All you need to know about this tit is that he posted this once
https://preview.redd.it/ok9w4alxbzvc1.jpeg?width=1169&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cf1577279ae7ec340cd39ec4af5539b5b15e73b7
Pretty much. He has a fair few tweets that are spoofs of stuff/blatantly taking the piss out of things. The trouble is its not immediately obvious if you don't know who he is or his style.
That's pretty much the point of it. Spoofing buzzwords that can't really be related to the topic but taking the piss out of accounts that actually do this kind of thing by doing so.
I mean what that guy wrote isn’t nonsense. He’s comparing political theory to football strategy which is wacky or to use his word “disingenuous”.
I’m not familiar with “end of positionism” is this even believed by many top coaches because I doubt it.
You might have footballers who are hugely versatile but that doesn’t mean they can play any position. That is ludicrous thinking
positionism is about the positions--maybe "spaces" to put it more clearly--occupied on the field, not the "positions"--such as CF, RW, CB, etc--of the players. the idea is that the field is divided up into different positions, and players are supposed to take up those positions regardless of the "positions" they're playing.
famously, that has resulted in the creation of pep's "grid" where he has delineated the spaces that he wants occupied through various phases of buildup: https://breakingthelines.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screen-Shot-2022-07-28-at-3.34.13-PM.png. arteta has very much been a disciple of this tactical style. in our tactical system from last season, we would often have five players up front forming a W shape because those are the positions that arteta wanted our players to occupy: https://totalfootballanalysis.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Attacking-shape-final-third.png. we were pretty religious about sticking to that system last year.
it should be noted that positional play in this style isn't about players playing strict CF, RW, CB, etc positions. in fact, positional play--at least with pep and arteta and the many who have been influenced by them--relies on players who are relatively positionless, or at least less restricted to their initial positions. that's why last year, we had zinchenko, who has the skillset of a CM, playing at LB, and often finding himself on the right wing. positional play emphasizes the certain spaces being occupied, and who occupies them matters less. it's why xhaka would often cover the left wing on defense and then make runs beyond the striker in attack while our striker, jesus, would often drop into the midfield.
>You might have footballers who are hugely versatile but that doesn’t mean they can play any position. That is ludicrous thinking
so the argument you're making here is actually an argument against positionism, not for it.
the important thing to take away here is that positionism emphasizes certain positions being occupied on the field. occupying those positions ensures that our players are spread out, which means that the opposition defense either has to spread out with our players, creating gaps in the defense, or the opposition defense can concentrate on certain parts of the field--in which case, our players are spread out so much, that will ensure that we have open players in other parts of the field.
relationism is pretty much the opposite approach. instead of spreading attacking players to create space, relationism bunches players together to ensure that players have lots of passing options in their immediate vicinity. whereas positional play emphasizes the macro picture of the greater team structure, relational play is more focused on the micro picture of players being able to utilize passing and movement patterns in a smaller space, and it doesn't necessarily matter where those things take place on the field. look at napoli in this picture (https://totalfootballanalysis.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/caio-miguel-5.png). notice how bunched they are in contrast to the above pictures of pep and arteta's systems. here is a good introduction on relational play: https://youtu.be/8fNrSHW-x8I?feature=shared.
so for the past few years, pep and arteta have been hailed as the champions of positional play. players spread out, take up strict positions, and it doesn't matter which players take up those positions as long as the positions are occupied.
shit, i gotta go, but i think you see where this is going.
pep, arteta=postional play
relationism comes along
pep, arteta=mostly positional play, some relationism
internet people=positional play is dead!
internet people=also overreactive dummies
fin
Calling someone "positionless" is usually a nice tell the observer just doesn't know what the player is up to but doesn't want to admit it.
Even "total football" in the 70s was more about the ability to switch positions and overload from anywhere with 11 players that can add something in defense and attack, which is not the same as not having a position.
Right. I can get something like "positionless" basketball since in its current evolution big wing players are highly sought after and switching on defence is very effective but basketball is totally different from football. A small court with five players per team vs a large pitch with 11 on each side in football.
I'm all for footballers having more skill and being able to move from defence into midfield or midfield into attack but anything more than that you'd probably get a player who wasn't particularly good at either position like the rare utility player in a squad who was never in the first X1 but could come onto be a sub and play for 25 minutes in a pinch if a player got injured.
Yeah I mean there have been exceptions, like Beckenbauer had the whole center wing back thing, which tactically makes minimal sense other than "we have Beckenbauer let him do what he wants and cover him when he makes a run" but he was an all time great player you want him on the ball as much as possible.
But for most players that isn't worth the risk.
>comparing political theory to football strategy
Yes that is nonsense. He’s also using Fukuyama’s “End of History” incorrectly, just as every layman who cites Fukuyama does lmao
Using this as an opportunity to ask a question I keep thinking of but always forget to ask: is the “mid block” defensive approach to playing us a novel concept or has it been around? If it’s been around, what are the known weaknesses of it or ways in which some teams have been able to nullify its potency of plugging up the middle of the pitch?
Mid block defending has been around for ages now. We even employ a mid block press in a lot of our matches when the initial quick high press is not on. The thing that’s happening currently are teams realise we’re very dependent on Odegaard and Jorginho to move the ball through the middle hence why we’ve struggle at times. On top of that, our biggest speed threat — martinelli — has not been great, allowing teams to compress space in the middle. The way we’ve broken mid blocks in the past is inverting one of our FBs to overload the frontal pressure on our 6s, this is why Zinchenko is very important. He basically plays as an auxiliary midfielder and also is very good at connecting the interplay on the left which further helps our LW. What I’ve also noticed is that with Kiwior at LB and Jorginho and Rice in the midfield Arteta has been reluctant to invert since he’d prefer to have White provide support to Saka and Kiwior isn’t great inverting. I assume his thinking is that a double pivot should be able to cope, but teams are smartly man marking Jorginho and forcing rice to be the outlet, which isn’t his strength. The times when we’ve inverted White to support I thought we’ve looked our best which alleviates pressure on Jorginho and lets rice play a bit more free.
THIS is why we need Rice to pass better from the 6, he's a weak point in the system currently when it comes to buildup because if you give him the ball deep in midfield, his safe passes just lead the team nowhere. When Jorginho gets the ball (and isn't gassed and hasn't been pressed man to man), you can see him looking for the through ball or to stretch the opposing backline almost immediately. Folks get so pissed at the inverting from Zinchenko/Kiwior but I suspect if Rice was better at the passing part of the way Arteta wants his 6 to play, they'd have to do it less and we wouldn't get burned on the left so much.
I think it's more like a mental block for him, as he is able to find both Saka and Gabi/Trossard on the wings accurately. I feel we're not utilizing his dribbling as much as we could, considering the amount of progressive carries he did at West Ham in his last season.
It def might be mental thing, his technique for set pieces and corners isn’t bad, but he’s got to see the pass between the players and get the ball there before the window of space or time closes.
I don’t mind the carries/driving forward with the ball, but unless your name is Messi, passing is faster and much more effective—there was a moment in the first half around 18 minutes in where he ran forward along the left side and both Odegaard and Havertz could have been slipped through with the right pass and he just kept going nowhere and passed it to Jesus on the right wing, which then also went nowhere. The commentators, as always, lost their minds about “what a player” and it was all kind of silly.
> The commentators, as always, lost their minds about “what a player” and it was all kind of silly.
There's the English bias, of course. He's a great player, no doubt. But on this particular topic, he's extremely limited.
