On December 20, 2019, we saw Arsenal offer to name the Manchester City assistant coach Mikel Arteta as permanent head coach.
Before this appointment, in 2018, the Spaniard would have been in the running for the post before the Gunners’ council finally opted for a compatriot at Unai Emery.
The period between Emery’s appointment and her possible departure in November 2019 has seen Arteta’s stock as coach continue to increase.
Stories have started to emerge from Manchester City about his ability to coach and develop 1v1 players and his tactical sense.
Despite his complete lack of experience as a head coach, Arteta was still considered a popular choice among Arsenal fans. Partly because of his playing career with the club.
Since the appointment of Arteta, there was an air of positivity around the North London club.
Under Emery, Arsenal’s style of play was often slow and boring with few effective attack intentions. Indeed, despite the attack by Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette, there were still games in which they had trouble mounting serious attacks.
The case, in this case, was clear to Arteta, to start building a more effective game model that would begin to unleash the team’s attack potential.
We must of course also keep in mind that he found himself in a situation where the team was designed for someone else and for a very specific style of play.
In order to pass any sort of judgment on the effectiveness of Arteta at the club, we will have to allow her to develop the club during the last three transfer windows.
What we can do, however, is now to start analyzing and breaking down the tactical system he has used so far with the Gunners.
The attacking structure
When Arteta was appointed coach of Arsenal, much of the excitement from the fan base came when fans thought the Spaniard would be taking part of Pep Guardiola’s tactical plan.
To some extent, this has been the case, but only when we look beyond the training’s tactical structure and consider the ideas behind how it makes Arsenal attack.
Guardiola is, of course, famous for his use of the 4-3-3 structure but so far we have seen Arteta prefer a 4-2-3-1 with Mesut Ozil, frozen under Emery, acting as the key player in Role “10”.
When Manchester City attack, we generally see the two “8” advancing to occupy the half-spaces, the wide attackers retaining their wide position.
This movement, associated with a tendency of the rear sides to move inside, creates something approaching a 2-3-5 shape in the attack phase.
Arsenal, under Arteta, achieves the same structure with a slightly different set of moves.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was moved to a split to the left of the attack with Nicolas Pepe in the summer on the right. While the latter tends to keep its wide position to the right, Aubameyang is much more likely to drift indoors to occupy half space or central areas.
Ozil then moves to the right half space and the width of the left side is provided by the left rear which moves quickly in an advanced position.
This movement from the depths was made possible by the decision to move Bukayo Saka to play as a left back as opposed to a left attacker.
We see an example of this structure above with wide Saka on the left side.
The central attacker, the left attacker and the “10” for Arsenal occupy all the half spaces or the central corridor and this movement forced the defense of Newcastle in a narrow block.
This movement from the rear side of the opposition simply creates more space that can be largely exploited with Saka, on the left, and Pepe, on the right.
We see a similar situation here, on the opposite side.
While Saka, on the left, tends to move high to extend the width of the field, we usually see the right rear, whether it is Bellerin of Maitland-Niles, moving inside the half space to connect with the two central midfielders.
This movement is effectively a control function with the line of three offering a constant option for the ball to be read and recycled.
Attacking players then occupy the five key attack zones, the two wide zones, the two half-spaces and the central corridor. This spacing across the front line makes the effective defense of the opposition exceptionally difficult.
Ball progress
It is very good for Arsenal to occupy the attack line effectively, but if the ball does not move through the units to reach the front line, it is largely useless.
In order to progress cleanly from back to front, there are certain key functions that we see from Arsenal. We have already discussed it above with the movement of the right rear which is reversed towards the central midfielders.
As Saka, on the left, climbs high almost immediately during Arsenal’s transition to attack, there must be movement from elsewhere to allow the defense and midfielder to connect.
This tends to come from the left central midfielder, often Granit Xhaka, who almost backs into a central left back position to allow the ball to progress cleanly.
We see this movement in the example above as Xhaka falls deeper to receive the ball.
By forming a back-three, it is very difficult for the opponent to press the ball effectively before Arsenal can advance it.
In these areas, when the midfielder takes possession of the ball, the game may advance and cross the halfway line to find attacking players, who will generally seek possession in space.
Defensive issues
For the whole Arsenal has improved so far under Arteta in the attack phase, this always has a cost in the defensive phase.
The Gunners constantly commit resources and attack in a 2-3-5 form. This naturally leaves a space that the opposition can easily attack when it enters its own attack phase.
These spaces tend to be mainly in wide areas and Arsenal have no central defenders who are comfortable when sidelined and isolated against a single attacking player.
In the more established defensive phase, we also see the opposition succeeding in isolating and overloading the rear ends too easily.
Above is an example of this from the recent game against Chelsea.
The ball is given to the wide player for the opponent and Hector Bellerin must move to close the ball.
As he does, we see Willian attacking on the blind side of Bellerin and a single pass around the corner puts the opposition in a position to threaten the penalty area.
None of the three attacking midfielders is well known for their defensive pace of work and as such, the rear ends, in particular, can be exposed.
A similar situation here on the other side of the field.
The first pass moves to the wide player of Jorginho and when the Arsenal player moves to engage the ball carrier and press the ball, we see a Chelsea star take a ride in the back to access the space .
This race and movement made it easier to read the pass outside and once again, the opposition bypassed the Arsenal defensive block.
Conclusion
So far, it would be fair to say that Mikel Arteta has had a good start as an Arsenal coach.
There are early signs of an impressive game model although, of course, the results and performance are not perfect.
There are still gaps in the team that need to be corrected through recruitment, but over time I think the Spaniard will be a success at the club.
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