Talking Tactics: The Dortmund press that undid Arsenal's slick passing

The Wilshere decision

In a rather unexpected move, Wenger plumped for Wilshere in a wide-right position.

Wilshere is at his best when playing through the middle just behind the No. 10, which in Arsenal’s case is Ozil. His drive and energy from that deep-lying midfield role, where he can take on defenders and use his short-passing skills to good effect, serve the team best.

On the right last night, Wilshere often was found wanting, both in terms of creativity as well as getting his teammates involved. Wilshere is predominantly a left-footed player and he had to cut back in on that favoured foot to try and get any sort of momentum going.

But, that is exactly what Dortmund wanted; they wanted Arsenal to play narrow which their defence and midfield could easily fend off. Once Wilshere cut in, he was there for the taking for the likes of Hummels, Subotic and Bender.

And that’s where Wenger’s substitution of Santi Cazorla worked. Cazorla is a gifted two-footed player; though not even close to a traditional winger, Cazorla delivers good out-balls from isolated positions and is very good in bringing the full-backs into play. Him being two-footed and having a good shot, causes problems for the defenders as they tend to think twice before allowing him to cut back.

Cazorla’s introduction immediately yielded results and there was a greater verve to Arsenal’s attacks after that.

Consequently, though Dortmund employed the same formation, their attackers in Reus and ‘Kuba’ are very good playing on the wing and playing inside, which made them a difficult proposition to handle for the Arsenal defence.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan was the beneficiary in all of this as he made those smart runs down the middle behind Lewandowski and employed some slick one-two passing moves with the likes of Reus and Kuba to drag the Arsenal back-four out of position.