By Vinay Shankar (Tactical Analyst)
A calm and controlled away victory to keep up the fantastic start to the season and capitalise on a favourable start to the season.
Continuity in lineups is allowing this team to build chemistry and allowing us to ease in the players with interrupted pre-seasons in a controlled environment.
The left side of Arsenal’s attack has been eye-catching to watch and proving to be a difference-maker to the creativity and fluidity in possession. There have already been variations of how the trio of Martinelli, Xhaka, and Zinchenko operate when the team has possession and the positions they take up to overload the opposition.
In the previous game against Leicester, there was a strong focus on creating the passing triangles to overload the right side while this game saw Zinchenko slot in next to Partey when the centre-backs had the ball while Xhaka constantly attacked the left half-space to create a front-five against the back five of Bournemouth.
Zinchenko’s versatility is the big difference-maker in these situations and a great tactical weapon to have in the quest to be as unpredictable as possible. The Ukrainian is essentially a midfielder at left-back and he’s developed his defensive instincts to sniff out dangerous situations to add to his refined technical qualities. The left side of Arsenal‘s attack was hindering the creative output in the past but a fluid trio with a quality striker has brought a new level out of Martinelli.
The increase in the usage of the left side to build attacks has opened up the spaces on the other side to exploit and while Saka is still settling into the season, this should prove to make a big difference in the chance creation and a more balanced offensive threat.
Immediate execution of the game plan is always the best way to start away games and dictate the tempo in this league. For the first half, everything was clean in terms of touches and winning the second balls to prevent the home side from even entering the penalty box. But as the Cherries shifted to a back four in the second half and committed much more players to the high press forcing a lot of turnovers and a reduction in Arsenal’s possession stats.
There’s still a lot of room for improvement, especially with regard to the second-half stats. Anticipating the tactical changes and increased intensity from the opposition after the interval and quelling any unnecessary problems of our own is still a work in process. Dropping too deep without the ball and attempting too many risky passes are just some of the many challenges that this team needs to improve upon to finish games better.
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