Tactics review – Swansea away

This article continues our occasional review of the tactics employed by Arsenal this season.

By Arvind

This is the game against Swansea at the Liberty. A super interesting game when I watched it slowly. It’s a classic template of how we’re doing what teams used to do to us a few years ago. It’s just soaking up an immense amount of pressure and pretty much playing on the counter. If I may suggest it.. it’s actually a variation of how Mourinho’s 2005-06 teams used to play…a more offensive variation. Note that this isn’t against every team – just teams that can keep the ball better or as well as us.

Attack:

There were many interesting things I noticed this game. Mertesacker is winning many many more headers offensively, in the opposition D. That means we are improving on set piece delivery and box positioning – a very useful skill to develop, specially in big games.

Ramsey hits a number of reverse passes, more than the normal ones. Teams are going to catch on to them, and he’s going to have to mix it up more. I’m looking forward to it with great excitement – his continued development.

Our offence in the first half was extremely poor. The Swansea keeper played the ball with his feet the first time after 19 minutes. That just means that:

–          Our pressing was extremely bad

–          We were pinned back in our own half

Plus it means that Ozil’s not in the game coz he just floats around like a butterfly to try and sting like a bee (Sorry ; )).

Wilshere on the left wing was completely anonymous offensively and Aaron had a number of bad passes offensively. In short the first half – the offence was very poor.

The second half was distinctly better – we pressed much better and much higher up the pitch. Still though, we were giving the ball away and running back to cover much more than we should need to. Doing this in big games in the CL means we will run out of gas after 75 minutes and Bayern will pick us off for a 2-0 win.

The attack wasn’t going through Jack at all, again. It’s not the first time I’m seeing that. It’s a combination of him playing in the wide positions, his form and Ramsey’s exceptional form which means more is going through him all the time. He’s in the same phase as Ramsey was last season – exactly the same. Next year, he will be better..and by the time Mikel and Flamini move on when their legs go…it’ll be Jack and Aaron back there in the center.

Gnabry had a good game – more defensively but he was a bright spark offensively – popping up everywhere. Probably the best of all our attacking play went through him.

There was one period of play when Ramsey was playing in the CF position, Giroud dropped off, Kos started playing very high up..and Szcz was playing sweeper. The moment Ramsey dropped deeper..Chico Flores, the Swansea CB came with him – that points to Swansea playing a zonal marking system.

The first goal? Ramsey drove forward..played another reverse ball, Giroud got lucky with a bounce in between but Serge Gnabry with a calm drive into the far corner took it well. The kid’s good and he’s a strong boy too. Let’s hope he develops more. I’d hoped Eisfeld would make it too – but he’s still playing with the U21 .. let’s see.

The second goal… It all started with Kos staying on his feet and forcing Dyer to shoot. Szcz got the ball, released it upfield. Ozil got it wide – played the Hleb pre-assist (I loved the guy really.. sad he left)… Wilshere won a fantastic challenge in midfield, Giroud’s flicks came off (I’m starting to think they’re not flukes and he practices them) played a few one twos…and Ramsey smashed it in and did the rest really.

The rest of the game..again..we did nothing and reverted to playing like the first half after Swansea’s goal. In short a pretty poor game for our offence but we got the 3 points.

Defence:

Szcz got a huge number of touches in the first few minutes. Means Swansea were pressing really high. His kicking has improved though, so nothing happened. Ozil wasn’t sitting on Jonjo Shelvey enough who was spraying balls around like Xavi or Pirlo – he really bossed the game from midfield that first half. Gnaby was very good defensively that day and tracked back a lot. We played so defensively that day that we were firing backpasses to Szcz again and again – it was just awful to watch.

I watched a Swansea counter attack with interest and thought – ah we should break more like that. The speed they turned defence into attack was such that before I knew it the ball was on the half way line with runners streaming forward. That’s one reason where Theo hurts teams so badly – he can burst from inside his half and one reason why we have to play a different way if he’s not there. This game.. our counter attacking too was sporadic.

We seemed solid defensively though – for all of Swansea’s possession they couldn’t get too much on target at all, even in the first half. They started getting in behind only very late in the game and even then we seemed in control.

The goal was a poor one to concede really. It was a hopeful diagonal ball to the LB who kept running at Bac who didn’t do anything, foul him, tackle him or block the run or show him on the outside. The LB ran straight into the D… nearly 50 yards maybe, played a one-two which came off (fantastic little flick and I’m not sure its repeatable) and everyone stood and admired it..letting the LB continue to run and score. Bac mainly to blame here but the CBs didn’t cover themselves in glory by ball watching and not heading the flick away.

Really though, it was more a moment of magic that opened us up ..and that can happen. Every other time a Swansea player was on the ball near our final third, there were at least 5 yellow shirts around him in a circle. That can only be good for the future.

Overall not a great game to watch – but we were very very efficient. Maintained an excellent defensive shape and were rewarded with a win in Wales.

Arsenal anniversaries on 27 December…

• 27 December 1899: Clement Ross Voysey born in New Cross
• 27 December 1902: Arsenal start their record breaking 10 match unbeaten run with 5-1 home defeat of Burnley
• 27 December 1904, Nottingham Forest (away).  One of five games in eight days
• 27 December 1909: Woolwich Arsenal v Liverpool
• 27 December 1921: Debuts for Billy Milne and Robert Turnbull away to Cardiff.
• 27 December 1926: League debut for Horace Cope and Harold Peel. Last match for James Ramsay
• 27 December 1930: George Male first game for the first team.  Arsenal 7 Blackpool 1  The fourth game of the season with five or more goals by Arsenal
• 27 December 1932: Norman Sidey debut
• 27 December 1969: Jimmy Robertson final Arsenal game
• 27 December 1971: Alan Ball debut for Arsenal
• 27 December 1972: George Graham sold to Man U for £120,000
• 27 December 2007: Bendtner scores six seconds after coming on for match v Tottenham
• 27 December 2010: Freddie Ljungberg joins Celtic.