Arsenal: 4-4-2 diamond no long-term solution

Increasingly, Arsenal head coach Unai Emery has implemented a 4-4-2 diamond. The formation has had success, most recently in a 2-0 win over Chelsea. But the system has been found out in the past and it will be found out again. It is no long-term solution.

Unai Emery has had two major problems during his first season as Arsenal head coach: squeezing both Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette into the same XI; the position of Sead Kolasinac, who is an undoubted attacking threat but comes with major defensive vulnerabilities when played at full-back.

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You could see that he wanted to play both Lacazette and Aubameyang together without sacrificing numbers in central midfield. But to do that, he must play a back four and use Kolasinac as a full-back, not a wing-back where is far more effective and his shortcomings are somewhat mitigated. The tension is clear.

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On Saturday, in a 2-0 win over Chelsea in which Arsenal were excellent, Emery bit the bullet: he played Aubameyang and Lacazette up front with Kolasinac at full-back, praying that the Bosnian was not exposed. The plan worked wonderfully. The two strikers tore Chelsea to shreds with space abounding in the final third, Kolasinac handled his defensive responsibility oddly well, and the midfield was able to hold Chelsea at arm’s length and control the match.

The key to its success was the structure of the midfield: a four in a diamond, Granit Xhaka at the base, Aaron Ramsey at the attacking tip, and Matteo Guendouzi and Lucas Torreira to either side. This allowed Emery to both play two strikers and still not cede control of the middle of the pitch, as was the case the week prior in an embarrassing 1-0 defeat to West Ham United in which he played the same front two but paired them with a back three and Kolasinac at wing-back.

In the short-term, this, I believe, is Arsenal’s best system. It gets the best players in their best positions. But the 4-4-2 diamond, as it is commonly known, is no long-term solution. It has been found out in the past and it will be found out again.

In England, it initially birthed in the mid-00s, when teams were slowly shifting from a two-striker set-up to a one-striker one. Managers still wanted two centre-forwards but also saw the benefits of having an extra central midfielder to control the middle of the pitch. The 4-4-2 diamond was their answer.

But with no natural wide players, the full-backs were relentlessly outgunned, dealing with both an opposing winger and overlapping full-back. Space was ceded out wide and crosses rained into the box. The 4-4-2 diamond did not last long.

Arsenal had those same problems on Saturday. Marcos Alonso and Cesar Azpilicueta had acres of space to work into, but without a true centre-forward on the pitch were unable to take advantage of it. But give a better team with a proper striker and more time to asses Arsenal’s shape, and you can easily see the damage that they would cause. You simply cannot allow a two-on-one down both wide channels, and that is what the 4-4-2 diamond does.

For the remainder of the season, given the players that Emery currently has available to him, the 4-4-2 diamond is indeed Arsenal’s best-suited system. But it is not a long-term solution. It has been found out in the past and it will be found out again.