Arsenal: Where Arteta was beaten tactically against Potter’s Brighton

Mikel Arteta won’t win every battle. For a manager with no experience in such a position outside of his time at Arsenal, there will come moments where he will finish second best in the tactical duels.

It’s happened before and it will happen again. Against Brighton on Saturday, it’s fair to say Graham Potter got the better of him.

The Brighton boss is someone who is earning widespread acclaim despite his Seagulls side having finished 15th and 16th respectively in his two full seasons in charge. Garnering followers from his time in Sweden he spent a solitary campaign at Swansea before being snapped up on the south coast, and this season is seeing his work finally reap some reward.

Arsenal were never going to have an easy evening at the Amex Stadium. Despite the hosts missing key players, they’re in among the top boys in the table and have a glowing record against the Gunners on home soil.

Brighton vs Arsenal: The area where Arteta struggled tactically against Graham Potter in the 0-0 Premier League draw

Much would be made of the tactical setups of both teams, and on this occasion it was Potter who came out on top.

Arteta’s lineup was easy to predict, but how they would look to play around and through Brighton would be the crucial aspect. Potter likes his teams to be compact and in squeezing central areas and having three men press the Arsenal defence high they forced the Gunners to do precisely what they wanted.

Making Aaron Ramsdale or Ben White to go long each time, their three towering central defenders outfought Aubameyang, Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe with each punt forward. Cutting lanes in central areas and using the wing-backs to tighten the spaces out wide, Arsenal could not find a way through the press.

Equally, knowing Kieran Tierney would play in an advanced role, the space behind him was regularly exploited by Leandro Trossard and Joel Veltman, who didn’t give the covering Sambi Lokonga a moment to rest.

While the makeup of a team and how they approach a game can catch any side and manager off guard, it’s the manner with which you respond that is key. What do you do to counteract that superiority and manage the game state?

This is where Arteta was found lacking on the night, even if he wasn’t all to blame.

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Arteta Didn’t Manage to Bypass the Press

Whenever the ball found its way to one of Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe, something felt like it could happen for Arsenal. They were the two who could ride challenges, burst beyond a player and make use of the space in front of them.

Neither were electric on a tough night for all, but if Arsenal were going to progress the ball, be it at feet or be moving it on, it was likely to come from them.

Due to the brilliantly organised press that Potter implemented, those in midfield and defence struggled to move Arsenal up the field. What needed to happen was the likes of Martin Odegaard, Saka and Smith Rowe collecting possession deeper. The best resistors of press in the team had to be involved more in the first and second phases to give Arteta’s side some impetus.

It didn’t happen.

But, where there is real sympathy for Arteta was that individually Arsenal were not great. At all. Odegaard had an uncharacteristically sloppy evening where when he was found in between the lines his touch was so off, with Partey behind him looking like a shadow of his usual self.

Equally, Saka struggled with the physicality and every single pass into Aubameyang ballooned off him like the was a trampoline. Just like in the away game at Burnley, it fell on the players not to make the most of the chances.

So there is mitigation for the manager. Yet given how poor Odegaard’s touch was under pressure, even moving him deeper to collect and bypass the press would have been a wiser call, and one approach that came too late with the introductions of Lacazette and Pepe with Smith Rowe moving central.

Therefore to leave without losing in an evening for precious little came off for Arsenal has to be seen as a positive. Premier League lessons to be learned, and all that.