are redundant now and it has simply gone stale.

It is a side without any real character and it shows that we can only play when everything goes well.

 

[hydrofluoric acid]

A consequence of us having no plan.

Think we had a plan today. Get Sanchez the ball and try to get Monreal behind their full back.

 

[Yousif Arsenal]

Our away game tactics been unbelievably bad at 2nd half of the season. Start the game slow sloppy defensively clueless offensively conceding the easiest goal you will ever see. The biggest problem is we didn't learn nothing instead we somehow make more mistakes

 

[4R5Emaniac]

While a lot of people can focus on individual errors today what I couldn't wrap my mind around was Özil and Xhaka in the first half.

They kept swapping positions so Özil was playing deep while Xhaka would then ponder up the pitch in a half-run. It seemed a very odd tactic to try to break Palace down leaving both Özil and Xhaka in tasks that were not suited to their skill sets.

Our tactics in buildup always result in us playing safe and spreading play from wing to wing. F*cking does my head in, it leads to nothing 99% of the time. It's bloody boring as well.

Agree with this, top posts.

While I like Özil dropping deep as a third central midfielder, dropping to the deepest central position makes no sense whatsoever. On the other hand, I have said this continuously, Xhaka has no business in advancing from behind the ball at anytime at all. There is no need for him at all to swap positions and find himself ahead of the ball. He should at all times be facing the goal.

Also, Welbeck and Alexis starting position is something a lot of us don't get evidently. Alexis as a false 9 has been such a big success for a large portion of the season and we played much better with him there. Its a poor decision to change and be stubborn egotistic to not change it back.

@Aevius We play far too ahead/forward of the game. I mean we advance forward way too much and specially both the fullbacks at the same time. It squeezes the rest of the team too close and crowds the central area which forces us to pass in short distances within a few of the free players. We should be playing positional imo. Players' positions stationed in the zones where they are most effective at. And our collective movement and structuring needs a lot of work.

Nothing is going to change however without a new manager though.

 

[North5]

Oxymoronic thread title.

 

[mm76]

seriously, why do we even have this thread?

 

[RoadrunnerReloaded]

Also, Welbeck and Alexis starting position is something a lot of us don't get evidently. Alexis as a false 9 has been such a big success for a large portion of the season and we played much better with him there. Its a poor decision to change and be stubborn egotistic to not change it back.

When I saw the lineup I thought the idea was to have Alexis and Danny swapping positions frequently to unbalance the defense but that didn't seem to happen. Sanchez stayed on the left mostly and Welbeck almost center-right without much interaction so I was left with no real idea what the point was.

 

[chessygoal]

We lack players willing to risk dribbling in 1v1 situations.
We lack movements off the ball
We lack players brave enough to go off position sometimes
We lack composure in both final thirds
We lack incisive passing in build-up

In short, I think Wenger is right, we lack confidence, it's probably a mental thing, but we have been lacking in that area all season. Wenger should be brave enough to shake things up at this point, throw some youngsters, play a more attacking midfield, but at least he should try something and not wait for that confidence to come back by its own, that's what annoys me with Wenger. His only bold move this year was a moronic one: benching Alexis.

 

[OSBK]

Özil in cm is horrible. Against palace xhaka played some fantastic balls forward but because Özil was so deep there was no connection between midfield foward. Özil has been too left sided aswell, going to alexis and then not doing much.

I am not a fan of alexis on lw but if we play alexis lw then Özil needs to be in the box along with a cf. Not a comparison of players but alli who is confident is always making runs in the box, we have the quality to find those runs so Özil needs to make those runs.

 

[RoadrunnerReloaded]

Tactics are never as simply as we like to think. Just look at Juventus formation on paper today and then compare it to how they played:

How many people would think that formation of Juve would dominate Barca before the match?

Looks a bit off with Mandzukic as left forward and Cuadrado as right. Neither Pjanic nor Khedira is a destroyer or traditional holding midfielder. An Alves-Cuadrado flank seems odd on paper.

