By Vinay Shankar (Tactical Analyst)
A resolute defensive performance to finally break the long overdue winless streak against the treble winners.
With Partey not fully fit, Arsenal went back to a similar lineup as the Community Shield game with Jorginho deputising as the deepest midfielder. The focus on extra protection in transitions and building out from the back looked to be the focus of this tactic.
City set up without any natural wingers and Bernardo Silva playing in the Rodri role alongside Foden and Alvarez playing around Haaland. Arsenal used a narrow 4-4-2 press to force City into playing to build out wide. Both Walker and Gvardiol did not really pose any threat from the wide areas and with the central areas very congested, both teams were canceling each other out. Dropping deeper, the focus was to prevent any easy passes into the half-spaces and creation of overloads, and aside from early set-pieces, City’s attacking threat was minimal. Doku was brought on later to provide a threat from wide positions but the fullbacks dealt with that threat with ease.
In the first half, Arsenal struggled to build out from the back against City’s press with a lot of risky passes attempted to break the first press. Without Saka and Martinelli, there was a lack of a vertical threat and Jesus proved to be the only outlet to reach the final third. Once City’s press was not as vigorous, the build-up was already 20-30 yards higher up the pitch and less nervy.
Rice seemed to struggle to get into the game much in the first half in the left-sided role but with Martinelli’s introduction, he found himself in advanced positions, and his runs from deeper areas were not rewarded on a few occasions.
Nketiah struggled quite a bit as his poor touches prevented consistent hold-up play, which makes a challenging task more complicated against one of the best defences. His work rate and scrappiness are never in question but sometimes all the effort spent in getting into good positions seems to cause tunnel vision and prevent any building of chemistry with other teammates. It is no surprise that this makes our attacking threat appear dysfunctional as compared to Jesus.
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