Arsenal have scored four goals in their last five games and that perfectly reflects the amount of points they have achieved in the same period, which is clearly quite disastrous for a team that plans to fight for the title. The talk about Arsenal’s attack is not recent, it has been rumbling beneath the surface all season.
Here is a selection of headlines from this column over the past seven weeks. ‘Double up’, ‘The spare man’, ‘How can Arsenal get more out of their attack?’ and ‘Arsenal need another striker, but what kind of striker?’
The buzzword among Arsenal fans this season has been “control”, as Arteta has clearly sought to protect his team against the kind of transitional moments that blighted them in the second half of last season. There is an important point here: Arsenal’s approach needed to evolve and the second half of last campaign showed us that in very clear terms.
It’s up for debate whether what Arsenal are currently doing is the most optimal response to this, but they can’t put the genie back in the bottle and go back to September 2022. Teams had already adapted to that slightly more exciting approach. but a little more complicated. . I was recently reminded of an interview Mikel Arteta gave to Sky Sports’ Nick Wright ahead of the Aston Villa game and the start of this barren period.
Arteta rejected the word “control” when it was proposed to him. “More than control, I want dominance. Dominance in the right zone and without letting the rival breathe. This is what we do. Controlling certain areas of the field, that doesn’t interest me at all, because we can get into trouble if we try.”
He kind of buried the clue in that quote. It is the final sentence that is instructive. “Control in certain areas of the field, I’m not interested in all that, because we can get into trouble if we try.” I think it’s reasonably obvious that he’s referring to playing too much in the central areas. Arsenal have prioritized open plays early to protect the team against transitions, as it is considered a better and safer area to try and regain possession when lost.
Arsenal leaves the center to control a match. It seemed paradoxical at first, but now Arteta sees it as a way to sustain attacks for longer: opening up earlier is a guarantee against the risk if we lose it, it stretches the opponents’ pressure and allows us to avoid it to establish the position. higher pic.twitter.com/E9LNpA4OKF
– Arsenal Column (@ArsenalColumn) December 31, 2023
Clearly, that has put even more strain on Saka and Martinelli, who are being asked to do more. This season, according to FBRef, Arsenal have “enjoyed” a 40.5% takeover success rate, the third lowest in the division. Last season they had the fifth highest success rate. (Manchester City currently has the highest success rate in the league.)
This is not only because the teams are doubling Martinelli and Saka, but because both players receive the ball earlier in the movements. The pace of Arsenal’s attacks has been slowed to ensure the team is in a position to defend counter-attacks, but the unintended consequence of this more considered approach is that opponents are being given more time to act.
Unpredictability and spontaneity are crucial factors in breaking deep blockages. Arsenal are not dribbling well enough or the wide players are not in optimal dribbling positions. The team avoids central zones and quick central combinations are another crucial factor in causing defenses to get out of position. Arsenal also change games very rarely, having the fourth lowest frequency in this metric in the league.
West Ham top this particular metric in the Premier League, so in isolation it’s not a recipe for success. But it’s another way of moving defensive blocks that Arsenal don’t really use; I imagine it’s because game changes are a high-risk maneuver that leaves you vulnerable to the transition if you do them wrong. It all adds up to an image of predictability and a team that probably just turned the dial between security and spontaneity too far toward the conservative side.
In recent weeks, Odegaard has gone deeper in search of the ball, Declan Rice is quite often positioned between the centre-backs, the wide players receive the ball closer to the halfway line than the penalty area and the centre-forward likes to leave himself fall Deep and link play.
In short, Arteta has to find a way to provoke deep defensive blocks out of shape. I’m sure he will also be concerned that Fulham seemed to accept winning the ball back from Arsenal in wide areas and decided to maximize wide transitions, exposing a key part of his security system.
Elite managers constantly make these adjustments to teams. Liverpool haven’t gone from finishing fifth in May to topping the table on New Year’s Day, crossing their fingers and hoping the wind changes. Pep Guardiola is constantly innovating and evolving what he asks his teams to do and Arsenal have reached a stage where they need to evolve out of necessity.
Their “structural” attacking problems are also supported by personnel problems. Firstly, they lack quality in depth in attack. Arteta appears to like Nketiah and Trossard as bench options, but he is less inclined to use Reiss Nelson and Emile Smith Rowe. It means that the team not only lacks rotation options, but also lacks ways to significantly change the temperature of its attack in-game.
Arsenal had seven goals from open play from substitutes in their first 13 league games, but have not had one since Kai Havertz’s last goal at Brentford seven league games ago. A lot of this is down to the personnel, Gabriel Martinelli came off the bench to score the winning goal against Manchester City, Gabriel Jesus scored a crucial last-gasp goal against Manchester United. Leandro Trossard scored technically as a substitute at Goodison Park, but came on in the 29th minute due to an injury to Gabriel Martinelli.
Havertz’s goal from the bench at Brentford began a period of form that means he is no longer considered a substitute. In short, now that Jesus, Martinelli, Saka and Havertz have been available for a concerted period, Trossard, Nketiah, Nelson and Smith Rowe have been unable to change the pattern of matches in the game (the latter two have had fewer opportunities to do so, of course, but that’s clearly because the manager doesn’t think they’re capable of it).
Of course, there have been other personnel changes this season. Granit (Manchester City have run into similar problems this season with Gundogan’s departure and De Bruyne’s injury.)
The truth is also that, apart from avoiding riskier attacking moves, Arsenal do not (yet) possess a highly influential attacker of the quality of Haaland or Salah to really make opposing defenses anxious. Loss of form for individuals is also an unsatisfactory explanation, but just because it is unsatisfactory does not mean it is not true.
Not many clubs intent on winning the league ask 22-year-old players to lead the attack, prevent the team’s transition, and don’t have solid backup options for either of them. Of course, other questions about staff can also be raised. I think Raya has been a marginal improvement on Ramsdale in goal, but I think it’s fair to ask whether signing him represented a sensible allocation of resources given the importance of depth and variety in attack.
Arsenal will hope that Kai Havertz can move towards that 10-15 goal mark for the season and that his assimilation can continue and offer greater variety (which cannot be taken for granted) but, at the moment, Arsenal need some form of evolution to make them a more dangerous attacking team, especially since a transforming attacker is unlikely to be available in the January market.
Follow me on Twitter @Stillmanator
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