Arsenal vs Villa: 4 tactical improvements from Arteta’s side

How much better was that? Heading into this fixture fearing the worst was a justified position to hold. Seeing Arsenal labour their way to a rough and rugged 2-2 draw against Crystal Palace just four days earlier, nothing short of a colossal improvement would do.

That is exactly what we got from Mikel Arteta’s side.

While only two changes of personnel were made from Monday you would have been forgiven for thinking the entire team, manager and coaching staff had made way for a new set. Every single aspect of the performance was vastly improved; each detail ran through with a fine-tooth comb and set right on the training pitch.

The end result was one of the most enjoyable performances seen from this team under the manager. Mere hours ago one overriding talking point was how Arteta had sucked the fun out of Arsenal: the football was drab and the approach uninspiring.

4 tactical improvements from Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal side as goals from Partey, Aubameyang and Smith Rowe secured 3-1 Premier League victory

Registering 14 shots in the first half against Villa, the most in a single half in the entirety of Arteta’s 97-game reign, was anything but. It was breathless.

As noted by James Benge, the Gunners clocked up a xG of 2.45, the highest total recorded in the first half of a Premier League match since the beginning of the 2017/18 campaign. That’s where the Opta stats go back to, so it could well be more than that.

On occasions such as Friday night the usual discussion centres around what measure was Arsenal being impressive, and what measure was Villa being poor. It feels entirely unjust to leave the pendulum in the middle as the former heavily contributed to the latter.

Arteta found himself under immense pressure for this fixture. To have come out of it with #ArtetaBall trending on social media tells you all you need to know about the richness of the performance. So, what went right from a tactical standpoint?

1. Keeping Distances Shorter

With the band of technical operators that Arteta has in his disposal, the approach in using them has been heavily flawed.

When Arsene Wenger transitioned into his Rosicky/Cazorla/Fabregas/etc era, the emphasis was on having his technical masters always within close proximity of one another to build attacking triangles that could scythe through opposition lines with ease.

It was more akin to that on Friday as the distances between the midfielders and forwards resulted in divine combination play that succeeded in sucking in Villa players before elegantly shifting the ball laterally over to the other side.

Bukayo Saka would combine with the excellent Alexandre Lacazette, whose one-touch play was a cornerstone of the fluidity in the display, with someone like Thomas Partey shifting the ball on to Sambi who’d release Emile Smith Rowe and Nuno Tavares down on the left. Such sequences were plentiful.

Looking at the Palace game as an example, Nicolas Pepe would be banished to the touchline with huge gaps between the central midfielders and No. 10, resulting in laboured patterns of play or desperate attempts to open spaces with individual flair and unsuccessful take-ons.

Here the group were tighter in wide and central zones with clever balances across the team that meant the switch pass was always on and third man runs kept Villa second guessing which spaces to fill.

With such a high level of technical player in the squad, instructing them to be within the ‘one-touch zone’ drags defenders out of position and opens up other spaces across the pitch making for more dynamic threat. It worked a treat against the Villans.

Continued…

2. Reintroducing Sambi Lokonga and Thomas Partey as a Double Pivot

There will be times where Partey can hold a midfield all on his own and Arsenal can field an additional attacking player on the pitch, just as there are times when the approach needs to be put on the back-burner.

While there are benefits galore in a 4-1-4-1 with two No. 8’s, the primary setback in adopting that approach is it tightens the shackles on the Ghanaian’s marauding prowess. A magnificent No. 6 who can break up play, intercept passes and tackle dribblers, Partey would, and already has had, a successful career being that and only that.

But there is more to him to unlock in a double pivot. And as witnessed on Friday, similar degrees of freedom attributed to Sambi Lokonga can have the same effect.

Together the pair can combine on the angle, always offering an option in possession either through the opposition press or as a safe pass to retain the ball. Both are progressive carriers and passers, traits that are allowed to sing when in a double pivot.

The result was Sambi offering a silky press breaking option on the half-turn to ease Arsenal through phase two of the build-up and maintain disorganisation in Villa’s shape. Furthermore, and this is so important, was the role of Nuno Tavares being a more set left-back with Gabriel shifting out, reducing the excruciating need for one of the pivot to drop into left centre-back and vacate the midfield.

This is how to get the best out of both Sambi and Partey. It needs to remain in place moving forward.

Continued…

3. Arteta’s Side Pressed Villa With Constant Energy

It’s been tiresome have to rehash the same qualms each and every week over Arteta’s reluctance to instruct his side to press the opposition. Noticeable in this team is that they’re fully behind the manager – whether fans are or not – and they will follow him into battle relaying every detail he has on the pitch.

What he says goes. Often that is to the team’s detriment, but on this occasion it was clear that the orders were to pin Villa back, win the ball high and force unstructured play. As has been said numerous times, Arsenal have near ideal players to adopt this approach: high energy sprinters, electric in transition and bursting full of youthful exuberance.

The intensity with which Arsenal pressed and counter-pressed was the most enjoyable aspect of the entire performance. Hunting in packs when possession was lost, each Villa player was immediately surrounded by three or four Arsenal bodies. Dean Smith said after the game that his side were physically dominated and he hit the nail on the head.

Even in the dying stages of the second half there was a moment where Leon Bailey received the ball on the touchline and Gabriel had come across to fill the gap left by Nuno Tavares, who had also ran back to cover alongside Smith Rowe. It was joyous.

Crucial to how Arsenal pinned Villa back was in the use of the full-backs, with Takehiro Tomiyasu’s involvement notably different to usual. He was given greater license to press with Tavares, an innovative tactical decision to force Villa’s back three into a back five. Matty Cash and Matt Targett were repeatedly forced to cover their centre-backs.

There was no out-ball for Smith’s men and losing all their threat in wide areas allowed Arsenal to keep their own full-backs higher up the pitch and sustain pressure for extended periods of time.

Continued…

4. Going 4-4-2 (ish) With Smith Rowe & Saka in Their Right Positions

With Smith Rowe and Saka, what is so enjoyable about them is that they don’t need to have excellent games to be influential in matches. Smith Rowe most certainly was in what may go down as his best outing for the club to date, whereas Saka played his role well enough to do precisely the job he needed to.

Not the star by any means, and guilty of one big chance missed that he should have put away, the use of a 4-4-2 system (which fluttered around with 4-2-3-1 a lot) primarily acted as a means to get everyone into their best positions. Back to basics, as it were.

Sambi and Partey could be a pivot, Lacazette acted more as a second striker in something resembling a 4-4-1-1 at times, Smith Rowe was out on his favoured left where he had grass to run into and combinations to build, while Saka provided technical security on the right to ensure sequences could keep ticking over.

It catered to everyone’s skillsets. No player was told to overextend themselves in a role they weren’t comfortable with: two sitting midfielders who could take it in turns to venture, two creative wide players who could drift in, a striker who dropped off to connect play and another who pressed from the front and stretched the opposition.

Arteta turned the clocks back to the early 2000’s Premier League, gave simplified instructions and the players carried them out superbly.