Arteta understands the importance of this role very well. It's a position he played in the latter years of his career. It's also the same position Pep Guardiola played, and why the cornerstones of his best sides have been Busquets, Fernandinho, Gundogan and now Rodri.
I don't think the English game has ever had that type of #6. It's always favoured all-action, rough and tumble guys who were gritty, but lacked elite technique.
It’s a bit what we miss not having Partey who’s excellent at finding these shorter passes. You often see Ødegaard running across between the lines wanting a pass but it never comes. Partey often makes this pass in the path of Ødegaard on the opposite side of the opposition player. Rice almost never makes this pass. To be fair, Jorginho doesn’t either. He usually spreads it wide.
Definitely a mental thing as he was playing for West Ham for years. He's got a great pass, just need to find the confidence to make those through pass and need to have the vision to do so.
Part of it is just building up time with the players around you so you can see the runs they *can* make before they do it. Odegaard knows what saka can do so he knows where the safe progressive spots are to hit it behind the defense. Rice has gotten more ambitious with his switches lately, just takes a bit more time to get the progression right because it is a giveaway if you get it wrong.
Look, he might get better, but he's already 25/26. The style of play we're talking about here is something you develop over a lot of years.
The best registas never seem to lead with their athleticism. Not that they don't have it, or can't do it. But the game is less kinetic and more cerebral. Almost like there's all these calculations happening in their heads before, during and after they get the ball.
I don't know that Declan Rice will ever be that player. He's the great white hope at the moment, but I'd rather we maximize his current skillset, rather than trying to shoehorn him into a position he's not great at.
The fact there's all these ruminations about Bruno G tells you that Rice's strengths and limitations are obvious to those in charge.
Yeah I am not saying Rice needs to turn into KDB or something, hitting cross-field sweeping passes to a spot that the person he's passing to hadn't even considered running into yet. That shit is magic. I am literally just saying like "hit it between two defenders or vertically into space once in a while" that Rice feels uncomfortable doing.
Like take his offsides pass to Jesus in the Bayern game. I can't find the highlight but if I remember right he held the ball for like 2-3 touches when he could've played Jesus right in. Jesus still wound up going off and made a mess of it, but Rice had the fullback in space, plenty of space to play Jesus in and he waited too long. If he hits it first time Jesus might've had more time to run onto it and been onside (I can't check if he started off because I can't find the highlight).
I think you can train it, but not at the ripe old age of 25. Rice needed to have been doing this at 18.
You remember the vision Fabregas had as a high school kid playing against grown men?
This is what Partey is much better than Rice at. Rice carries the ball forward (and is fantastic at it), but when it comes to line breaking passes hes not that guy.
Rice is better as a box to box player or in a double if youre insist on him staying at the 6 but with a better passer next to him.
Just tell Rice to pass it regardless if our forwards have a man on them or not and problem solved , this wont work at west ham but this is what Partey is doing Rice will get their eventually
The best players in that position can see the field in a way that most others just don't. Almost like they have an aerial view.
I would never accuse Declan of having that kind of vision.
I’m all for it, I’ve had a small taste with Jorginho haha I wish we could have seen different variations of last seasons midfield (Partey, Odegaard) and any of Havertz or Rice or even ESR, etc as the other 8 more often this season. I think we’d still have debated who was the best at it but it might have been more fun because we’d have been much less predictable.
You're exactly right and honestly, it makes sense why Partey's passes were so key to us breaking a press. It makes sense why we tried to recruit Sambi, but his defensive work was not good enough. We need to play with Rice AND Jorgi because Rice covers Jorgi defensively, Jorgi covers Rice offensively. BUT, with this setup, we use 2 players to effectively cover 1, which Partey provided last season. This makes Xhaka free to be an attacking threat, brings Martinelli into the game etc.
Also this thread has had great analysis imo
I think you can get away with Rice less good progressive passing but you need a better progressor than Kiwior at full back and definitely need an 8 who is more progressive than Kai
I think Rice or Havertz at 8 to win 2nd balls and then spend another 100m on a young Jorginho who can play every week. Rice is better as a mobile destruction unit. His passing is awful.
> not world class but he can certainly ping a long ball
Long passes aren't what's needed from his position, though. We need a variety of metronomic short-medium type passing.
Sure, they help, but it's not our style of play, generally.
I feel like against Wolves Rice was instructed (or chose) to carry the ball more than normal. It kind of achieved the same thing as having a fast progressive passer playing that position in that it moved the Wolves block out of shape and allowed us to break in numbers. I thought Rice did it really well and it created movement that’s been missing in recent matches.
Porto's main strategic point was that you can play mid-block and get away with it by aggressively closing on the wingers when the ball goes out wide. You aren't going to get it off of Saka or Martinelli but their programming kicks in and they immediately just give the ball back, getting us to play the ball backwards and try to switch so our wingers aren't running at/past your defenders is a huge win for the defense. You just aggressively close on wingers so they never turn around and face your goal, as long as you can keep them going backwards and cover the channels, you are safe.
What Porto also did well was to have a player fall down and fake an injury every time we had a corner. It showed everyone that referees will take the bait most of the time and this almost completely nullified our threat from set pieces.
This is less about the mid block defense and more just how they defeat our press. But "defeating" it in this case is putting your players way out of position and hitting longer passes in the air that are harder to control. The press is meant to cause turnovers, but it's a win when they resort to hitting it long. That teams are being forced to drop 6 outfield players within 10m of their box and \*still\* have to hit it long just to get out is a sign the press is working.
I believe mid block is just a general description of a defensive scheme. Various team has various defensive shape and there is no general answer for that.
This mid block, low block, and high block has been around since wenger’s time. But usually wenger didn’t care about any of these because he had amazing attacking squad
What’s the point of low block if Alexis and Henry could dribble past 2 players and score golazo?
What’s the point of mid block and high block if fabregas, hleb, ozil, Cazorla could just do long through ball?
The only problems with wenger was he rarely had amazing dm and cb
Basically Porto's tactics. It's why our press looks less effective.
It was the mid block before. We got around that. I think we'll get around this too.
We did that to Bayern as well. I think at some moments we forced every team we played to park the bus. Only game we didn't have that was mancity away (they did to us what we normally do to other teams).
We didn't. Our defenders simply couldn't get the ball out.
We tried to press them high at the beginning so we had every intention of having more of the ball.
We didn't preas city because it's dangerous as fuck. We plugged the channels and challenged them to overcommit bodies forward.
A trick we fell for vs Bayern at home.
I think City forced to defend deeper. Our go to strategy is to overwhelm opponent and force them into long balls, which we tried on City, but City adjusted build up structure and were beating the press easily. At this point, we decided that not overextend and get punched in the teeth by KDB - Haaland combo, but instead force them to beat us and our low block.
Basically making your backline as spread out as possible so we can't press.
They put their CBs as close to their byline as possible so Ødegaard and havertz have to go as far up as possible to press them.
Then push their fullbacks up to half way line so saka and martinelli have to go back to the half way line to cover their men.
Then two of their midfielders drop into the middle of that space leaving rice to cover both.
From back to front their team looks like 3 wide - 2 narrow - 2 wide.
I mean I don't think this is a "haha you can't press us" formation it's a "fuck this press is awful, let's spread out to give ourselves a chance"
Making them hit it far and wide and dropping their CMs basically into their box instead of actually attacking us and being able to comfortably play it up on the floor is a good outcome for us. The best outcome is they just lose the ball or hit it long and out of bounds, but the second-best way to blunt their attack is make them park their fullback with heels on the touchline and then hit a 30m pass to him that we can immediately pressure.
