Arsenal's Rambo-esque start of the season analysed

Fenerbahce v Arsenal

Our pressing system hasn’t always been the best. But against the Turks it looked pretty efficient. It worked out quite well; depending on which side the ball was, the winger (Walcott or Cazorla) stepped up in front of the opposition putting them under pressure. Rosicky slid on all the width of the pitch and blocked the connection with the opposing midfield’s while Giroud had a mission to annihilate the link with the center backs. When the ball-holder was in the center (for example one of the center backs) Olivier Giroud and Tomas Rosicky were on duty. It wasn’t a surprised to notice that Walcott didn’t always respect his duties forcing Wilshere to compensate.

As it very often happens, Walcott drifted centrally to put himself alongside Giroud. I think that is one of the things which annoys me the most about Theo and I can literally get mad at him for such things. Walcott is going to have to understand that he has to move and play with defenders to help Sagna. Bacary remains alone most of the time and has to play sideways. We are a team which suffers from lack of width and Walcott can fix that but he prefers playing centrally. We need to stretch the opponent’s block and Walcott can do it by taking the overlap.

In this image we face another type of situation. Arsenal have three players in a 10 meter perimeter. Therefore it is hard to bother the opposition that just has to block the links with any other player and force Arsenal to play backwards. First of all, Cazorla has to stick on his left in this type of position; he can drive the ball in when he actually is in possession of the ball. Besides Wilshere and Ramsey who form the double pivot aren’t supposed to be so close. Basically one of them has to contain himself to a “control-pass” [Ramsey] mode while the other proposes a solution higher [Wilshere].

During the game, on several occasions Cazorla and Rosicky switched positions. It guaranteed better defensive coverage from the Spaniard as he didn’t need to track back to his wing to press and help the full back. Especially given that Santi loves driving the ball around and often finishes far from his initial left flank position. Hence Rosicky instinctively took his position on the left and Cazorla stuck in the center to press directly on the player once the ball was given away.

For example in this situation, Cazorla is coming in from the right. We can see Rosicky on the left, a bit further along. However, the main point of this image is not really that. This is a very common situation to Arsenal. The Spaniard dribbles very well, often manages to cut the defense up. There’s a huge hole here on the left flank eased by Giroud’s movement. The Frenchman likes to drag away defenders from their initial position and disorganize the opposition. That’s exactly what he is doing here: moving sideways so the player marking him has to follow. And so space is created on the flank – [if the image was in fact a video you’d be able to see Gibbs flying down the pitch after Cazorla triggered a superb through ball].

Here Arsenal have their entire midfield and attacking lines grouped in very small premises. We tend to face this type of situation quite often to be honest. A few reasons to that: first of all, all our players are basically central players. Secondly, nobody is providing a good solution for the ball-holder therefore the bloc is static. Wilshere is forced to play sideways and afterwards Rosicky will play towards the center backs. That’s where Theo Walcott needs to sort Arsenal out: when he is static and not preparing a run he is useless to Arsenal and can even easily become a handicap. He needs to make his runs at this moment – make ball calls, but intelligent ones. It might not even be to actually receive the ball but just to stretch the opposition’s bloc, get the midfield to move backwards and consequently space and options present themselves.

The higher the pace of the game is, the better it is for the Gunners who stick to their high tempo style of play. Especially for players like Rosicky, Wilshere and Cazorla who can definitely be dangerous when driving the ball around.

Unlike the Villa game, Ramsey stuck to the role he was asked to hold: not really a defensive midfielder, but the most defensive of the two double-pivot players. Pure logic: he was with Arteta in charge of most of the defensive tasks last year and besides that, Wilshere is not the type of player that you want to put in charge of such things. So Aaron was our man at the back.

Against Villa, he didn’t really convince anyone. Instead of being perfectly disciplined he kind of lost his mind and decided to basically act like Alex Song: fly up the field, drive the ball god knows how and maybe get myself involved in a goal. We all know he can’t do that with his defensive responsibilities, and Ramsey knows it too. That’s why he decided to be more disciplined against Fenerbahce. And what was the result of his discipline? A man of the match award.

On this image, Ramsey was the first player the defenders were looking for. The player that Arteta usually is. Ramsey played with a lot of composure, he played simply, easily and cleverly. The double pivot with Wilshere functioned way better than against Aston Villa – probably due to the weakness of Fenerbahce’s midfield – but it’s encouraging. Ramsey didn’t lay deep all game, he had a few opportunities to move forward and help the team build up the attack. That’s how he scored actually. I feel it might be Aaron Ramsey’s season. Especially if Wenger goes for a pure DM which would allow Ramsey to be a sort of box to box between the defense and the attack without having to worry for the space he leaves behind him.