Mikel Arteta's Genius Change That Destroyed West Ham United
Arsenal are firmly back in the title race after their huge 6-0 victory over West Ham United recently.
One man in particular, Martin Odegaard, was at the very heart of this. Adam Clery explains why...
One man in particular, Martin Odegaard, was at the very heart of this. Adam Clery explains why...
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00:00 *ding*
00:00 Okay, yes, hello, how's it going? You look well, please do take a seat.
00:05 So Arsenal have just done to West Ham what nobody ever does to West Ham, and that is absolutely monster them.
00:11 Like going into this game, West Ham were 7th, they're having a very good season,
00:15 and they are set up almost specifically to be very, very difficult for the "big clubs" to play against.
00:22 And of course, if you're an Arsenal fan, you already know this, because they've beaten you twice this season by doing that exact thing.
00:29 Now we have discussed it in videos specifically about West Ham on the channel, but I'll give you the very, very short version.
00:33 Regardless of who they're playing, whether it's "big club", "little club", "cardboard box",
00:37 West Ham will sit in two banks of four, soak up all the pressure, and try to encourage teams to commit as many players forward as possible.
00:46 And when you do this, they've got a number of players in the squad who are excellent at winning the ball back,
00:51 and then when they do that, they've got a number of players in the squad who are excellent at picking out long, direct, accurate passes into this space.
00:58 And then when they do that, they've got a number of players in the squad who are excellent at breaking into that space and scoring goals against you.
01:05 Here, if you are still unsure, is them doing more or less this exact same thing against Arsenal in a game they eventually won.
01:12 And so, obviously, your friend and mine, Mr. Arteta, he learns from these things.
01:16 He's fast becoming one of the most adaptive managers in the Premier League, in my opinion.
01:20 He did not want to allow this to happen again.
01:24 And so, to try and prevent this happening again, this is how Arsenal set up.
01:28 And obviously, no major shocks there. It's the 4-3-3 we've come to expect.
01:32 But the change Arteta made prior to kick-off was in how they build up from the back.
01:37 Now, what we'll normally see from Arsenal is Zinchenko coming into the middle here,
01:41 and the rest of the defenders moving into a back three to form the fabled box midfield.
01:46 But instead, what they did this time was they split their full backs right across the width of the pitch.
01:51 They had them pretty much go and stand on the touchline. Then they split the centre-backs as well.
01:55 So, they were sort of in that same sort of wide zone.
01:57 And then Declan Rice, he would drop in between all of that and sort of patrol that middle area.
02:02 And you can see it here, literally from the very first minute.
02:05 This is not the kind of shape we ever normally see from Arsenal.
02:07 So, it's clear they brought this in because, obviously, they are worried about getting counter-attacked against,
02:13 as they have done in previous matches. And primarily, you expect to see that in the wide area.
02:18 So, by putting your two defenders out there, you are mitigating that problem.
02:22 Now, theoretically, that's a very good idea and very clever and round of applause there, Mr. Arteta.
02:27 But the problem with it was, while it enabled them to have a lot of the ball, it's all in pretty safe, harmless areas.
02:35 Like, it's not often you see a 6-0 game that's still 0-0 all the way up to the half-hour mark.
02:41 But that was because this shape for Arsenal was great for having the ball,
02:45 but not particularly great for doing anything with it.
02:47 And what kept happening in that first half an hour was that Martin Odergaard,
02:51 the one player from an Arsenal perspective you want to get on the ball in the final third to make things happen,
02:57 he kept having to drop all the way back into this build-up shape to receive the ball.
03:02 And he had to do that because the problem with this build-up shape
03:05 was that West Ham were effectively able to mark it and to press it with one less player.
03:10 Like, Arsenal have five players in this situation, but because Jarrod Bowen has so much energy and is so quick,
03:16 he was really happy to effectively run between the two centre-backs, cutting off individual passing lanes for them,
03:22 only giving them safe options to play out from, which meant that the next three,
03:26 starting with James Ward-Prouse on Declan Rice, could just jump up and mark this first pass.
03:31 And again, we've mentioned this on the channel before as well.
03:33 For all Declan Rice's many, many, many, many, many amazing qualities,
03:38 that just sort of risky, incisive pass through a press is not something he's really got in his locker.
03:43 So you've got five players here who are circulating the ball, but none of them who are likely to play it through defenders.
03:49 So over and over again in that first 20 minutes, Mark Nerdergaard kept having to drop into this sort of area to receive it.