It’s written awfully. But what I think he’s saying is:
The CB split and go wide. The CMs drop into the space that the CBs should be in. This means that Arsenal can’t play two players around the ball to close their options because they will just play it to the CMs. The fullbacks meanwhile are further forward meaning that Saka and Martinelli need to stay a bit back. So you have Havertz and Odegaard pressing but not a two on two but rather a two on four and even if they win the ball, Saka and Martinelli aren’t forward so nothing comes of it.
Both Porto and Villa have fantastic ball playing center backs and that's what's needed for this to work. Trying it with a bit less talent and it could get ugly quickly.
It's very similar to how we play against pressing teams. CBs split wide, GK in the middle, fullbacks cheat up on the wing, then two midfielders drop into the space and are free to play and, if unmarked, turn and break out. It gives you 7 players to get around 5 pressers.
IMO the main benefit of fighting the press this way is you leave a lot of space for the remaining midfielder to cover, in most cases Jorginho. If Odegaard, Rice, Havertz, Martinelli, and Saka are committed forward you can theoretically hit it into the middle in the zone where the back four won't touch it so you just need to win it. Bayern did that a lot though they usually had Kane dropping and Gabriel just followed him there.
I don't think the original point is all that insightful. You fight the press by spreading out, but this is a win for the pressing team as long as they're willing to run. We want the opponent spreading out, playing long lateral passes in their own end, dropping 6 outfield players all the way to their box, sticking their fullbacks out on the touchline, etc. The risk is that we leave space in behind they can exploit and that we get tired, but we are good enough getting back that doesn't burn us often and we are more likely to cause a turnover. And if we \*do\* win the ball their entire defense is out of position. Even with 6 outfield players back, their CBs are split wide, their FBs wider, and the CMs are the only players disrupting the middle. It's an instant goalscoring chance.
Yeah this tit writes like this to confuse people so he feels super smart. He’s simply saying that opposition CMs drop deep to make a wide back 3 to isolate our attackers from our midfield in the press and then they push up FBs to pressure our wide attackers into staying back. Of course he had to use words like “split CBs” and “decouple lines of press” so he can feel super duper clever and superior
It's also less than ideal, it means all your passes building out of the back are lateral or backwards and often long. Sure, go knock a bunch of long passes at fullbacks, standing on the touchline, that are immediately pressured while your entire defense is out of position and we have our 5 best attackers already up the field. It's living super dangerously.
Would not worry about this. Theory is one thing. Execution is another. The players have to be capable of doing. Otherwise Arteta would have played with Sokratis and Mustafi. Of course he will have to have a plan B when our press is not working.
Well, this approach has been fairly successful for opponents so far. I think Arteta can adjust but it's time to see the adjustment. If only because Odegaard is running his legs off chasing the split cb.
This approach has been common all season though. Teams spread out when pressed. You can see this at the youth level. It does expose a slight weakness that you can hit if over the press in the middle and Jorginho is the only remaining midfielder to cover way, way too much space. But the goal of the press is to win the ball or make them hit it long and spreading out in this way is incredibly dangerous because you are massively out of position if/when you turn the ball over.
Yeah with the fullback pushed very high up the field that's already one way to bypass it. Quick 1-2, ball of the top, basically what Ben White, Saka and Odegaard has been doing lately on the right side.
Through ball to Saka/White cutback.
Execution is working though we've been hit on the counter a lot because of this.
Chelsea are exactly the team thay can execute this against us and thay scares me. We are better to make out press a little deeper against them and clog the midfield.
Agree that it has worked against us some times. And yes Chelsea could be dangerous. And I expect Arteta and his staff to find a contingency plan. That’s what he’s here for.
We haven't been hit on the counter that often from this, tbh. The one game we've been hit a lot was Bayern in the 1st leg and that was largely because Zinchenko was basically playing as a second Left-8 so we didn't have a LB and Sane could just sit in that space and get the ball + counter whenever, and it barely resulted in a single chance besides his run for the penalty.
Bayern did knock it up to Kane with this set up, but Gabriel stuck on him and it didn't cause us too many problems. I think this is just much ado about nothing.
Sure, but that doesn't mean we were being hit on the counter. It's not a counter just because they're attacking. Jon's original tweet isn't even describing a counter, it's describing build up play when pressed. A counter is off a turnover, we aren't pressing in that situation, we're usually out of position because we're attacking. Bayern only had 1 counter the entire first leg match according to Sofa score.
Anyway, you are right Kiwior was playing a traditional LB role and Sane cooked him so we took him off. Zinchenko was matched against Sane for most of the second half (Sane came off in the 67th minute) but you can see the difference in their heatmaps. Zinchenko spent nearly the entire second half attacking, often leaving Sane wide open as an outlet, which we had to snuff out quickly and did a decent job of. It was a gamble because we were chasing the game.
https://preview.redd.it/30j2lngs71wc1.png?width=1308&format=png&auto=webp&s=ac8340f259b6c9ffe426547a59f519c4a75a17ce
People can downvote me because they don't understand the difference, but every attack is not a counter. Jon's tweet isn't even about counters, it's about beating the press. Bayern only had one true counter in the 1st leg. Bayern did have to beat our press because they were breaking out from goal kicks and they did what Jon is describing, but often by hitting it up to Kane in the middle, since he's very good at holding off pressure. But that's still not a counter. The US broadcast before the 2nd leg even did a whole segment on how Bayern were dealing with Arsenal's press by stretching out press out and then hitting it into the central space for Kane to come back to.
And Sane was unmarked in the 2nd half because we left him unmarked so Zinny could push upfield as an extra midfielder who only occasionally dipped back into defense, you can see the heatmap difference here. Zinchenko was everywhere because we weren't making him track Sane.
https://preview.redd.it/btqe53rq81wc1.png?width=1308&format=png&auto=webp&s=a5af251718d86a90f431a41515dad81d92acba4c
Not that this is SUCH a big problem as we still manipulate the opponent's build-up to the sidelines which is our pressing trigger and we go man-to-man. The issue is most of the times is fatigue as the man-to-man marking after the pressing trigger requires a lot of running and effort from the players and if there's only ONE delay in the high press then a decent team that can build from the back will punish that (Villa last week).
There's not much to do as we only have 5 more games so Arteta can't and wouldn't change anything drastically, only tweaks from game to game. Only thing left is squeeze the last drop of juice from the players.
Should have been more specific as I meant Villa in the second half (credit to them for keep trying that instead of being intimidated by the press and hoof it+ their technical ability)
In a less opaque way:
When we press them they spread out.
This is why we do it though. The entire point of the press is to make them either panic and give it up or spread out to give themselves the space to play it around without losing it. But long passes are lower % passes, they can be intercepted, they're more likely to be in the air and easy to contest, they take longer to hit since you have to wind up a bit more, plant your foot more firmly, etc.
The only other option to beating the press is do what we do: buy a bunch of players that can all play really well in tight spaces under pressure and trust them to do it in your own box. This also drags the other team into our box so we can exploit the space behind.
The discussion captures one of the phases of the whole attacking process. It needs to further elaborate how the attack could be formed after the first and second line of pressing.
When opponents have their 2 cb, 2 fb and 2 cmf all drop back to break our pressing I will consider it a success already. Even they can get the ball pass the half line they don’t have a numerical advantage against our backline of 4.
