Arsenal and Mikel Arteta: The book is out

Arsenal have not looked as dominant in their last two matches under Mikel Arteta. The reason? The book is out on how to beat them: Press high.

The first half of Monday night’s 1-0 victory over Leeds United in the third round of the FA Cup was the worst period of the Mikel Arteta era at Arsenal thus far. While his team proceeded to win the match and improve significantly after the break, the first half was an extremely concerning illustration of what happens of when you get the better of the Arteta Gunners.

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And then, just five days later, it happened again. This time, Arteta watched his team take the ascendancy from kick-off. They dominated the first half-hour of Saturday lunchtime’s 1-1 draw with Crystal Palace, scoring the first goal and controlling the match. Then the tide turned.

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From the half-hour point or so, Palace enacted the same strategy that Leeds did in the first half on Monday to cause Arsenal serious problems and stem the flow of incessant Gunners attacking football: they pressed high up the pitch.

Roy Hodgson instructed his defensive line to step ten yards up the pitch, positioned Jordan Ayew on Lucas Torreira, and then placed Wilfried Zaha and Cheikhou Kouyate between the centre-backs and full-backs respectively, not actually pressing Sokratis and David Luiz respectively but clogging up passing lanes and immediately turning to chase down the full-backs when passes were played wide.

With this new defensive set-up, the Gunners struggled greatly to progress play. Mesut Ozil, who suffered his worst performance under Arteta, could not get in the game, while the line-breaking passes of the early portion of the match were nowhere to be seen.

Arsenal’s play against the high press has been troublesome for some time. This is not a new problem and, bar the increased intensity of the collective pressing out of possession, the improved tempo of passing and progression of play has perhaps been the most refreshing aspect of Arteta’s impact thus far. However, as Monday night and Saturday lunchtime proved, the problems still exist.

Ultimately, there is so much that Arteta can do. He has improved the spacing of the players in possession to exploit pockets of space between opposing defenders, he has implemented specific combinations of play to speed up the tempo of the play, and he has clearly focused on training drills to improve the accuracy and cohesion of the team’s passing.

However, while all these coaching decisions have clearly aided the team, there is still the limitation of the players. Sead Kolasinac is not calm enough on the ball, Granit Xhaka is disastrous when receiving the ball under pressure, unable to spin away, and slows down the play due to his overdependence on his left foot, while Sokratis is an awful passer who chooses poorly and then executes with little confidence.

The way to beat Arsenal? Press them. The book is out on the Arteta iteration of the Gunners, and until more capable players are found, any solution will only be a temporary one.