Arsenal Vs CSKA Moscow: Let’s give Arsene Wenger credit

Arsenal squeezed into the Europa League semi-finals on Thursday night. It was far from a convincing performance, but credit must be given to Arsene Wenger for a crucial tactical change that ultimately won the tie for the Gunners.

Arsenal were in a whole lot of trouble. They were not playing well. CSKA Moscow had their tales up. One more goal would have seen the Gunners heading out of the Europa League, the most important competition remaining this season. It was, to say the least, a precarious situation.

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A change needed to be made. This team needed some invigoration, some form of motivation, however odd that sounds, something to inspire at least some semblance of a response to the challenge that CSKA were posing. Thankfully, Arsene Wenger was able to provide it.

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At half-time, Wenger instructed Mohamed Elneny to sit a little deeper, splitting Laurent Koscielny and Shkodran Mustafi as a third centre-half, a role that he has played in sparingly before. That change actually backfired — Jack Wilshere didn’t have the legs to play in a midfield-two — but when he introduced Calum Chambers to play at centre-half, pushing Elneny into midfield, Arsenal looked substantially more secure and stable. Indeed, Wenger admitted as much after the game:

"“If you look at the game we were in trouble, and once we moved to a back five we looked much more stable and didn’t give so many chances away. Yes I feel that maybe we were a bit surprised by the intensity and not at the races in first half and after that you come back. They scored the second and even then they had another chance to make it three. Then we were a bit on the ropes but we had a good response, we were better organised because our distances were too big in the first half.”"

Wenger deserves credit for his tactical tinkering. He has often been criticised for lacking the same tactical nous as a Jurgen Klopp or Pep Guardiola, for example. But that was certainly not the case here.

Specifically, it was the 3-5-2 shape that CSKA set up in that caused Arsenal so many problems. Unlike in the first leg, Wenger’s side could not exploit the space in behind the wing-backs, pulling the three centre-halves out of their positions, and the three-man midfield of the Russians, allied with also having two strikers caused the Gunners fits.

The away side couldn’t escape the clutches of CSKA, unable to find an accurate and consistent out-ball, often conceding possession easily and in deep areas of the pitch. So Wenger decided to admit his side’s failure in this instance and ensure that they were defensively well-structured, reducing the distances between each player by introducing a third centre-half.

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It worked wonderfully. It allowed Danny Welbeck to play in a freer, more advanced role, providing his team with an escape route to bypass the CSKA pressure, and stabilised a worryingly vulnerable and exposed defence. Wenger rarely makes these kind of decisions. But he did here. And thank God that he did. Credit where credit is due.