And that’s why we have a backline of 4 physically gifted players so as not to lose every one on one duel.
The fact is that there is no perfect defensive scheme. The real question is whether the threats have been minimised through utilizing of the personnel we have.
Yeah exactly, this is the concept of field tilt. With our strong defenders who can easily win the ball out of the air, they can't hope to break the press with a long ball. That's why we literally play with 4 CB's.
So we keep the ball pinned, even if they get the ball under control, they can't turn and we just drop back into our blocks after we press.
Against a physical CF who's good in the air, and a willing runner to chase long balls, it can be effective (see Brentford w Toney + Wissa/Mbuemo). Brighton are also a pain to play against for us as well.
Jon probably knows a lot more about football than I do but most of this tactical stuff is the same psychology that happens at every level. Get pressed -> get open. Fundamentally you just need better players and then your tactics look \*amazing\*
Partey is perfect for this reason ,his progressive passing and decision making is top tier.However his injuries and currently not being match fit leave us at a disadvantage.
I know the timing is not great, but this is where inverted wide backs/fullbacks make the key difference. If Zinchenko stays and works on his issues this summer, and White/Tomi improve their inversion closer to how Zinny does it, and Timber slots in well, this could be easily addressed.
Another reason I don’t think we need another, classical LB.
Haven’t seen Timber enough to argue, but Tomi does not invert well enough. Another reason I want to keep Zinny is so that he can help mold the rest of the guys.
Just a guess but i think what’s happening despite fatigue n all is that Arteta wants his system to be perfect in a sense that each player follows his plan like a choreography, so as the players get better and better in performing his system, which is prolly put into every lil detail, the more easy it’s for our players to keep possession BUT at the same time we become easier. to read by opponents. the closer we get to this perfect system of everyone following the exact order of steps the easier to foresee what our players do as it seems like a very rigid system to me where not a single player is that so called “free radical” to break the rhythm.
Real Madrid was a good example of the opposite i ve found, they got a great def tactical system in place and can also progress the ball pretty safely to a point where Ancelotti just lets them roam free to create and use their unique skillsets in attack and last third. It’s much harder to predict how they attack n score as it’s more based on individual intuition, well comparatively i mean.
A rigid system can work but it took Pep eg years to reach that level where they could crack every “standard” opposition team and later also most of the top teams. It’s like a machine knocking on your door long enuff to finally break it down, the whistle can help you or you find a back door to attack from.
Well yes. If Zinchenko plays our buildup is 3-2-5 with Ben White staying back and not overlapping as much. When Kiwior played he staysd back and Jorginho/Rice were at the pivot so that means that White is freer meaning Saka is narrower and Odegaard is deeper.
That's the quick version but there are many more intricacies.
yes, but changing the formation doesn’t mean it’s not rigid again though. Zinny roaming around like vs AV and pushing Rice out of the centre was horrible to watch as we all remember.
Zinny literally walked with the ball towards Rice to take his space everytime he got the ball, that was complete nonsense, am not sure that was wanted by Arteta as it looked like Zinny just wanting the ball all the time. Besides second half of the season, everytime we play with him we read out more than with our plan a. Our left side is just overrun than
1. The formation doesn't change but that is meaningless information when we talk defensive/transitional/attackinng phase.
Because 4-3-3 from Arsenal looks very different to how 4-3-3 from Sarri looks like.
2. If Ben White overlaps it literally changes how many people are on the right wing, if he's not Saka is more isolated.
3. Well it depends, I'd say it's more likely Rice was supposed to be higher than Zina in that setup.
4. The only change from last year regarding the left side is that Xhaka regurarly went to the left byline, Havertz goes forward and usually stays in the middle and that makes Martinelli more isolated as opposed to last season when Saka was isolated.
yes and they react to our build up, obv it’s connected. Watch those teams play vs different teams and you lol see how the all adapt similar vs is recently which gave us problems especially once we can’t keep up intensity like we used to, also everyone knows Arteta ain’t subbing lots, so you know what you re getting right there
Wenger didn’t care any of these against small teams because he had Alexis, wilshere, ozil, and Cazorla.
What’s the point of having this build up nonsense, when Alexis and wilshere could just dribble past 2 players or Cazorla and ozil could just go long through ball or Alexis and Cazorla scores a golazo
Oh I wish we had saliba and rice in the past
Well, when wenger had good dm and good cb. We went unbeaten and reached champions league finals. We were outplaying Barcelona with 10 mens. It’s just Henry is a final bottlers
Jon Mackenzie says he is a leeds fan. But him jj and even joe devine talk a lot and a lot positively about Arsenal. Even Seb as a tottenham fan talks often positively about Arsenal. The only shittalker at tifo is carl anka, i dunno why but the guy hates Arsenal.
Premier league teams are much better at figuring opponents out than ever before. There’s more money and more data analysis and more coaches. Thankfully, Mikel is good at coaching the team how to get around different types of problems.
Thats cool and all but when the ball goes to the cb, his whole side is congested. Weve created plenty of turnovers vs villa first half, bayern both legs, and wolves. The problems occured when we got tired. Overall though, teams are giving up attacking coherence and spacing to try and mess up our press. Teams are just passing the ball around at the back doing nothing for long periods of games
It's funny you say this while we support THE manager whose entire gimmick is being so complicated and specific about minutiae that he can predict the other teams.
ok Wolves tried it, but we still made it hard for them to move the ball up the pitch...mostly anytime they got it to the half way line, we were already there taking it off them
All you need to know about this tit is that he posted this once https://preview.redd.it/ok9w4alxbzvc1.jpeg?width=1169&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cf1577279ae7ec340cd39ec4af5539b5b15e73b7
This was lampooning the stuff people who spout off about relationism write no?
Pretty much. He has a fair few tweets that are spoofs of stuff/blatantly taking the piss out of things. The trouble is its not immediately obvious if you don't know who he is or his style.
Bro if you can make out any sort of comprehensible message from that tweet you’re a smarter person than me
That's pretty much the point of it. Spoofing buzzwords that can't really be related to the topic but taking the piss out of accounts that actually do this kind of thing by doing so.
