By Alfie Cairns Culshaw (Chief Editor)
My first tactical article after the World Cup and it was interesting to write about what was one of the most tactical Arsenal matches this season.
Without Moises Caicedo and Alexis MacAlister, Brighton’s midfield base was very light and they struggled to keep the ball in the early stages with Arsenal’s press suffocating them but the lack of clinical edge from this period kept it a one-goal margin.
Once Brighton settled down and dictated the play, Arsenal’s press suddenly became very passive and slow. There was a lot of uncertainty at the front of the press w.r.t whether Odegaard or Martinelli pressed as a two with Nketiah. There seemed to be a greater success when Martinelli pressed high but a low-energy mid-block became the structure without the ball.
Brighton did not seem to have any obvious patterns but they did push their fullback high on the opposite side of the passage of the play and Arsenal never really dealt with it well, especially the long diagonals to Mitoma with Estupinian supporting. Their transitions were a big problem defensively especially when one of Xhaka or Partey drifted too far forward but a lack of chance creation left them nothing to show for it.
With Colwill marking Odegaard, Dunk was their only defender and there was a lot of space for Nketiah to run into without much pressure. Ball retention was a big problem at any stage of the game with Brighton’s front-four press preventing any sort of simple passing between centre backs or to the fullbacks at all times. Any passes into the channels were also a trigger for the next line of press and even at 0-3, the game was not under control.
Arsenal was always creating chances at any stage of the game as Brighton always committing numbers forward leaving a lot of space for Odegaard and Martinelli in transitions.
Taking off both fullbacks was understandable at 0-3 but against the tricky Mitoma, it was going to be a tough battle for Tomiyasu especially after just recovering from injury. Brighton overwhelmed Arsenal by creating triple overloads on either side and late runs into the box from their midfielders caused a lot of confusion in man-marking. Saliba still seems to be finding his feet after the World Cup and his lack of decisiveness in some situations made the match a lot more anxious than it needed to be.
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