03:55 And normally he would do so with a marker at his back, so it was very difficult for him to get turned.
04:00 And just to be totally blunt about this, whether you're West Ham or Man City or absolutely anybody,
04:05 if you are playing Arsenal and Mark Nerdergaard is routinely receiving the ball in this area of the pitch,
04:12 you've already won.
04:14 Like these are all of his successful passes in the opening 20 minutes of the game.
04:18 You'll see he keeps dropping into this area over and over to get on the ball.
04:21 And when he does get into the final third, he has to go out wide around West Ham's low block.
04:27 He can't get on the ball in this area, which is where he needs to get on the ball.
04:32 Now, here's the thing, right?
04:33 Most managers would probably look at the possessional dominance they were having
04:36 and the fact they nullified West Ham's major threat on the counter-attack
04:39 and be content with this at least until half-time.
04:43 But the thing about Arteta is he's fast proving he is not most managers.
04:48 And after only about 25 minutes, he'd seen enough of this and he changed it.
04:53 So the problem, in its simplest terms, is that you want to get Mark Nerdergaard on the ball in this area,
04:58 but because you're too well marked in this area, he has to drop out of it to give you a numerical advantage,
05:04 which does work.
05:05 He does get on the ball, but the problem is he can't be in two places at once,
05:10 so he's not there to pass to himself.
05:12 So Arteta, and I don't know if this is something he's ever really tried before,
05:15 I can't remember seeing it, inverted Ben White.
05:19 Now, that might sound on the face of it like I'm saying,
05:21 "Oh, they just reverted to their normal build-out style.
05:24 They got the sort of three centre-backs and then the box back the way they normally do.
05:27 They just did it with Ben White."
05:28 But no, they didn't do that at all.
05:31 They just inverted Ben White and still left Ki-
05:35 Ki-Wa-
05:36 I never say his name properly.
05:37 Ki-Wa-
05:38 Kawaii Kui-O-Wi-O out at left-back.
05:40 And this is Arteta literally trying to harvest cake and eat it at the same time
05:44 because he still wants that protection out on that side from Kudas
05:47 because, understandably, he is terrified of Kudas,
05:50 but he's kind of gambling that Ben Johnson on this side isn't really going to do anything with all of that space.
05:56 And if he does, you can just sort of cover across.
05:59 They're not really worried about him, so he just decided to f*** him off.
06:03 And the reason we are sitting here talking about how Arsenal just beat West Ham 6-0
06:08 and not how Ben Johnson gave us one of the upsets of the weekend is because this worked.
06:13 And not just that, it worked like straight away as well.
06:16 Like from the moment Ben White started taking up these positions,
06:19 it physically stopped Erdegaard from having the temptation to even drop in to receive the ball,
06:23 which meant that he could stay a little bit further up.
06:26 But it also meant that West Ham now had to provide a second player in this space
06:31 because they were constantly outnumbered, which left him more room as well.
06:35 Like you can see here in the body language of Alvarez, he knows he kind of has to push up onto White here
06:40 because he can read the situation and see that Arsenal can all of a sudden play through this press.
06:44 But he also knows that Erdegaard, who's his guy, is behind him and he can't commit too much.
06:49 And West Ham couldn't really figure out on the fly how to deal with this change.
06:54 He's actually involved in the first goal as well because while he was playing right on the touchline,
06:57 his role in this situation would have been to go on the outside of Saka and provide him that option,
07:02 which would have gone nowhere because you can see Emerson's already five yards deeper,
07:06 so it's unlikely he would have got that crossing.
07:07 But because he's dropped ever so slightly into the middle of the pitch instead,
07:12 he's stood here and he's not really anybody's responsibility, so he's free to put a cross in.
07:17 And from that cross, Arsenal get the free kick from which they open the scoring.
07:21 And yes, very well done. Clap, clap, clap. That was good.
07:23 But what was really impressive was just how throughout the rest of the game,
07:26 they just found it so much easier to get on the ball in the middle of the pitch.
07:31 Like this is such a small example, but it just illustrates it perfectly.
07:34 This is Ben White getting on the ball just right after that first goal has been scored.
07:38 So on the one hand, with Havertz and Trossard interchanging, you can see that they're now doing that box,
07:43 that four-player grid in the centre of midfield.
07:45 But also, just look across to the right-hand side of the pitch.
07:49 They're just not playing in it at all.