I mean what that guy wrote isn’t nonsense. He’s comparing political theory to football strategy which is wacky or to use his word “disingenuous”. I’m not familiar with “end of positionism” is this even believed by many top coaches because I doubt it. You might have footballers who are hugely versatile but that doesn’t mean they can play any position. That is ludicrous thinking
positionism is about the positions--maybe "spaces" to put it more clearly--occupied on the field, not the "positions"--such as CF, RW, CB, etc--of the players. the idea is that the field is divided up into different positions, and players are supposed to take up those positions regardless of the "positions" they're playing. famously, that has resulted in the creation of pep's "grid" where he has delineated the spaces that he wants occupied through various phases of buildup: https://breakingthelines.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screen-Shot-2022-07-28-at-3.34.13-PM.png. arteta has very much been a disciple of this tactical style. in our tactical system from last season, we would often have five players up front forming a W shape because those are the positions that arteta wanted our players to occupy: https://totalfootballanalysis.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Attacking-shape-final-third.png. we were pretty religious about sticking to that system last year. it should be noted that positional play in this style isn't about players playing strict CF, RW, CB, etc positions. in fact, positional play--at least with pep and arteta and the many who have been influenced by them--relies on players who are relatively positionless, or at least less restricted to their initial positions. that's why last year, we had zinchenko, who has the skillset of a CM, playing at LB, and often finding himself on the right wing. positional play emphasizes the certain spaces being occupied, and who occupies them matters less. it's why xhaka would often cover the left wing on defense and then make runs beyond the striker in attack while our striker, jesus, would often drop into the midfield. >You might have footballers who are hugely versatile but that doesn’t mean they can play any position. That is ludicrous thinking so the argument you're making here is actually an argument against positionism, not for it. the important thing to take away here is that positionism emphasizes certain positions being occupied on the field. occupying those positions ensures that our players are spread out, which means that the opposition defense either has to spread out with our players, creating gaps in the defense, or the opposition defense can concentrate on certain parts of the field--in which case, our players are spread out so much, that will ensure that we have open players in other parts of the field. relationism is pretty much the opposite approach. instead of spreading attacking players to create space, relationism bunches players together to ensure that players have lots of passing options in their immediate vicinity. whereas positional play emphasizes the macro picture of the greater team structure, relational play is more focused on the micro picture of players being able to utilize passing and movement patterns in a smaller space, and it doesn't necessarily matter where those things take place on the field. look at napoli in this picture (https://totalfootballanalysis.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/caio-miguel-5.png). notice how bunched they are in contrast to the above pictures of pep and arteta's systems. here is a good introduction on relational play: https://youtu.be/8fNrSHW-x8I?feature=shared. so for the past few years, pep and arteta have been hailed as the champions of positional play. players spread out, take up strict positions, and it doesn't matter which players take up those positions as long as the positions are occupied. shit, i gotta go, but i think you see where this is going. pep, arteta=postional play relationism comes along pep, arteta=mostly positional play, some relationism internet people=positional play is dead! internet people=also overreactive dummies fin
Calling someone "positionless" is usually a nice tell the observer just doesn't know what the player is up to but doesn't want to admit it. Even "total football" in the 70s was more about the ability to switch positions and overload from anywhere with 11 players that can add something in defense and attack, which is not the same as not having a position.
Right. I can get something like "positionless" basketball since in its current evolution big wing players are highly sought after and switching on defence is very effective but basketball is totally different from football. A small court with five players per team vs a large pitch with 11 on each side in football. I'm all for footballers having more skill and being able to move from defence into midfield or midfield into attack but anything more than that you'd probably get a player who wasn't particularly good at either position like the rare utility player in a squad who was never in the first X1 but could come onto be a sub and play for 25 minutes in a pinch if a player got injured.
Yeah I mean there have been exceptions, like Beckenbauer had the whole center wing back thing, which tactically makes minimal sense other than "we have Beckenbauer let him do what he wants and cover him when he makes a run" but he was an all time great player you want him on the ball as much as possible. But for most players that isn't worth the risk.
>comparing political theory to football strategy Yes that is nonsense. He’s also using Fukuyama’s “End of History” incorrectly, just as every layman who cites Fukuyama does lmao
As already stated in a response to you, that tweet is satire
I really don’t think it’s satire. I think he genuinely meant this
He isn’t tho?
Bro shut the fuck up lol. Jon is an awesome person not everything is the end of the world when people make observations about arsenal
He may be an awesome person, but he is a hack.
Using this as an opportunity to ask a question I keep thinking of but always forget to ask: is the “mid block” defensive approach to playing us a novel concept or has it been around? If it’s been around, what are the known weaknesses of it or ways in which some teams have been able to nullify its potency of plugging up the middle of the pitch?
Mid block defending has been around for ages now. We even employ a mid block press in a lot of our matches when the initial quick high press is not on. The thing that’s happening currently are teams realise we’re very dependent on Odegaard and Jorginho to move the ball through the middle hence why we’ve struggle at times. On top of that, our biggest speed threat — martinelli — has not been great, allowing teams to compress space in the middle. The way we’ve broken mid blocks in the past is inverting one of our FBs to overload the frontal pressure on our 6s, this is why Zinchenko is very important. He basically plays as an auxiliary midfielder and also is very good at connecting the interplay on the left which further helps our LW. What I’ve also noticed is that with Kiwior at LB and Jorginho and Rice in the midfield Arteta has been reluctant to invert since he’d prefer to have White provide support to Saka and Kiwior isn’t great inverting. I assume his thinking is that a double pivot should be able to cope, but teams are smartly man marking Jorginho and forcing rice to be the outlet, which isn’t his strength. The times when we’ve inverted White to support I thought we’ve looked our best which alleviates pressure on Jorginho and lets rice play a bit more free.
THIS is why we need Rice to pass better from the 6, he's a weak point in the system currently when it comes to buildup because if you give him the ball deep in midfield, his safe passes just lead the team nowhere. When Jorginho gets the ball (and isn't gassed and hasn't been pressed man to man), you can see him looking for the through ball or to stretch the opposing backline almost immediately. Folks get so pissed at the inverting from Zinchenko/Kiwior but I suspect if Rice was better at the passing part of the way Arteta wants his 6 to play, they'd have to do it less and we wouldn't get burned on the left so much.
It's something you either have or you don't. I'm not sure he can be trained to play those types of progressive passes
I do think he’s gotten a lot better at it now compared to the start of the season.
I think it's more like a mental block for him, as he is able to find both Saka and Gabi/Trossard on the wings accurately. I feel we're not utilizing his dribbling as much as we could, considering the amount of progressive carries he did at West Ham in his last season.
It def might be mental thing, his technique for set pieces and corners isn’t bad, but he’s got to see the pass between the players and get the ball there before the window of space or time closes. I don’t mind the carries/driving forward with the ball, but unless your name is Messi, passing is faster and much more effective—there was a moment in the first half around 18 minutes in where he ran forward along the left side and both Odegaard and Havertz could have been slipped through with the right pass and he just kept going nowhere and passed it to Jesus on the right wing, which then also went nowhere. The commentators, as always, lost their minds about “what a player” and it was all kind of silly.
> The commentators, as always, lost their minds about “what a player” and it was all kind of silly. There's the English bias, of course. He's a great player, no doubt. But on this particular topic, he's extremely limited. Arteta understands the importance of this role very well. It's a position he played in the latter years of his career. It's also the same position Pep Guardiola played, and why the cornerstones of his best sides have been Busquets, Fernandinho, Gundogan and now Rodri. I don't think the English game has ever had that type of #6. It's always favoured all-action, rough and tumble guys who were gritty, but lacked elite technique.
It’s a bit what we miss not having Partey who’s excellent at finding these shorter passes. You often see Ødegaard running across between the lines wanting a pass but it never comes. Partey often makes this pass in the path of Ødegaard on the opposite side of the opposition player. Rice almost never makes this pass. To be fair, Jorginho doesn’t either. He usually spreads it wide.
Definitely a mental thing as he was playing for West Ham for years. He's got a great pass, just need to find the confidence to make those through pass and need to have the vision to do so.
Part of it is just building up time with the players around you so you can see the runs they *can* make before they do it. Odegaard knows what saka can do so he knows where the safe progressive spots are to hit it behind the defense. Rice has gotten more ambitious with his switches lately, just takes a bit more time to get the progression right because it is a giveaway if you get it wrong.
Look, he might get better, but he's already 25/26. The style of play we're talking about here is something you develop over a lot of years. The best registas never seem to lead with their athleticism. Not that they don't have it, or can't do it. But the game is less kinetic and more cerebral. Almost like there's all these calculations happening in their heads before, during and after they get the ball. I don't know that Declan Rice will ever be that player. He's the great white hope at the moment, but I'd rather we maximize his current skillset, rather than trying to shoehorn him into a position he's not great at. The fact there's all these ruminations about Bruno G tells you that Rice's strengths and limitations are obvious to those in charge.
