Arsenal: A Tactical Analysis

Well, thanks to the international break we now have two weeks full of just about no news surrounding Arsenal (until of course our players are injured during their international matches). So because of the lack of news I thought it would be a good time to once again step back and have a look at the team as a whole. Instead of any sort of squad reviews, today I'm going to look at our tactical system, specifically our style of play.

In order to most clearly see our current style's chance of success, we're going to compare the team's current style with that of the Invincibles, the way they played on their way to remaining undefeated for 49 matches. So first an analysis of the Invincible's style:

The style at the time was a quicker, if less attractive, style of play. Play could be built up slowly through the center when Bergkamp dropped into midfield to become a playmaker, but most of the time our play went wider. We had two excellent wingers, Pires & Ljungberg, and the worlds best left back at the time Ashley Cole (I hesitate to spew forth ugly names for him here out of respect for the fact that he was once decent). Balls were won back by Viera, Gilberto, Edu, or Petit, and then passed quickly out to the wings where our wide midfielders would race by opposing players by either speed, skill, or an overlap from a fullback. The wingers would then drop in and cut towards the goal. And with Henry drifting out as well to collect balls, a one-two would be performed between Henry and either Pires or Ljungberg in which the attacking winger would then be in on goal and score.

This doesn't even mention the counterattacks. As soon as we won the ball in our own half the ball would immediately be played back and forth between our wingers and speedy central players until the ball was into the opposing penalty area in a matter of seconds, where a player who had run his legs off to get down the field would duly arrive and tap it in. I can still remember it now:

"Arsenal collect the ball from the corner, Viera out to Pires. Back to Viera, out to Ljungberg. Arsenal racing forward now, Henry. Out to Pires, back to Henry, played to Ljungberg, in on goal, cut back to Henry, AND HE SCORES!!!"
It took a matter of 15 seconds. Do you remember it as well?

As the Invincibles were broken up and new young players came through the system, our style of play changed to what it is now (for reference, watch the second leg against Milan last season at the San Siro for a perfect example of our current system). Let's discuss just what it is now.

Now our build up play is slower. Instead of breaking down the wings at speed, we tend to want to work it down the middle. With our new style, we keep possession a lot better than the invincibles. A feature of our neat passing game is the neat passing triangles that are formed every few seconds in various shapes and places on the pitch. We work the ball down one side and if no openings occur then we pass back, start over the triangle passing and work it down the other side. We slowly keep possession and probe for openings, the play being dictated by the brilliant Cesc Fabregas, until we finally split the defense and race in on goal.

This style inherently scores less goals, but is much more attractive and can produce some stunning football. Don't get me wrong, we still score boatloads of goals on our best days, but the style is less quick and more technical. Often our players get so into the passing game that they are afraid to shoot from distance but instead want to score the perfect goal, or walk it into the net. This is sometimes our undoing, and was during the barren years of 05-06 and 06-07 in which we made no challenge for the title. The team is now less afraid to shoot and slightly more direct, but it still occasionally falls victim to the walk-the-ball-into-the-net syndrome.

So there we are, the two styles in contrast. One could very well argue that our current title is far inferior to the incvincibles style - a judgement based on number of trophies - but Arsene Wenger believes, quite rightly that the current style is more attractive, more Arsenal. Arsene has said that the team now plays with the style he has been trying to implement since the beginning of his career, but I'll leave it up to you, the reader, to decide if this style is better or worse than the invincibles.

Look for more opinion and analysis articles this week because of the slow news, and keep checking back for more. Until next time,

Fab 4