Arsenal Tactics Talk

That's the problem though. Wenger is trying to play Wengerball with perhaps the least talented squad he's ever had in terms of CM and wide attacking areas.

Wengerball requires absolute immaculate first touch/one touch passing ability from MF and wide areas. Our current options are pub players compared to Hleb, Cesc, Nasri, Wilshere, Rosicky

 

We have Xhaka, Ramsey, El-Nenny and Coquelin. Except Xhaka, no one is making the bench of that CM team.

i think it all boils down to these half-decent foreign midgets. No first touch to speak of, and no physical presence to make up for it.

I'd even go back to the boring boring Arsenal phase, but we definitely don't have the size of defenders to try it. Monreal is a good example. he is seemingly the perfect defender, but his physical game is weak so he gets beaten one-on-one easily.

we should either bring in guys like that LB (Saad) we're linked to, and go back to being big and solid at the back.

or

bring guys like, say Isco/Hamez and start making the opposition worry more about our offense like we used to do.

 

Wengerball is one of the main problems for me. I'd rather revert to a team that pace and strength all over the pitch. A team of athletes. Its what he had the most success with. It s what he moved away from and what caused a lack of success with this club.

Lauren - Toure-Campbell- Cole

Lauren was tough and disciplined and good in the air. He rarely lost possession. Did we rely on him going forward? Hell no. Was Sagna a better player? I'd say so. Could we find another? Easily.

Toure was good on the ball but more importantly he was quick. I remember him hunting down Obafemi Martins 3 times to prevent 3 goals vs Inter at home. Now we have defenders who are caught out of position and are slow. If you want to be an offensive team that allows teams opportunities in behind then recovery pace is key.

Campbell was an absolute brute defensively. Physically strong, quick, good positioning. Terrible distribution, but that didn't matter. Now it seems the focus is on having a centre back who can pass through the lines instead of actually being able to defend.

Cole had pace, strength and was very good going forward. Yet we play with a left back who is good on the ball, weak and slow.

Wenger literally had pace and power everywhere. He then reverted to diminutive playmakers everywhere and now we are going for non dynamic players who are technically satisfactory on the ball with no stand out quality.

It's much easier to put together a team of athletes and rely on there physical prowess to get you out of defensive trouble, than it is to put together a technical team that struggle to defend. You need power and strength to win the Premier League. That has never changed. Yet in Wenger's mind it has.

 

The thing is that during our heyday the attacking players had far superior technique as compared to the current bunch save for Alexis and Özil. Henry bergkamp and pires had far better ball control and creativity which made it easy for them to do what they did on the pitch. it also helped that they were physically strong. since we are so attackingly inefficient we resort to throwing too many men forward leaving holes at the back. of course if we were very efficient attacking wise - thereby requiring less players - we will have more players in cover defensively.

 

It was nice to see Wenger try something different however I am baffled that he didn't try it sooner. We started this season with 5 central defenders and yet central defence is proving to be a weak point. So why not try 3 central defenders?

Having said that, the formation did not work very well. I feel Giroud in a front 3 kind of defeats the object. It works better with mobile players with the skill sets that allow them to dovetail and confuse the opposition. I would have used two mobile forwards with Özil slightly behind them. Take defensive duties off the front 3.

Chamberlain seems created for such a formation. It allows him to receive the ball out wide and then take on his man using pace and trickery and then deliver the ball.

Two all rounders should be used in central mid. We don't have those at the moment.

 

This sums up how dreadful our passing game has become....... how could you expect the pass the ball out without being intercepted?

 

No one comes to collect the ball in the middle. Its like they dont want it. I'm not going to be fooled by this sudden change in tactics. Why didnt he try this sooner? It reminds me of when he FINALLY switched to 4-3-3 after everyone else saw that formation was what was needed at the time. Since then he has rarely ever diverted even when needed.

 

The tactical shift shows that we are scrambling now. As much as it gives us something else to hope for, does that picture posted above tell quite a sorry tale.

Its all about occupying the zones around the ball to create solid passing lanes. I dont understand why Wenger doesnt does this at the very least. Maybe there is a layer of tactically planning I do not understand.

