Arsenal vs Man City, Back To Tactical Basics
"They have set a standard that nobody has seen in this league"
The Premier League's crown jewel, Manchester City, lost away at Arsenal, giving the Gunners their first win over City in the Premier League since January 2015.
When it looked like Arsenal would win the Premier League title last season and critics were beginning to stock up on criticism, an easy piece to point at was the team's inability to defeat City.
Questions like, "Is it really an impressive league title if you couldn't beat Manchester City?" Prior to this weekend, Arsenal had gone on a 15-game winless streak against City in the Premier League, losing 12 and drawing 3. A few years' worth of Arteta's training and tactical shape-work with his squad and that's now all changed now.
There is an avalanche of analysis online discussing how and why Arsenal were able to defeat City. Most commonly, Manchester City were missing their best players in De Bruyne, Rodri and Grealish through injury and suspension; this is fair.
However, I find that the most impressive element of this Manchester City & Pep Guardiola Premier League dynasty is the trust and application of their football philosophy and system. The tactical battle between these two teams was always going to be one of spatial awareness, something Guardiola has had years to drill into his players and something that can be easily translatable regardless of whether you're a regular feature like Rodri or a bit-part player like Rico Lewis.
Figure 1.Time 16:23
David Raya, although a winner, had what can be best described as a stressful day. Whenever the ball-playing goalkeeper had the ball, Manchester City would fall into a trap-pressing shape as seen by figure 1.
The elite teams in football are elite because they focus on controlling a match. In this situation, a safe option for Raya is to go long since Manchester City is controlling the play by blocking all his passing lanes except to allow him to play to Gabriel, who will of course be trapped.
Figure 2. Time 16:29, 3 seconds later
Raya plays wide to Gabriel, who's continued to push wider to Zinchenko, and the press is now on.
At this point, Manchester City is simply put trying to create a goalscoring opportunity. Reminder, Kevin De Bruyne is not playing, neither is Rodri. City are missing two of their most potent creative and playmaking outlets, and at this level of modern elite football, when your best creative player is missing, the next best goal-scoring chance your team can create is one from a high-line trap press such as the below.
Figure 3. Time 16:33, 10 on from the original play start
At this point, 10 seconds on from the original press-trap kicking off, Raya has gone from holding the ball at the top of his box with time and at least 2 options (Gabriel or go-long) to now receiving a difficult touchline pass with Julián Álvarez down his jersey. Raya goes long but the clearance is deflected by Álvarez for a goal-kick. This is a Manchester City goal-scoring opportunity created purely by shape and press.
Figure 4.
In the absence of your best players the best teams will fallback on their basic fundamentals. When Rico Lewis first made his breakthrough for City he was touted as a right-back. A true testament to Guardiola and Manchester City’s football identity is that their version of basic fundamentals is a pressing-shape and defensive setup that works regardless of the fact a fringe #10 in Lewis and your backup forward & support striker in Álvarez is playing right-wing. When your system is this well drilled every player knows exactly what needs to be done in order to force chance creation and goalscoring opportunities.
For the first time in a long time, Arteta and Arsenal were finally able to put out a team that could not only withstand and hold-off Manchester City but defeat them. That is what makes this victory that much more impactful for Arsenal and shows respect to the progress made by the North London club since Arteta’s taken over.