Last Sunday, Arsenal travelled to Liverpool to take on Everton, at Goodison Park. Before the game, many fans dread the encounter since Arsenal’s recent away form had been all but convincing. Basically, had Arsenal won the game, the 4th place would have been almost secure. On the contrary, the Champions League race would have been more than ever revived. The game became an absolute nightmare with Arsenal trailing 1-nil after 15 minutes and 2-nil at half-time. Everton defeated Arsenal 3-nil eventually, and Arsenal appeared to be apathetic from the start of the game.
Outplayed in every single domain on the pitch, Arsenal showed very low resistance to Everton’s overwhelming qualities with and without the ball. Unlike Everton, the players didn’t show any desire or willingness to react. The fans were waiting for a reaction that never came in what represented one of Arsenal’s most important games of the season, if not the most important. In a tremendous position of power at the end of January, the situation has drastically evolved and the Gunners will now have to fight to qualify for the Champions League next season since Everton still have a game in hand.
Arsène Wenger had to set up a team lessened by very numerous injuries. The French Manager decided to start the following 11 players: Szczesny, Monreal, Vermaelen, Mertesacker, Sagna, Flamini, Arteta, Podolski, Rosicky, Cazorla and Giroud. With Wilshere, Özil, Koscielny, Gibbs, Diaby, Gnabry and Walcott all unavailable for the game, Wenger had to adapt. Ramsey made his return and was on the bench, though.
At the sight of the starting team, I felt dubious. Many other supporters were too, mentioning the fact Arsenal lacked pace and momentum in the final third in the previous matches. A few questions occurred: Is Podolski’s appointment over Chamberlain a wise choice? Will Arteta and Flamini manage to protect the back four and at the same time put Arsenal in a good attacking position? Will Giroud have enough support?
In my opinion, I genuinely think this game was Arsenal’s worst of the season – even more than Man City, Liverpool or Chelsea defeats. I reviewed the match twice and given the appalling amount of tactical errors Arsenal made during it, I thought I had better split my analysis. That is why I decided to divide it in two and obviously the two parts will be the first half on the one hand and the second half on the other hand.
The game started as it usually does with Arsenal: the players showed great willingness to press the opposition and try to win the ball back as many times as possible. But as if very often happens, this approach did not really last more than 5 or 10 minutes. Everton’s midfield rapidly outmuscled Arsenal’s and the Toffees gained the momentum of the game.
In this first instance, Arsenal are displayed in their most common defensive organization: the back-four, a straight line of 4 players and two players up front who are supposed to prevent the centre backs or defensive midfielders from passing the ball and finding another player in a decent position.
The fact is, in this particular example, one can easily see why it is not going to work properly. Cazorla is playing very centrally thus leaves the right flank and Sagna in total lonesome. In addition, the space between the back four and the midfielders is vast, allowing Everton to play in between the lines – Naismith is left alone and unmarked here.
At first, Arsenal tried to contain Everton from using the wings and therefore play centrally. But Everton were amazingly well positioned and their organization was smart. They tripped Arsenal eventually and the result was that Arsenal suffocated because the players weren’t granted any freedom at all.
Let’s now compare the previous situation with this one. In this instance, Arsenal are in possession. Everton are playing a strong 5-men line with Naismith in front of them: his job is to block Arsenal’s centre midfield’s pass forward.
Everton are positioned very highly on the pitch and the midfield blocks any connexion. Flamini has no solution but to play laterally or backwards. The double-pivot’s influence is prevailed by Everton’s hard work and energy put into the pressing.
Arsenal’s usual short-passing style is made impossible. Hence why many players tried to find Giroud or an attacking midfielder in a more direct manner: long passes or aerial balls.
Here is one clear example: Everton chose to allow Mertesacker to go forward but on the other hand managed to avoid him making a dangerous move. The only option he has is to try and find Giroud who has made himself available. However, you can see that the Frenchman has barely any decent outlet to release the ball or to make a good lay-off. Surprisingly, the only player nearby is Flamini, supposedly Arsenal’s most defensive midfielder.
Giroud has been under a lot of critics yet he tries to help the team. Of course, one can criticize the clear chances he misses but it is hard to say he is useless because he does not create a lot up front. Most of the time, he has to battle on his own against two or three players because nobody tries to help him.