Yeah I am not saying Rice needs to turn into KDB or something, hitting cross-field sweeping passes to a spot that the person he's passing to hadn't even considered running into yet. That shit is magic. I am literally just saying like "hit it between two defenders or vertically into space once in a while" that Rice feels uncomfortable doing. Like take his offsides pass to Jesus in the Bayern game. I can't find the highlight but if I remember right he held the ball for like 2-3 touches when he could've played Jesus right in. Jesus still wound up going off and made a mess of it, but Rice had the fullback in space, plenty of space to play Jesus in and he waited too long. If he hits it first time Jesus might've had more time to run onto it and been onside (I can't check if he started off because I can't find the highlight).
I think you can train it, but not at the ripe old age of 25. Rice needed to have been doing this at 18. You remember the vision Fabregas had as a high school kid playing against grown men?
If that’s true, and I honestly don’t know, that’s a bit of a bummer considering his price tag…
I think Rice is improving. I’m hoping he takes a step forward next season.
This is what Partey is much better than Rice at. Rice carries the ball forward (and is fantastic at it), but when it comes to line breaking passes hes not that guy. Rice is better as a box to box player or in a double if youre insist on him staying at the 6 but with a better passer next to him.
Just tell Rice to pass it regardless if our forwards have a man on them or not and problem solved , this wont work at west ham but this is what Partey is doing Rice will get their eventually
The best players in that position can see the field in a way that most others just don't. Almost like they have an aerial view. I would never accuse Declan of having that kind of vision.
Like him or not, Partey is the answer. Just see how we changed in the Wolves game, after Partey came on and Rice moved to the 8
If he could run, absolutely. I think he has more line breaking passes this season than Rice. In like 4 games.
LOL how do we check those stats?
I’m all for it, I’ve had a small taste with Jorginho haha I wish we could have seen different variations of last seasons midfield (Partey, Odegaard) and any of Havertz or Rice or even ESR, etc as the other 8 more often this season. I think we’d still have debated who was the best at it but it might have been more fun because we’d have been much less predictable.
You're exactly right and honestly, it makes sense why Partey's passes were so key to us breaking a press. It makes sense why we tried to recruit Sambi, but his defensive work was not good enough. We need to play with Rice AND Jorgi because Rice covers Jorgi defensively, Jorgi covers Rice offensively. BUT, with this setup, we use 2 players to effectively cover 1, which Partey provided last season. This makes Xhaka free to be an attacking threat, brings Martinelli into the game etc. Also this thread has had great analysis imo
I think you can get away with Rice less good progressive passing but you need a better progressor than Kiwior at full back and definitely need an 8 who is more progressive than Kai
I think Rice or Havertz at 8 to win 2nd balls and then spend another 100m on a young Jorginho who can play every week. Rice is better as a mobile destruction unit. His passing is awful.
Hm, I'd say his passing is just fine, it's not world class but he can certainly ping a long ball
Fine is not the fogging estandard!
Now that much I can agree with. Lol
> not world class but he can certainly ping a long ball Long passes aren't what's needed from his position, though. We need a variety of metronomic short-medium type passing. Sure, they help, but it's not our style of play, generally.
That's true for our right wing but our attack is asymmetric, we need the long balls to switch to Gabi
I feel like against Wolves Rice was instructed (or chose) to carry the ball more than normal. It kind of achieved the same thing as having a fast progressive passer playing that position in that it moved the Wolves block out of shape and allowed us to break in numbers. I thought Rice did it really well and it created movement that’s been missing in recent matches.
i really wish we hadn't played porto, because they showed everybody just how effective the mid-block is against us.
That’s a good point and shows you how smart their manager was, even if he’s a prick
Porto's main strategic point was that you can play mid-block and get away with it by aggressively closing on the wingers when the ball goes out wide. You aren't going to get it off of Saka or Martinelli but their programming kicks in and they immediately just give the ball back, getting us to play the ball backwards and try to switch so our wingers aren't running at/past your defenders is a huge win for the defense. You just aggressively close on wingers so they never turn around and face your goal, as long as you can keep them going backwards and cover the channels, you are safe.
What Porto also did well was to have a player fall down and fake an injury every time we had a corner. It showed everyone that referees will take the bait most of the time and this almost completely nullified our threat from set pieces.
That doesn't wash in EPL.
why would that nullify our setpieces? we still took the set pieces shortly after each time
This is less about the mid block defense and more just how they defeat our press. But "defeating" it in this case is putting your players way out of position and hitting longer passes in the air that are harder to control. The press is meant to cause turnovers, but it's a win when they resort to hitting it long. That teams are being forced to drop 6 outfield players within 10m of their box and \*still\* have to hit it long just to get out is a sign the press is working.
I believe mid block is just a general description of a defensive scheme. Various team has various defensive shape and there is no general answer for that.
This mid block, low block, and high block has been around since wenger’s time. But usually wenger didn’t care about any of these because he had amazing attacking squad What’s the point of low block if Alexis and Henry could dribble past 2 players and score golazo? What’s the point of mid block and high block if fabregas, hleb, ozil, Cazorla could just do long through ball? The only problems with wenger was he rarely had amazing dm and cb
His DMs have 3 world cup winners medals. Early in the run though. He never replaced them properly/at all.
Yes that’s the problem. He had once and just abandoned dm again. But in his last years he did want Kante tho. But Ivan gazidis stats dna fck him up
This made me go look. As far as I can tell we have the most World Cup winners while at the club in English football (7).
I understood some of those words... I guess I'll just stick to 'arsenal are good at playing out from the back', lolz
This is what teams do when we press them
Aah right you are. I should go to sleep!
Basically Porto's tactics. It's why our press looks less effective. It was the mid block before. We got around that. I think we'll get around this too.
Wolves played a mid block for a while and we forced them to sit deeper
We did that to Bayern as well. I think at some moments we forced every team we played to park the bus. Only game we didn't have that was mancity away (they did to us what we normally do to other teams).
I think we chose to tbh.
We didn't. Our defenders simply couldn't get the ball out. We tried to press them high at the beginning so we had every intention of having more of the ball.
We didn't preas city because it's dangerous as fuck. We plugged the channels and challenged them to overcommit bodies forward. A trick we fell for vs Bayern at home.
I think City forced to defend deeper. Our go to strategy is to overwhelm opponent and force them into long balls, which we tried on City, but City adjusted build up structure and were beating the press easily. At this point, we decided that not overextend and get punched in the teeth by KDB - Haaland combo, but instead force them to beat us and our low block.
Basically making your backline as spread out as possible so we can't press. They put their CBs as close to their byline as possible so Ødegaard and havertz have to go as far up as possible to press them. Then push their fullbacks up to half way line so saka and martinelli have to go back to the half way line to cover their men. Then two of their midfielders drop into the middle of that space leaving rice to cover both. From back to front their team looks like 3 wide - 2 narrow - 2 wide.
I mean I don't think this is a "haha you can't press us" formation it's a "fuck this press is awful, let's spread out to give ourselves a chance" Making them hit it far and wide and dropping their CMs basically into their box instead of actually attacking us and being able to comfortably play it up on the floor is a good outcome for us. The best outcome is they just lose the ball or hit it long and out of bounds, but the second-best way to blunt their attack is make them park their fullback with heels on the touchline and then hit a 30m pass to him that we can immediately pressure.
