Arsenal Tactics Talk

[YeahBee]

Change can be good.
Ultimately we need a formation that best suits the players we have at our disposal. Conte found the best possible formation for Chelsea, we've yet to find ours. 4-2-3-1 does suit us very well but we have to examine reasons as to why it's not been working.
I think we should go back to our roots of playing narrow since playing wide hasn't worked for us, it's leading to too many turnovers in possession.

The football manager gamer in me has an idea of a 5-2-3 formation with inverted style wing backs playing as narrow as possible, Alexis as the main attacking outlet in the #10 role (FM calls it a 'shadow striker') behind two supporting strikers, but I'm not sure how practical it would be in real life.

The FM gamer in me would like to try

a 4-3-3/5-2-4

but with Özil playing as striker ala Götze or Spain with several players

you can call Coq a CB or CDM doesn't matter he should sweep behind Ramsey/Xhaka or Ox who got license to go forward, Xhakas shooting is needed

 

[karl]

Totally, while we are guilty of passing sideways too often, equally a player can often look up to find that there's no real option forward as no-one's making a run or coming near to run onto a pass forward, so we end up sending it back to the defence...

This is why I prefer Elneny in midfield. He has the ability to constantly make space and be available.

The last game against Leicester was painful to watch without players like Ox who make positive moves. The sideways and backwards passing was back to its worst.

 

[RoadrunnerReloaded]

This 343 might be more solidly defensively but its awful for our attackers. None of our attackers are well suited to this formation. Özil is not at his best needing to provide width and workrate, Giroud is not at his best without the runners and blunting attacks and Alexis has no decent passing options and he loses the ball often.

I understand the trade off for more solid defense which we have struggled to maintain in a 4 at the back system but this does not seem a good system to move forward. Sp**s have had better chances than us and we don't look very good going forward.

 

[Garrincha]

Feel we need three central midfielders until we can upgrade the position this summer. They look even more exposed in the new formation & that is saying something.

 

[dka1]

Meh I dunno if the formation even makes that much of a difference. No matter the formation we play we still make too many stupid errors, and we have been struggling in terms of our attack coordination for a long time.

We weren't too bad organisationally today, and I thought we kept pretty compact, but for the first goal, alli wanted that ball more than our players, and the penalty was a poor challenge (albeit that smug faced fking c*nt made a meal of it).

We need alot of work on better defensive organisation, and we still break apart too easily when the opposition penetrates our box.

And we need to work on offensive plays. Im all for players expressing themselves when they can think for themselves, but the players need some direction, because too often we look a bit clueless trying to break down teams, and even when we were breaking on Sp**s before they scored, we make too many poor decisions.

Lastly how can we set up to counter, and then play geeroo upfront? Giroud is not a counter attacking player, and killed some of the limited counters we had. Fkin unbelievable.

 

[mm76]

Lastly how can we set up to counter, and then play geeroo upfront? Giroud is not a counter attacking player, and killed some of the limited counters we had. Fkin unbelievable.

can't tell you how simultaneously angry and embarrassed i was to see him wandering around yesterday, pausing only to miss a chance now and then

Wenger brings shame on our club starting with a f**kwit like that in any side yet alone the NLD

 

[Mrs Bergkamp]

We need versatile players. ATM most of our versatility and pace is concentrated in the defence. Santi is the only decently rounded MF. Every other player has glaring deficiencies and no WC attribute. I'd ditch them all. They're not that good and no other manager will build round or rely on them. No system can accommodate them all as they are all to limited in different ways to function as a unit. We have more competent youth players.

 

[mm76]

tbf atm we need AMN in CM imo - ok?

 

[Mrs Bergkamp]

tbf atm we need AMN in CM imo - ok?

Agree. I like him. Let's throw him in and see how he does. There's not many games left to do him lasting damage surely.

 

[4R5Emaniac]

The current formation frees up our players with a lack of pace/mobility with the bodies behind. Always an extra man. I like it and I think it could be permanent for the future with the playing personnel we have currently. We need to add a few but it suits a few of our players and some of them become useful all of a sudden.

 

[Mark Tobias]

The current formation frees up our players with a lack of pace/mobility with the bodies behind. Always an extra man. I like it and I think it could be permanent for the future with the playing personnel we have currently. We need to add a few but it suits a few of our players and some of them become useful all of a sudden.