 

This has been a common feature of our build up play, I had initially hoped that Xhaka's natural inclination to gravitate towards the ball would have gone some way to addressing this, but it clearly hasn't.

This makes me think that Wenger instructs the players to build up in this way. From what I've seen the CBs are tasked with making long penetrating passes to the 3rd line who should theoretically be in space because opposition midfielders are occupied by our own midfielders.

The problem with this is that you're giving the task, of making highly ambitious passes, to our defenders, who aren't the best men for that job. Furthermore, if the opposition organize a competent press, chances are one of the passes from the CBs is going to be cut off, leaving them in a very, very difficult situation.

The opening fixture against Liverpool captured the dysfunctional nature of our buildup play. They played a tight 433, with as many as 6 players tight concentrated through the center, making it near impossible for us penetrate them, especially with the duo we had at CB on the day. Think they threatened on numerous occasions after intercepting ambitious passes from our CBs.

People hammer Mustafi for making those sorts of passes, but the thing is, he is forced into doing so as to push play up the field.

Lastly, the sad thing about that photo is that Middlesborough aren't even outnumbering us, we have Xhaka, Ramsey and the 3 CBs in central areas, whilst Borough only have 4.

Shows our lost Wenger is.

 

LOL it's a still picture.

If you played football at any decent level you'd know that often you leave that space free for a player to check in to and receive the ball. Standing in that space draws a player and that is what prevents playing out from the back.

If you think it's an issue that is fine, but prove your point through a video, not a still picture. It would be like me posting a photo of THeo Walcott 5 yards behind a fullback and using it to justify that he had lost speed.

 

I know he actually played OK last night but your picture perfectly highlights what I have been screaming all season, Özil is a luxury that does not fit right now, we need that extra CM, so there is someone in that space to pass to. Or... you drop Giroud for another CM and Özil plays where Özil wants to play as he always does.

 

So what you're saying is that a player is supposed to float into that space, surrounded by opposition players, and just pick the ball up?

Bullshit.

There are rarely ever any connections in that stage of our buildup.

What ends up happening is that the back 4 pass it back and forth to one another, until a fullback, backed up against the touchline, with 180 degrees of space, receives the ball. Do you think this is an ideal position from which to progress the play up the field? Basically backed up against a corner. IMO, it's not, because the fullback can easily be harried out of play, or is just forced to pass it back into the center, meaning the whole mind numbing process starts again.

Literally, top teams press so as to push the opposition to the non-threatening wide areas, that goes to show how poor of a position it is to build play from.

 

Not an awful pass map by any stretch, but as people have mentioned, the gap between the defence and the midfield is too big, the midfielders aren't making themselves available enough to receive from deep.

Xhaka played too far up the pitch, ideally you want his average position to be 5-10 yards deeper than it was.

Middlesbrough didn't really press, but any team that presses us high will take advantage of this. Too much reliance on the CB's in the build up and not enough options for an easy pass, meaning they have to play line splitting balls to the forwards.

That against a high press = bad news bears.

Work needed.

 

This is by Wenger's design:

 

Clearly he's not fooling anyone - except Kronke...

 

Need a magnifying glass for that Giroud dot

 

Huh, must have missed him saying that.

Interesting.

 

Yep, remember this being said a while back, this is from Arsenal Column's article about Coquelin.

This only works if you can make the team more compact but Arsenal's structure is too loose and too poor at marking the space that is then left within the structure. The movement needs to be sharper, and within shorter spaces/distances in order to work properly. Napoli are a great example of this, and often times the shape (and therefore the passing movement) goes backwards to sucker teams forward and then within a few more passes they are back in your final third - only you now have players taken out the game. Napoli are a fascinating team to watch.

EDIT: somewhat off topic but I seem to be the only one who is not crazy about us going to a back 3. Not saying I don't like it but I guess I don't really want us to go to a formation simply because Chelsea (or whoever else) is doing it and it's the in thing. We should only do it because it works for us. If it works then great.

 

The problem everyone is having is that nobody checks in for the ball. Not as often as we would like.

 

lol

bring back the football knowledge

so happy with our new approach and madly in love with ramsey xhaka partnership with 3 at the back.