Arsenal: Cohesion the ultimate key to success

Arsenal played in the most cohesive manner all season in Sunday’s 4-0 win over Newcastle United, as exemplified by a 35-pass move for the third goal. This cohesion and connection is the ultimate key to future success.

Arsenal’s third goal against Newcastle on Sunday, courtesy of Mesut Ozil, was statistically special. It showed a sort of cohesion we’ve rarely seen from Arsenal this season.

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Per OptaJoe, the sweeping move forward, spearheaded by the mercurial German playmaker, contained 35 consecutive passes. The move was 10 passes longer than any other Premier League goal this season. That’s not an insignificant statistic. It shows some serious cohesion in the team’s collective attacking play.

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The move covers the midfield third of the field, with only six passes coming in either the attacking or defensive thirds. It was toing and froing from side to side. It spanned 1:52 of time and involved all 11 players on the pitch. Granit Xhaka touched the ball eight times in the move, the most of any player. The only players who touched it two or fewer times were David Luiz, Shkodran Mustafi, and Bernd Leno. That illustrates the advanced position of the move, very rarely forced back into the defensive area of the pitch. It serves as an example of the midfield dominance Arsenal experienced during their second half at Newcastle.

But the cohesion does not end there. The Arsene Wenger-esque move showed the increasing confidence of the players, both in the system they are a part of and in each other. They believed in the ability of their teammates to do their jobs, each player picking up the slack, neither doing too little nor too much. The 35-pass sequence passed in the blink of an eye.

In addition, this sort of move exemplifies the spirit new head coach Mikel Arteta has brought back to the Emirates. Newcastle are not an easy team to break down, and yet this move pulled them apart like tapioca.

The midfield and fullbacks shifted the stodgy, seven-strong core of Steve Bruce’s Newcastle from side to side repeatedly, while the attackers stretched the opposing wing-backs, creating pockets of space through the centre for Ozil to shine. It is no coincidence that he scored the goal, but it was also Ozil’s break through the middle of the pitch that opened up the entire attack.

The finish itself was scruffy. Martin Dubravka made a mess of Ozil’s poorly connected shot. But the build-up was nothing less than magnificent. A sweeping, comprehensive move that illustrates the growing cohesion and connection of this team. And that is the sustainable, repeatable element of this moment. The passing, the movement, the control, the skill.

There is a panache to proceedings which harkens back to times under a trench-coat-clad Frenchman, who advocated for substance and style working in conjunction. For once, the Wenger comparison is a positive, and it is down to the cohesive coaching of his former captain.