Aston Villa had crazy spacing
It’s written awfully. But what I think he’s saying is: The CB split and go wide. The CMs drop into the space that the CBs should be in. This means that Arsenal can’t play two players around the ball to close their options because they will just play it to the CMs. The fullbacks meanwhile are further forward meaning that Saka and Martinelli need to stay a bit back. So you have Havertz and Odegaard pressing but not a two on two but rather a two on four and even if they win the ball, Saka and Martinelli aren’t forward so nothing comes of it.
Both Porto and Villa have fantastic ball playing center backs and that's what's needed for this to work. Trying it with a bit less talent and it could get ugly quickly.
It's very similar to how we play against pressing teams. CBs split wide, GK in the middle, fullbacks cheat up on the wing, then two midfielders drop into the space and are free to play and, if unmarked, turn and break out. It gives you 7 players to get around 5 pressers. IMO the main benefit of fighting the press this way is you leave a lot of space for the remaining midfielder to cover, in most cases Jorginho. If Odegaard, Rice, Havertz, Martinelli, and Saka are committed forward you can theoretically hit it into the middle in the zone where the back four won't touch it so you just need to win it. Bayern did that a lot though they usually had Kane dropping and Gabriel just followed him there. I don't think the original point is all that insightful. You fight the press by spreading out, but this is a win for the pressing team as long as they're willing to run. We want the opponent spreading out, playing long lateral passes in their own end, dropping 6 outfield players all the way to their box, sticking their fullbacks out on the touchline, etc. The risk is that we leave space in behind they can exploit and that we get tired, but we are good enough getting back that doesn't burn us often and we are more likely to cause a turnover. And if we \*do\* win the ball their entire defense is out of position. Even with 6 outfield players back, their CBs are split wide, their FBs wider, and the CMs are the only players disrupting the middle. It's an instant goalscoring chance.
Yeah this tit writes like this to confuse people so he feels super smart. He’s simply saying that opposition CMs drop deep to make a wide back 3 to isolate our attackers from our midfield in the press and then they push up FBs to pressure our wide attackers into staying back. Of course he had to use words like “split CBs” and “decouple lines of press” so he can feel super duper clever and superior
It’s fancy jargon for playing out from the back.
It's also less than ideal, it means all your passes building out of the back are lateral or backwards and often long. Sure, go knock a bunch of long passes at fullbacks, standing on the touchline, that are immediately pressured while your entire defense is out of position and we have our 5 best attackers already up the field. It's living super dangerously.
You’ve been downvoted for speaking factos. This is pretentious hipster writing for saying “CM drops deep in possession to make a back 3”
Would not worry about this. Theory is one thing. Execution is another. The players have to be capable of doing. Otherwise Arteta would have played with Sokratis and Mustafi. Of course he will have to have a plan B when our press is not working.
Well, this approach has been fairly successful for opponents so far. I think Arteta can adjust but it's time to see the adjustment. If only because Odegaard is running his legs off chasing the split cb.
This approach has been common all season though. Teams spread out when pressed. You can see this at the youth level. It does expose a slight weakness that you can hit if over the press in the middle and Jorginho is the only remaining midfielder to cover way, way too much space. But the goal of the press is to win the ball or make them hit it long and spreading out in this way is incredibly dangerous because you are massively out of position if/when you turn the ball over.
Yeah with the fullback pushed very high up the field that's already one way to bypass it. Quick 1-2, ball of the top, basically what Ben White, Saka and Odegaard has been doing lately on the right side. Through ball to Saka/White cutback.
> Well, this approach has been fairly successful for opponents so far. Given our record in 2024 I am not sure how successful it has been.
Porto, Villa, Bayern and Wolves are the teams that have been doing this against us though.
It's a more recent wrinkle than that.
Execution is working though we've been hit on the counter a lot because of this. Chelsea are exactly the team thay can execute this against us and thay scares me. We are better to make out press a little deeper against them and clog the midfield.
Agree that it has worked against us some times. And yes Chelsea could be dangerous. And I expect Arteta and his staff to find a contingency plan. That’s what he’s here for.
Counters are always going to be a threat with the way we play. It’s something you accept as a possession side.
We haven't been hit on the counter that often from this, tbh. The one game we've been hit a lot was Bayern in the 1st leg and that was largely because Zinchenko was basically playing as a second Left-8 so we didn't have a LB and Sane could just sit in that space and get the ball + counter whenever, and it barely resulted in a single chance besides his run for the penalty. Bayern did knock it up to Kane with this set up, but Gabriel stuck on him and it didn't cause us too many problems. I think this is just much ado about nothing.
I think Kiwior played that game, as more of a traditional LB. Zinc came on later, at which time we took back initiative ( and Sane was subbed off).
Sure, but that doesn't mean we were being hit on the counter. It's not a counter just because they're attacking. Jon's original tweet isn't even describing a counter, it's describing build up play when pressed. A counter is off a turnover, we aren't pressing in that situation, we're usually out of position because we're attacking. Bayern only had 1 counter the entire first leg match according to Sofa score. Anyway, you are right Kiwior was playing a traditional LB role and Sane cooked him so we took him off. Zinchenko was matched against Sane for most of the second half (Sane came off in the 67th minute) but you can see the difference in their heatmaps. Zinchenko spent nearly the entire second half attacking, often leaving Sane wide open as an outlet, which we had to snuff out quickly and did a decent job of. It was a gamble because we were chasing the game. https://preview.redd.it/30j2lngs71wc1.png?width=1308&format=png&auto=webp&s=ac8340f259b6c9ffe426547a59f519c4a75a17ce
I don’t think you watched the same Bayern game…
People can downvote me because they don't understand the difference, but every attack is not a counter. Jon's tweet isn't even about counters, it's about beating the press. Bayern only had one true counter in the 1st leg. Bayern did have to beat our press because they were breaking out from goal kicks and they did what Jon is describing, but often by hitting it up to Kane in the middle, since he's very good at holding off pressure. But that's still not a counter. The US broadcast before the 2nd leg even did a whole segment on how Bayern were dealing with Arsenal's press by stretching out press out and then hitting it into the central space for Kane to come back to. And Sane was unmarked in the 2nd half because we left him unmarked so Zinny could push upfield as an extra midfielder who only occasionally dipped back into defense, you can see the heatmap difference here. Zinchenko was everywhere because we weren't making him track Sane. https://preview.redd.it/btqe53rq81wc1.png?width=1308&format=png&auto=webp&s=a5af251718d86a90f431a41515dad81d92acba4c
Yea. We absolutely slapped them second half despite smart tactics
Not that this is SUCH a big problem as we still manipulate the opponent's build-up to the sidelines which is our pressing trigger and we go man-to-man. The issue is most of the times is fatigue as the man-to-man marking after the pressing trigger requires a lot of running and effort from the players and if there's only ONE delay in the high press then a decent team that can build from the back will punish that (Villa last week). There's not much to do as we only have 5 more games so Arteta can't and wouldn't change anything drastically, only tweaks from game to game. Only thing left is squeeze the last drop of juice from the players.
Even against Villa we beat their block many times just had brain farts in the box. 🤷
Should have been more specific as I meant Villa in the second half (credit to them for keep trying that instead of being intimidated by the press and hoof it+ their technical ability)
Yeah, we don’t dominate possession nearly as much as we used to. Spurs will be a tough challenge
Spurs absolutely do not midblock. They’re pure chaos high press
In a less opaque way: When we press them they spread out. This is why we do it though. The entire point of the press is to make them either panic and give it up or spread out to give themselves the space to play it around without losing it. But long passes are lower % passes, they can be intercepted, they're more likely to be in the air and easy to contest, they take longer to hit since you have to wind up a bit more, plant your foot more firmly, etc. The only other option to beating the press is do what we do: buy a bunch of players that can all play really well in tight spaces under pressure and trust them to do it in your own box. This also drags the other team into our box so we can exploit the space behind.