Yet look how that actually played out. Cuadrado actually matched up great against Alba there and that helped diminish Neymar's influence. If we took a poll before the match, not just on here but on any football forum, I bet Barca would win majority of votes for who people thought would win before the match. Yet some of the key players here like Cuadrado were ones not many fans of top PL teams rated (mostly due to unfair Chelsea stint). We really need to be more adaptive than we have been recently as Juve showed today.

 

[Gooner Zig]

Think we had a plan today. Get Sanchez the ball and try to get Monreal behind their full back.

That's pretty much our plan.

 

[Deathstroke]

Tactics are never as simply as we like to think. Just look at Juventus formation on paper today and then compare it to how they played:

Yet look how that actually played out. Cuadrado actually matched up great against Alba there and..

It was Mathieu, not Alba; though your point stands regardless.

 

[Deathstroke]

seriously, why do we even have this thread?

In the hope that Wenger sees it.

 

[Preacher]

Found this on reddit. Three goal kicks, three goals: A look at our defensive ineptitude.
What follows are three goals from three recent games, all of which see Arsenal make the same defensive mistake. That Wenger has been unable to correct such a basic flaw in our defense tells me the team is either not listening to him or he's not able to identify and remedy the mistakes.
First. Liverpool, off a goal kick, play it forward to their center forward, Firmino. Koscielny abandons the back four, loses the header. (Mustafi is off screen; our shape is so poor he cannot be seen from this camera angle):

Koscielny (red circle) trails the play as Liverpool pour forward in a 4 v 3. Firmino, who won the header (touched by Kosc's red circle) is sprinting back post where he will bang home the opener:

Video of goal:
http://arsenalist.com/f/2016-17/liverpool-vs-arsenal/liverpool-goal-1-0.html
Second. Man City, off a goal kick, play a long ball forward. Mustafi (red line) will chase the center forward into the midfield. Notice a) the gaping hole in the midfield left by Xhaka pressing high and b) our poor shape; Monreal is off the back 4:

Mustafi (red x) actually wins the header, but plays it directly to DeBruyne (blue circle), who sees the massive gap between Koscielny and Bellerin. He'll play a brilliant ball for Sane, who bangs home the opener inside of 10 minutes, yet again. Notice our back four, again, has no shape:

Video of the goal: http://arsenalist.com/f/2016-17/arsenal-vs-man-city/man-city-goal-0-1.html
Off a goal kick, Palace plays a long ball to Benteke:

Palace wins the header and races goalward for a 4 v 3. Mustafi, Bellerin, and Monreal get aligned, but Gabriel (red circle) is trailing and we are outnumbered:

Video of the goal: http://arsenalist.com/f/2016-17/crystal-palace-vs-arsenal/crysal-palace-goal.html

This is a mistake that can easily fixed with instruction. Our back line needs to be protected by a defensive midfielder whose job is to either a) win the headers off goal kicks or b) drop into the back line when a centerback crashes forward to win the header.
All three goals opened the scoring within 17 minutes of play, putting Arsenal behind 1-0. Arsenal managed 1 point from these three matches.

 

[4R5Emaniac]

When I saw the lineup I thought the idea was to have Alexis and Danny swapping positions frequently to unbalance the defense but that didn't seem to happen. Sanchez stayed on the left mostly and Welbeck almost center-right without much interaction so I was left with no real idea what the point was.

Agreed. I thought we would see Welbeck pull defenders wide and Alexis/Theo drive towards the vacated space for Özil and Xhaka to find them. Instead it was very basic and the wingers didn't attempt to make runs behind.

Some credit hast to be given to Crystal Palace that their defenders were intelligent to not leave their spots at times when Welbeck did pull away from his position leaving not much of a gap for runs. They invited us to play very high up the pitch and stuck to their starting position taking away the space in behind. Clever play.

However, had Alexis played CF with Welbeck on the left, we'd have had a much better way to penetrate. Alexis can buy time by playing his back to goal and can turn and find teammates making runs or dribble through defenders while Welbeck could provide an outlet out wide as well as protect Nacho when he bombed forward. Welbeck has the height, strength and athleticism to be a pivot for the team on the wing..

 

[SiMamu]

I'd actually just like to see a return to Wengerball at this point. The current style of play - if it's even worthy of calling a style - isn't even entertaining anymore. It just lacks purpose and intensity.