07:52 Ben Johnson could just go and stand in that room and if West Ham turn the ball over,
07:57 he would be clean through on goal, but he knows he can't do that.
08:00 He can't just abandon marking a player because then Arsenal would have a man over.
08:05 And likewise, James Ward-Prouse, who was doing a really good job at sitting glue-tight to Declan Rice
08:10 when he was the only player in the pivot, now doesn't know whether to go up onto White
08:15 and leave Rice free or to stick with Rice and hope somebody else picks him up.
08:19 And this just, end of the first half.
08:21 There's a reason why Arsenal got four goals.
08:23 It's because West Ham just could not figure out how to adapt.
08:26 But I think it's best summed up in that second goal because you just never, ever, ever get in behind West Ham.
08:32 Their whole low block and pressing structure means that's just not really an option.
08:37 Either they're sat so deep there's no room, or they're pressing you well enough you can't pick that kind of pass out.
08:42 And this is right before the ball goes over the top, but there's a couple of things to notice here.
08:46 First off, even Trossard has now dropped into that space between the press because he knows there's so much of it.
08:52 You look at the West Ham players, they've got the men there to do something structured and organised.
08:57 It's just that nobody on the pitch has decided what that is.
09:01 You can see they've still got a defender on the left-hand side offering that width because they're still scared of Kudus.
09:06 But Ben White has again completely abandoned the right-hand side, giving them an extra man in this position.
09:12 And while they don't use him here, just look at Martin Odegaard.
09:16 The whole point of this change was to allow him to get between West Ham's lines and there he is.
09:21 And then it's just the simplest ball in the entire world because if you're going to have a high line, you cannot then have a passive press.
09:29 They give Arsenal all the time in the world to pick out this run and that is the one thing you can never do.
09:36 It's the one thing David Moyes' teams never do.
09:39 And then from here, you know how it goes. It's absolute carnage. Arsenal demolish West Ham United.
09:45 And Martin Odegaard in particular, because of this structural change, has a fantastic game.
09:50 Just to show you how impactful that change with Ben White was for him, these are Martin Odegaard's passes again from that opening part of the game
09:57 where he couldn't get on the ball here and was having to draw.
09:59 But then these are all the passes he made after they moved Ben White into the middle and up until, I think, just before the sixth goal goes in.
10:07 Because after that, everyone was just sort of doing playground football.
10:10 Like this is the fourth goal. If you are Arsenal, all you want to do in this game against a low block is find ways of getting Martin Odegaard
10:19 between the lines, receiving the ball and facing the goal.
10:23 And it should just not happen against West Ham. They're the best team at stopping this happening.
10:29 And here he is. The defence can't jump out towards him. He's already in behind the midfielders.
10:34 And what does he do? Just slips in Trossard like it's the easiest thing in the world, which to him it is.
10:40 In fact, if we show you Odegaard's heat map for that entire game, you can literally see both stories being writ large in red hue here
10:46 because he's got this big patch from that opening half an hour where it was the only place he could receive the ball.
10:51 And then he's got this big patch from the remaining sort of 60 minutes where he's just having a really good time.
10:57 But the thing is, right, in the end, this looked really easy for Arsenal because, well, it was really easy for Arsenal,
11:04 but this was a pretty big risk he took. Like West Ham want more than anything to find this kind of room when they turn the ball over.
11:11 Like this is precisely what their system is built around. So just leaving it there for them, pretty ballsy.
11:17 Like it's mad disrespectful of Ben Johnson when you think about it. Like, oh, we need another man.
11:22 Just yeah, he'll not do anything. You just come over and play in the middle. But crucially, he didn't do anything.
11:28 So fair. And I know we have done Arsenal quite a lot of it recently on the channel.
11:32 But the reason I wanted to do this video is I don't think Mikel Arteta gets the credit he's really due for his ability to sort of impact games and read situations.
11:41 That's something we sort of associate with Jurgen Klopp. He's still the undisputed master of making changes on the fly.
11:47 But I think both in the Liverpool game that Arsenal just played and here you saw the workings of a manager who is becoming a really,
11:55 really good problem solver who more importantly is learning lessons from past games.
12:00 So, yeah, I don't think that Arteta does this stuff specifically to impress me.
12:05 But if he did, then he has. Doff the old cap. Anyway, though, thank you for joining us for that video.
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12:56 I don't just that's not dribble. I am rambling. I'm really bad at these outros, aren't I? Bye.