On Everton’s first goal, a few remarks can be made: firstly, Mirallas’ run destabilized Mertesacker and Sagna who felt aspired by the Belgium’s wise move in behind them. Then, Flamini stands in front of Baines without trying to avoid the pass as though he was just staring at him.
Lukaku knows exactly what he is doing: trigger a run in the defence’s back even though it won’t probably work. But the fact is, it did work. Vermaelen inexplicably does not intervene and the pass goes through. Monreal is outpaced by Lukaku and Szczesny has to make a great save to deny the latter’s chance. When the ball bounces back to Naismith, the entire defence is late and cannot clear the ball away.
Here is a very clear example of “individual effort” in terms of pressing. Barkley is in possession of the ball and what the caption does not show is Everton’s total freedom in the 10 seconds prior it. Flamini eventually makes an attempt at winning the ball back.
But to efficiently put pressure on your adversary you need to have your entire team work in the same way. Unlike Everton, Arsenal sat rather deep and were ineffective. Flamini’s work could have been fruitful provided Arsenal’s block was in agreement with his effort.
Contrary to Arsenal, Everton enjoyed the liberty they were granted.
More regularly than normally, Flamini’s task was to go forward either by passing the ball or throwing himself up the pitch. The issue is twofold: Flamini cannot do that, he does not have the required qualities to do so. Also, due to Arsenal’s very poor movements around him, he scarcely ever managed to find one of his teammates. I will not elaborate further on this caption since we have already mentioned a similar one previously.
Once again, Arsenal don’t find the creativity necessary to build dangerous attacking chances. Flamini often found himself in a high-position on the pitch although it is not his position. Cazorla has tracked back and parked himself almost alongside Arteta.
Podolski is drifting centrally because despite Rosicky’s move, he cannot go forward. Indeed, Podolski is not useful in the build-up for he is not gifted technically as Cazorla or Rosicky are. To me, Podolski must be used purely and solely on the flank where he can provide decent crosses. Otherwise, he must make his runs between the centre back and the full back. Arsenal and Podolski are incompatible when the game is static.
I found this situation striking because Giroud, who is supposed to be in the box ready to cut a possible cross, is the player crossing the ball in. Additionally, Arsenal do not have enough presence in the box: Podolski is Arsenal’s only player in that very area while Everton have (almost) 4 players, 3 of which are surrounding Podolski.
One could say it would be interesting to have Cazorla and Podolski interchanging their position: Podolski could support Giroud in the box and if Rosicky joined them, Arsenal would be more threatening. But that would only work if both Flamini and Arteta were ready to block the opposition on the break.
Arsenal lack a late-runner and now that Ramsey is back, a part of the issue might be effectively solved. The Welshman often came in from deep and stroke a cross in the back of the net.
Back to defensive issues now. On the image, Arsenal are in a clear harmful position. Cazorla does not stop the pass and Sagna is nowhere near he should be. On the other hand, I personally don’t know what Flamini is expecting sitting where he is: he should be making up for Sagna’s bad positioning.
Arsenal are totally disorganized for even if Flamini would have been blocking Barkley, Arteta is very far from him and Arsenal would have been exposed anyway.
This caption was taken just before Everton’s second goal. Arteta has lost the ball and there is nobody behind him to protect Arsenal from Everton’s pace on the break. Instead of being positioned alongside his partner, Flamini was on the right flank. On the left, Monreal is on his own to face Lukaku since Podolski is tracking back very slowly.
I would have liked to see Monreal stop Lukaku as soon as he received the ball, or at least when he was approaching the box. It was as if the defence were watching the Belgium who literally made fun of them.
The ultimate instance of the first part of this game’s analysis is one rare situation where Arsenal tried to counter attack. Monreal ran up his wing but eventually had to stop and pass the ball back to the centre backs because he did not find an Arsenal player in front of him to combine with.
If we further elaborate, Podolski looks all but interested in helping Monreal: he is trotting towards the centre of the pitch while Rosicky seems to be the only one to move in direction of the Spaniard or at least in front of him.
From the aforementioned points and to conclude on the first half, altogether Arsenal didn’t achieve anything convincing. Defensively, the pressure imposed on Everton was unorganized and the defence’s positioning was indisputably reckless in addition to a lack of protection from the two central midfields. On an attacking point of view, recurrent pace and creativity problems turned out to be yet again what prevailed Arsenal from finding decent chances to actually score a goal.
From Paris With Love… See you soon for the second part.