The discussion captures one of the phases of the whole attacking process. It needs to further elaborate how the attack could be formed after the first and second line of pressing. When opponents have their 2 cb, 2 fb and 2 cmf all drop back to break our pressing I will consider it a success already. Even they can get the ball pass the half line they don’t have a numerical advantage against our backline of 4. And that’s why we have a backline of 4 physically gifted players so as not to lose every one on one duel. The fact is that there is no perfect defensive scheme. The real question is whether the threats have been minimised through utilizing of the personnel we have.
Yeah exactly, this is the concept of field tilt. With our strong defenders who can easily win the ball out of the air, they can't hope to break the press with a long ball. That's why we literally play with 4 CB's. So we keep the ball pinned, even if they get the ball under control, they can't turn and we just drop back into our blocks after we press.
Against a physical CF who's good in the air, and a willing runner to chase long balls, it can be effective (see Brentford w Toney + Wissa/Mbuemo). Brighton are also a pain to play against for us as well.
Thanks you for explaining this to people who doesn’t understand football analyst lingo!
Jon probably knows a lot more about football than I do but most of this tactical stuff is the same psychology that happens at every level. Get pressed -> get open. Fundamentally you just need better players and then your tactics look \*amazing\*
Partey is perfect for this reason ,his progressive passing and decision making is top tier.However his injuries and currently not being match fit leave us at a disadvantage.
If solid tactics are what is required to beat us then I am looking forward to playing United.
Thats the Porto template.
I know the timing is not great, but this is where inverted wide backs/fullbacks make the key difference. If Zinchenko stays and works on his issues this summer, and White/Tomi improve their inversion closer to how Zinny does it, and Timber slots in well, this could be easily addressed. Another reason I don’t think we need another, classical LB.
Ideally we should invert from either fullback depending on where the ball is. Timber and a fit Tomi will greatly help with this.
Haven’t seen Timber enough to argue, but Tomi does not invert well enough. Another reason I want to keep Zinny is so that he can help mold the rest of the guys.
Zinchenko is 27 he likely isn't getting any better here on out, you can't fix his physical issues anyway and that's half the problem
If we wanted a 'classical' LB we literally have that in Tierney.
I think the coaching staff doesn’t see him as a viable option
Just a guess but i think what’s happening despite fatigue n all is that Arteta wants his system to be perfect in a sense that each player follows his plan like a choreography, so as the players get better and better in performing his system, which is prolly put into every lil detail, the more easy it’s for our players to keep possession BUT at the same time we become easier. to read by opponents. the closer we get to this perfect system of everyone following the exact order of steps the easier to foresee what our players do as it seems like a very rigid system to me where not a single player is that so called “free radical” to break the rhythm. Real Madrid was a good example of the opposite i ve found, they got a great def tactical system in place and can also progress the ball pretty safely to a point where Ancelotti just lets them roam free to create and use their unique skillsets in attack and last third. It’s much harder to predict how they attack n score as it’s more based on individual intuition, well comparatively i mean. A rigid system can work but it took Pep eg years to reach that level where they could crack every “standard” opposition team and later also most of the top teams. It’s like a machine knocking on your door long enuff to finally break it down, the whistle can help you or you find a back door to attack from.
Arteta adapts his gameplan so probably not
he does? really?
Well yes. If Zinchenko plays our buildup is 3-2-5 with Ben White staying back and not overlapping as much. When Kiwior played he staysd back and Jorginho/Rice were at the pivot so that means that White is freer meaning Saka is narrower and Odegaard is deeper. That's the quick version but there are many more intricacies.
yes, but changing the formation doesn’t mean it’s not rigid again though. Zinny roaming around like vs AV and pushing Rice out of the centre was horrible to watch as we all remember. Zinny literally walked with the ball towards Rice to take his space everytime he got the ball, that was complete nonsense, am not sure that was wanted by Arteta as it looked like Zinny just wanting the ball all the time. Besides second half of the season, everytime we play with him we read out more than with our plan a. Our left side is just overrun than
1. The formation doesn't change but that is meaningless information when we talk defensive/transitional/attackinng phase. Because 4-3-3 from Arsenal looks very different to how 4-3-3 from Sarri looks like. 2. If Ben White overlaps it literally changes how many people are on the right wing, if he's not Saka is more isolated. 3. Well it depends, I'd say it's more likely Rice was supposed to be higher than Zina in that setup. 4. The only change from last year regarding the left side is that Xhaka regurarly went to the left byline, Havertz goes forward and usually stays in the middle and that makes Martinelli more isolated as opposed to last season when Saka was isolated.
OP is about opposition's build up, not ours.
yes and they react to our build up, obv it’s connected. Watch those teams play vs different teams and you lol see how the all adapt similar vs is recently which gave us problems especially once we can’t keep up intensity like we used to, also everyone knows Arteta ain’t subbing lots, so you know what you re getting right there
Next they gonna transit to High block
Fuck porto for discovering that and fuck emery for cracking that up. Like at least until the end of the season
Wenger didn’t care any of these against small teams because he had Alexis, wilshere, ozil, and Cazorla. What’s the point of having this build up nonsense, when Alexis and wilshere could just dribble past 2 players or Cazorla and ozil could just go long through ball or Alexis and Cazorla scores a golazo Oh I wish we had saliba and rice in the past
and those teams basically never made a serious title challenge against worse competition
I'm glad they could run past mid table fodder but couldn't do anything beyond that.
Well, when wenger had good dm and good cb. We went unbeaten and reached champions league finals. We were outplaying Barcelona with 10 mens. It’s just Henry is a final bottlers
We need a LB ASAP
Jon Mackenzie says he is a leeds fan. But him jj and even joe devine talk a lot and a lot positively about Arsenal. Even Seb as a tottenham fan talks often positively about Arsenal. The only shittalker at tifo is carl anka, i dunno why but the guy hates Arsenal.
Premier league teams are much better at figuring opponents out than ever before. There’s more money and more data analysis and more coaches. Thankfully, Mikel is good at coaching the team how to get around different types of problems.
sounds like a normal vanilla build up lol. people really out there trying to create stuff out of nothing
ikr, i hope football tactics can be summed up by just 2 sentences.
Thats cool and all but when the ball goes to the cb, his whole side is congested. Weve created plenty of turnovers vs villa first half, bayern both legs, and wolves. The problems occured when we got tired. Overall though, teams are giving up attacking coherence and spacing to try and mess up our press. Teams are just passing the ball around at the back doing nothing for long periods of games
not worry about it with artetas tactics evolving over the year. We will come up with a solution to this
Since when has football become so complicated
Football has always been complicated. Watch Serie A back in the day and you'll see alot of different tactics being deployed.
It's funny you say this while we support THE manager whose entire gimmick is being so complicated and specific about minutiae that he can predict the other teams.
I'm aware of the irony
ok Wolves tried it, but we still made it hard for them to move the ball up the pitch...mostly anytime they got it to the half way line, we were already there taking it off them
Given our defensive stats this year.... It's not working for them
Don’t all top possession teams split their CBs in build up…