Still can't figure out why we had to wait till the last 5 games of the season to get it though. 90% of this forum and Arsenal fans around could see our formation needed a change.

 

[Kobi]

Didn't see the game but I saw the highlights on MOTD and Keown had us playing more of 352 with Özil behind Sanchez and Welbeck rather than the 343 (with Özil right and Sanchez left of Giroud) that we had been seeing.
Was this accurate?
I was questioning why we went for 343 in the first place as this makes much more sense, Özil in his best position, all of our strikers are much better with a partner and more bodies in central areas gives us a more stable defensive base.

 

[ARSNLNO1]

I also felt that the team moved to more of a 352 formation in the second half which certainly helped the play and I agree we always look and play better with that extra man in the middle of the park. It's 433 or 352 for me, that 343 sacrifices too much in midfield.

 

[4R5Emaniac]

Still can't figure out why we had to wait till the last 5 games of the season to get it though. 90% of this forum and Arsenal fans around could see our formation needed a change.

Wenger is not really popular for drastic shape changes. He is late.In fact he is way too reactive while I'm not sure if how he goes about structuring is meticulous/methodical and in the team's best interest. I'll give an example in the reply to ARSNLNO1 below.

I also felt that the team moved to more of a 352 formation in the second half which certainly helped the play and I agree we always look and play better with that extra man in the middle of the park. It's 433 or 352 for me, that 343 sacrifices too much in midfield.

Yes we did change to a more 3-5-2 later on the game and it worked but here is something and one of the reasons why Wenger's not a top level tactical reader of the game and time is up at the highest level-

When the formation change happened I was busy with something else so wasn't on AM or watching us play and a few games had happened. When I learned about it and read about it I didn't like that the forwards were structured as a 3 rather than a 1-2 or 5-2 because to me it looked like we were going against our players natural game as well as the balance screwing their starting position. I think @Skalidis replied to my post where I asked for a summary of a game and from that I felt we should look to address that.

Now here is the thing, its clear it doesn't take a genius to notice the reason behind the malfunction. The balance striking at the final third was simple common sense. Instead of doing what pretty evidently for all to see was the thing to do Wenger made it difficult instead and stuck to it despite it being a glaring mistake. Similar to this "Xhaka is a box to box midfielder" and trying to play him like one.

Simple details but they make such a difference and where managers at the top earn their money.

Kind of hate writing serious posts.

 

[4R5Emaniac]

Another thing is, 3 at the back give our CBs the license to tackle high up the pitch negating the need for a Coquelin or a specialist tackler.

 

[Mark Tobias]

Another thing is, 3 at the back give our CBs the license to tackle high up the pitch negating the need for a Coquelin or a specialist tackler.

And we can really close up a game by bringing one on...

I don't care if we only score 38 goals next season. If we concede less than 5...

ONE NIL TO THE ARSENAL!!!

 

[Mark Tobias]

Of course I mean in every game. Can't win 38-0 and on the first day and go anywhere lol

 

[4R5Emaniac]

Of course I mean in every game. Can't win 38-0 and on the first day and go anywhere lol

You're on a roll today!

 

[krackpot]

Of course I mean in every game. Can't win 38-0 and on the first day and go anywhere lol

if i know wenger, it will be 37 0-0s and the last game will be 38-0...all will be forgiven and he will getanother contract.

 

[nick gould]

3-4-3 or 5 - 2 - 3 when defending. I am still not convinced. This is supposed to be a defensive formation and yet we gave Southampton a lot of chances.

One peculiar thing is that when we have a corner we leave Xhaka and Gibs behind. Those two are awful at making defensive decisions. A couple of times against the saints Gibs was seen going for a last ditch challenge with Xhaka nowhere to be seen. Miss one of those and we would have had a saints player running all from the centre line to our goal on his own.

Mustafi cannot be the last man in that formation. He is always too eager to get involved that causes him to vacate his post on numerous occasions. At one time he was shouting for a throw in and it went disastrously wrong.

Ramsey may have the energy but his ball control still sucks. We cannot afford to have 3 central midfielders in our team deemed to be worse than Ramsey. If they can't bench such an awful player then they is a mid table team out there for them not Arsenal.

Nacho is brilliant in this formation. Why not use two at the front like the Brazil teams of old I wonder.