Arsenal Vs Bournemouth: Move the ball

Within a month, Mikel Arteta has revolutionised how Arsenal play. And central to the improvements he has mastered, as evidenced in Monday night’s 2-1 win over Bournemouth, is the movement of the ball.

Bournemouth were painfully insipid in their FA Cup fifth-round tie against Arsenal on Monday night. Lacking any willingness to press the ball and harass their opponents, the Gunners were allowed to entirely to dictate the opening 30 minutes of the match without much trouble. Bournemouth sat off, but in a structured manner, never got close to the ball to make a challenge, and were roundly played off the park.

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While any long-term conclusions from the performance must be taken with a rather hefty pinch of salt because of Bournemouth’s absent display, credit should be given to the visitors for the quality of their play. Without several key starters, they were the far superior team.

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There are plenty of reasons for their early dominance, but the most significant and impactful was the tempo that they played with, especially in possession. Rather than playing easy passes slowly that invite pressure, limit the progression of play, and cause very few structural problems for the opposition, Arsenal moved the ball at speed. One and two-touch passes, very few delays in shifting the play from side to side, passing the ball with speed and accuracy, allowing the recipient to turn quickly.

This has been my greatest criticism of the Arsenal performances under Unai Emery and the late Arsene Wenger years. They played slowly. But as has increasingly been altered under new head coach Mikel Arteta, and was brilliantly illustrated during the opening half-hour against Bournemouth, the tempo of their play in possession is only increasing.

In the first 35 minutes of Monday’s win over Bournemouth, Arsenal had 69.1% of the possession. They had a pass completion rate of 90%, the central midfield trio of Granit Xhaka, Matteo Guendouzi and Joe Willock central to that, all topping the 90% mark, and had played a staggering 267 passes.

Several players were key to this change in approach. Shkodran Mustafi’s line-breaking distribution was excellent, both full-backs shuttled the ball forwards quickly, while Xhaka and Guendouzi conducted the entire machine beautifully as the double-pivot, Xhaka sometimes moving into the pseudo-left-back role to find space and allow Bukayo Saka to push forwards.

The improved speed of ball-movement helps every aspect of the team’s performance. Quick-passing opponents are harder to press as each player takes fewer touches of the ball. They are harder to defend against as just one brief mispositioning can be exploited in a split-second. They are able to control matches by playing out from the back, dominating possession, and pressing high when they lose the ball in advanced areas to immediately recover it, and they tire out the defensive team who are relentlessly chasing shadows.

Mikel Arteta has found a way to make Arsenal move the ball quickly. And that makes them an immensely more difficult team to play against, just as Bournemouth experienced on Monday night.