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Counter-attacking Arsenal
In recent seasons, Arsenal was a team that played football that was pleasing on the eye. However, at times they were criticized for trying to score the perfect goal as they would take too much out of the ball which meant they lacked penetration. They would look to wear teams down and push & probe in their attacks . However, recently they have become a team more willing to embrace the counter-attack. They have moved away from playing football in a congested midfield with slow sideways passing and are now attacking with real pace & purpose. A number of Arsenal's goals this season have come from moving swiftly up the pitch after winning back possession. Below are a few examples of Arsenal breaking swiftly when the opportunity arises. Its a tactic which is serving Arsenal well so far as they have the players that can run with the ball, pick a pass and have the touch and awareness to play in their colleagues.
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[/center]Arsenal's almost perfect goal against Norwich is shown below. Firstly, they get numbers behind the ball with Giroud and Ozil coming back and force Norwich into making a stray pass by overloading their own defensive third to squeeze the space. They then break up the pitch by continuously passing the ball forward, the only square pass was when Carzola squared to Wilshire outside the box just before he engaged in the double one-two with Giroud. In the space of 18 seconds, Arsenal managed to choke the space for Norwich and then get 7 players up the pitch to give options to the man on the ball including having both full backs out wide to provide width.
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[/center]Other goals that Arsenal have scored by dispossessing the opposition and immediately playing forward passes with runners supporting the man in possession;
- Fulham. Ball won back in the left back area and clipped up to Giroud who takes it down and lays it off for Walcott who passes to Carzola who then pulls it back for Podolski to smash in.
- Palace. Under pressure, Arsenal clear the ball to Giroud who is just inside Palace's half. With Palace pushing for an equaliser his 1st instinct is not to control the ball to relieve pressure but to pass it down the line for Ramsey who is running off him. Ramsey clips the ball into Giroud to head home to make it 2-0.
- West Brom. Mulumbu gets dispossessed about 25 yards from Arsenal's goal. From there, the Gunners pass the ball forward always trying to get behind WBA before they re-group. With men getting behind the ball, Wilshire equalises with a deflected shot. This is not the greatest example but it still rewarded the team with a piece of luck.
- Norwich. Both Wilshire and Ozil's goals came from direct running and passing up the pitch.
Out of Arsenal's 20 league goals, I would class 9 of them as goals scored by moving the ball with continuous vertical passes up the pitch from defence and scoring a goal inside 15-20secs, though with most of them as quickly as 7 to 13 secs. This style is reminiscent of Wenger's best teams of countering in waves with Patrick Viera saying that he would always break forward when Bergkamp was given the ball on the counter-attack because he would always pick the right pass with Bergkamp recently saying of Ozil that "Behind every pass there must be a thought.....you see that with his control and his movement and that’s what I like".
Full backs
With the injuries to Walcott, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Podolski, Arsenal have been filling the 5 midfield slots with players that are more comfortable playing in the central areas rather than out wide. As such, with the likes of Ozil, Carzola, Ramsey, Wilshire and Rosicky getting games behind Giroud. The graphic below shows that Arsenal play more football in central areas than most teams though 32% on the face of it is not a huge number what is more telling is that alot of their play seems skewed to the right.
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[/center]With no proper outlet in wide areas, this is placing a huge burden on the shoulders of Gibbs and Sagna to get through a great deal of work during games as they are the players that have to provide the width. Recently this was acknowledged by Carzola who said "I believe that full backs have a pivotal role in our team, Jack Wilshire, Tomas Rosicky or myself are not sticking strictly to the touchline. Therefore we open up spaces so our full backs have a corridor where they can go up and down. Our ball possessions are long but they can break through by surprise. That’s why full backs are really important for our team. You can see that every game". Below are a few examples of just how high up the pitch Gibbs and Sagna are willing to go which helps to overload the opposition with numbers in the final third. However, as shown later on, its also an opportunity for the opposition. Also, its no surprise that both full-backs were rested against Chelsea in the League Cup given the work they are required to get through.
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[/center]Finding Space[/color]
I believe that the best opportunity to find some space will be behind the full backs when we win back possession and I believe it was part of our tactic when we went to The Emirates last season. Here is a look at where our longer passes were aimed and the heat map of both Sagna & Suarez. This was one game in which Suarez's roaming tendencies were curtailed and he remained on our left. Its hard to think that Rodgers did this for defensive reasons but rather he put our best player in a position where he was likely to find the most space when Sagna went forward .
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[/center]Here is an example from that game last season. The run by Suarez and the ball played by Henderson without looking would suggest that there was specific plan of attack at the break downs and that the aim was to exploit the space behind Sagna when he got forward.
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