Another victory in the North London Derby left us much to talk about. Therein lies the way Arsenal dominated the first half, taking advantage of Tottenham’s passivity out of possession to play from behind calmly and trap Spurs. Gabriel and Saliba were able to get the ball out against an isolated Harry Kane.
Spurs were stretched out, with Odegaard and Xhaka again playing outside and behind the Tottenham midfielders, drawing players from the bottom five to deal with them and creating space for Bukayo Saka to chase down Ryan Sessegnon one on one. Defensively, Arsenal brought Saka deeper than usual, following Sessegnon, allowing Ben White to close in on Son Heung-min. There was also the superb performance of Aaron Ramsdale.
But one particular element of Arsenal’s approach in the final third of Sunday really stood out to me. And it is because of something we did, and something that Martin Odegaard said, in October.
“It was a great goal. We knew before the game that he was going to be free in those areas and we practiced a lot, to find him in those areas, and he hit a great shot,” said the captain after Thomas Partey opened the scoring at 3-1. To win.
Anyone up for a find the difference game?
Partey’s shot off the post on Sunday was just yards from where he scored in October. The Blanco-Ødegaard-Saka triangle is there again, with Son’s white goal. William Saliba marks Harry Kane for a possible escape. And there are 8-9 Tottenham players in the last 20 yards of the field, but none close enough to challenge Partey, block a potential shot or press the ball.
We knew it then and we knew it again this time. Tottenham collapse when the ball goes wide and their area is threatened. Mikel Arteta knows it and has ensured that his players know it too. Arsenal have taken 17 of their 36 shots in this season’s North London derbies from outside the box. That’s 47.2% of the team’s shots in those games.
Now, Arsenal are not shy of shots from a distance. The team has taken 88 shots from outside the box this season, the fourth most in the league. but step back and you’ll see 31% of Arsenal’s shots this season from outside the box, pretty close to the league average. Only Liverpool and Brentford take their shots from closer to the goal on average, and both clubs have a much higher proportion of headers than Mikel Arteta’s team.
Tottenham’s defensive strategy when in their own third is to force opponents to take bad shots, nothing too close to the goal. They pack the box and allow efforts from the scope; A league-high 44% of the shots Tottenham have faced have come from outside the box so far this season. But Arsenal, instead of trying to get the ball in, as the famous accusation traditionally goes, have leaned into space against their local rivals and it has worked.
Usually happy to recycle the ball around the box, Partey has taken just 12 shots from outside the box in 15 Premier League appearances this season. He’s shooting less frequently than he has in each of the past two seasons. However, four of those 12 efforts came in the two North London derbies. Similarly, Odegaard is averaging 1.3 shots from outside the box per game this season but has taken six shots against Tottenham in the two derbies, five in open play, all from outside the box.
It paid off for Partey in October and for Odegaard this time. And it’s a solid plan, the space was always there against Antonio Conte’s side. If a ball strays clear and bounces in a prime spot: central, just inside or just on the edge of the box, it’s just going to land on a red jersey here…
The same goes for the first goal, where Tottenham’s defenders outnumber the red jerseys and cover the entire area to start…
… only to collapse and end up in a position where a subpar deflection or clearance would land an Arsenal player with time to shoot.
The same thing happened again minutes later when Nketiah shot at the goal…
History repeated itself when Partey hit the post with that great effort just five minutes after that, and the same gap had appeared again at half-time a few minutes earlier. As Arsenal progress, they are once again outnumbered and there is no easy ball, with Son blocking Odegaard in the middle…
…but Son is dragged onto the ball as Ben White overlaps and defenders don’t want to go one-on-one against Saka, opening up yards and yards ahead of Odegaard as Saka returns the ball to him…
… on that occasion Lloris denied him a good effort but it was another move similar to the plans for the first derby of the season. The ball returns to the same box from which it was scored in the first half of October and the space is created by the same overlapping runs from Ben White that saw Arsenal create the chance Gabriel Jesus scored that day.
And it didn’t matter that Lloris saved that effort, because Odegaard used it only as a viewpoint.
The next time the captain found himself in a similar position, he found the net, with self-proclaimed central defender Cristian Romero making no effort to close it out and right-back Matt Doherty tracking a run from Gabriel Martinelli so well that he continued. he tracked it down after Martinelli had stopped running.
Doherty comes in to stop a through ball to Martinelli, but the Brazilian is already wide anyway and the defender keeps moving deeper. Between him and Romero, they have taken the option of a ball from behind, but Odegaard has carried the ball five meters without opposition to enter the shooting field and the defenders who were in front of him have done nothing to hinder the shot.
With a deserved second goal, Arsenal were well on their way to their first north London derby double since 2014.
Of course, it takes quality to score from distance, but that doesn’t mean generating those chances can’t or isn’t part of a well-thought-out plan. Arsenal had also dominated possession and territory against Newcastle in their last league game, but failed to find the back of the net. Six of the 17 shots that day came from outside the box, but only three of them came before the 84th minute.
Finding ways to break through a stubborn defense often includes trying to get them out of position by letting them know you’re willing to shoot and capable of scoring from distance. When Tottenham are in their own third, they collapse as deep as possible to protect the box.
Arsenal knew they would find joy in these areas against Tottenham in October and, more than three months later, their north London rivals have done nothing to fix it.
