Arsenal: 4 tactical errors Arteta made vs Manchester United

Across the entire Arsenal team, from playing staff to the coaching department, only a very small handful can leave Old Trafford feeling inculpable for the defeat. Mikel Arteta is not one of them.

Six games against the Red Devils without defeat in the Premier League had been like unexpected Russian dolls. Winning one here and drawing another one there against a side who’ve inflicted so much misery on Arsenal for a number of years, the eventual final doll was due at some stage.

It shouldn’t have been on Thursday night. There was definitely room to pop another doll out of the set. Instead it felt like the team left one in the cupboard and forgot to pack them all in. This was all of their own doing.

Which is where the manager comes into it.

4 tactical errors Mikel Arteta made as Arsenal lost 3-2 to Manchester United in the Premier League

He isn’t solely to blame, though. Far from it. Unforgivable individual errors and a collectively poor defensive showing played their part. So too this King Kong sized monkey on the team’s back that sees them retreat into their shells as soon as they score a goal like they’ve got no balls left in a game of dodgeball.

With the table looking favourably down on Arsenal ahead of the Old Trafford trip, to come away feeling this frustrated indicates how much the game was there for the taking.

It was Arsenal’s to lose even before a ball was kicked.

Now left to stew over the remnants of another failed venture to the north west, next up for Arsenal is, well, another venture to the north west. As the team reflects on what went wrong, the manager has to look at himself and think likewise. He made tactical errors on the night that contributed to defeat.

1. Starting Mohamed Elneny Over Sambi Lokonga

It’s one of those hero decisions. If it goes in your favour you’re heralded as some tactical genius, but see it fail before your eyes and the knives will be out.

Worth noting first of all is that Mohamed Elneny did fine against United. He was, quite simply, Mohamed Elneny. You know exactly what you’re going to get with him and as far as judging him on that alone, he did a decent enough job.

There was energy, commitment and ball retention. While he recorded the second best passing accuracy of the Arsenal players, in classic Elneny style only one of those was deemed progressive. He is vanilla. Boring and entirely ineffective outside of his own half.

The issue isn’t that he was Arsenal’s problem, it was that he wasn’t the solution.

Sambi Lokonga had just come off the back of a superb outing against Newcastle, a game he was given the chance to play in to react from his Anfield woes. He, like Nuno Tavares who still got the nod, did so brilliantly.

Where is the invention, the positivity, the conviction? Manchester United are world class panoply of players combining to form an average team. They were there to be got at and seeing Arsenal control the match for large spells as they did was crying out for someone of Sambi’s progressive nature. His passing is braver and he can carry towards the opposition goal as opposed to his own.

It was a decision that screamed of negativity. Doing all the preparation ahead of the game, at some point it must have stood out that United’s midfield is woeful and they’re easy to play through. Basic analysis.

Fielding someone who will never play through and only around was a decision shrouded in fear.

Continued on next page…

2. Instructing Aaron Ramsdale to Kick Long

It was hoped that United would come on to Arsenal in this game, a tactical approach that fits neatly into the brand of football this team wants to play.

Investing heavily in a goalkeeper whose distribution with his feet is exceptional, the continued ploy of having Ramsdale kick long into the waiting chests of Victor Lindelof and Harry Maguire bypassed the skillset that he has.

Teams should play to their strengths. This is supposed to be Arsenal’s strength, especially against a team who have not been an effective pressing unit at any stage over the past three seasons.

Having both central defenders stationed in the six-yard box waiting for the short passes to build from as deep as possible, so often the idea was abandoned as the goalkeeper went long. While his long kicking was poor on the night, who was he kicking to?

Aubameyang rarely ever wins aerial duels and Gabriel Martinelli is not of the physical stature to contest aerial balls either. It resulted in needless turnovers in possession and gifted the home side the ball each time.

If the aim was to win the second balls, the fact that the team had sunk so deep meant any effort to support Aubameyang would leave gaps. For a team sitting deep and needing to regain a foothold, going long entirely bypasses that approach.

There would have been more sense in sticking Tomiyasu at centre-forward if second balls were the intention.

Continued on next page…

3. Poor Substitutions & In-Game Management

Having the game in the palm of their hands and throwing it away with a needless penalty required an urgent response. United at this stage were happy to defend their one goal lead and invite the pressure, so the players to come off the bench have to react to that intent.

Emile Smith Rowe was blowing and came off in the 70th minute for Bukayo Saka, which is fine since he was struggling to keep up with the pace, but the decisions that followed that made little sense.

In the end, Arteta’s idea to find the equaliser was to bring on his attacking players…in place of his attacking players. It beggars belief.

As foolish as the error was from Odegaard, why did Elneny have to stay on the pitch? Arsenal are chasing the game at this point and they need their most creative players on the ball. Hook the Egyptian and play Odegaard in a deeper midfield role to maintain some centrality. Go gung-ho. There is nothing to lose.

Instead all the substitutions felt like they were made with the fear of losing 4-2. That seemed to blur Arteta’s rational as opposed to putting the cards on the table and seeking the third goal.

It was all so negative, so cautious. There is nothing to say Arsenal couldn’t even have taken off a defender just to implement all the attacking tools available. United were so comfortable in those final stages because Arsenal let them be with more poor in-game management from the boss.

The same can be said at half-time. Arsenal clearly lost control as they sat off, and knowing United were there for the taking he could have made the Elneny and Sambi substitution even sooner.

Reading the room is something this manager and this team have to learn to master.

Continued on next page…

4. Bringing Eddie Nketiah on the Pitch

What kind of signal does that send? Purely for the optics, bringing a player on who just 24 hours earlier had rejected a contract extension comes across as one rather pathetic attempt to convince him a final time to stay.

Arteta obviously felt it was the best substitution to make to turn the game. That’s why he did it. And in among the group Nketiah is a liked character who won’t have any bad blood in the dressing room as he merely seeks regular football at his age.

But how does it look? Bad, is the answer.

He came on and you’d have been forgiven for thinking Aubameyang was still on the pitch, such was his ineffectiveness. Nketiah tried to come short and facilitate as much as get into the six-yard area, all of which looked relatively clunky, something you’d expect from a player without a single minute of Premier League football all season long.

The captain was having a stinker and need to be hauled off, but why not opt for the only genuine, albeit imperfect, goal threat on the bench in Nicolas Pepe? It’s clear that Arteta wants him gone, so why tank his value even further by never playing him?

It was more than just a bizarre substitution.