How Mikel Arteta Outsmarted Liverpool
After Arsenal's recent wins, it put them back in the Premier League title race. But after facing defeat the last time they faced Jurgen Klopp's side, it's clear that not only did Mikel Arteta learn valuable lessons from that game, but he had developed a plan to turn them against the Reds.
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00:00 [DING]
00:02 Alright, so this was your Arsenal XI going into the game,
00:05 and even just from this selection of players,
00:07 you've got to immediately start looking at Mikkel Arteta and saying,
00:11 "Yeah, he played an absolute blinder here."
00:14 The two major talking points were, of course, Kai Havert in for Gabi Jesus up front,
00:17 and Jorginho returning to the starting XI for the first time since the Renaissance.
00:22 But it was these two players by just a mile who were the difference makers in this game.
00:28 Genuinely, I think this peters out into a 1-1 draw or just a stalemate,
00:33 but Jorginho and especially Kai Havert were the difference makers.
00:37 Now, we're going to talk about it in just a second,
00:39 but I've seen this opening goal being described as terrible defending by Liverpool and Virgil van Dijk in particular.
00:45 And, yeah, it certainly looks that way,
00:48 but it's actually Havert's really good big brain that pulls it all together.
00:53 But speaking of brains, you all may remember that Liverpool and Arsenal played each other very recently.
00:57 That time, Liverpool won, and the scars of that match tactically were just wrought large across the faces of both teams.
01:06 Now, in that game, both sides were doing their little box midfield thing in the centre of the park,
01:11 but also both of them were getting absolutely done in behind the fullbacks.
01:15 In Arsenal's case, that was Martinelli constantly getting down the left in the space that Alexander-Arnold was vacating.
01:20 But then in the second half, Liverpool made that change.
01:22 They put Darwin Nunes on this side, and he just had the field day.
01:27 So both teams then went into this game thinking, OK, we're not going to do that.
01:30 We're going to sacrifice a little bit of control in the middle of the pitch,
01:32 but it's going to protect us in these vulnerable areas.
01:35 And the difference in this game was the way that Arsenal adapted to this was so much better than Liverpool.
01:42 Like, this is Trent Alexander-Arnold's heat map from this game.
01:45 And if I sound slightly crazy about this,
01:47 it's because I couldn't tell you the last time he's played that wide and that deep for Liverpool.
01:52 He doesn't get into the centre at all. He doesn't even get further up the pitch.
01:56 They were terrified about Martinelli getting in behind.
01:59 But likewise, these are Arsenal's average positions across the game,
02:03 and that's incredibly unusual for Zinchenko to be that far out on the left.
02:07 He virtually never gets into the middle to make things happen.
02:11 So how, how did Arsenal get the upper hand?
02:14 Well, as we said at the start of the video, it was partially Jorginho, but it was mostly Kai Havertz.
02:20 And if we just go back to the graph, you can see exactly what I mean here.
02:23 Like, Arsenal are normally 1-6, Declan Rice then 2-8 slightly further forward.
02:27 But you can see in the average positions, it didn't work out like that at all.
02:31 Jorginho wound up sitting with Declan Rice as kind of a double pivot.
02:35 Martin Urdegaard played far further forward, and then Kai Havertz dropped all the way in,
02:39 and they formed their box this way.
02:41 Martinelli and Saka were staying as high and as wide as they possibly could,
02:44 and that wasn't just pinning Liverpool's defence, but it was then stretching them across the width of the pitch.
02:49 Now, there's a reason you don't see this sort of shape very often.
02:53 It's because you've got absolutely no presence in the central part of the pitch.
02:56 You'll probably control the ball really well with this kind of shape, but you'll never score a goal.
03:01 This, honestly, might be one of my favourite goals I've seen in the Premier League this season,
03:05 because you can just see every single part of it working perfectly.
03:09 And Liverpool, in their attempt to deal with it, play right into it.
03:14 Now, Arsenal have the ball at the back, and Liverpool would think they've got this situation pretty well covered.
03:20 If it goes into Rice or Jorginho, chances are they're not going to be facing forward when they receive that ball,
03:25 so they'll have to play backwards. That's fine.
03:27 But the main threat here, and the one that Cody Gakpo will have been specifically instructed to keep an eye on,
03:31 whether he was on the touchline or moving into the middle, is Zinchenko.
03:35 And again, while Gakpo isn't specifically man-marking him, he is close enough to him
03:39 that if the ball looks like it's going out there, he can potentially intercept it.
03:42 But oh no, wait a minute. Who's this extra player that suddenly dropped into sort of the deep left position?
03:49 Why, it's literally Arsenal's centre forward of all players. Can't you have it?
03:54 And him being there all of a sudden allows Jorginho to play a really easy one-time bounce pass
03:59 and thus move the ball forward without necessarily needing to face forward.
04:03 That was really clever of him. Now I will admit, it's not a perfect box shape by any stretch of the imagination,
04:09 but if we just stop it, when Havertz receives that ball, you can see that in the middle of the pitch now,
04:14 there's Rice and Jorginho at the base of this, then Havertz and Oerdegaard at the top.
04:18 Now obviously, Liverpool won't have known that Arsenal weren't going to invert Zinchenko,
04:22 so part of Gakpo's job would have been, when they do get that four in the middle,
04:26 make sure you come across and balance those numbers out.
04:29 So he does exactly what he should be doing in this situation. He moves on Havertz to try and press that ball
04:33 to stop him getting turned and running up the pitch.
04:36 But of course, what was Gakpo's job literally three seconds ago? It was to watch Zinchenko.
04:43 But of course, now he's had to come over to Havertz. He's left him completely free.
04:47 And two more really quick little bounce passes later, Arsenal have him in down that side.
04:52 Now again, this on its own is a great little move and shows how by dropping Havertz into this central space,
04:57 you can dominate the ball and play your way out from the back.
05:00 But again, you've still got this massive gap that is not going to get you any goals.
05:05 But here is just the genius part about this, right?
05:08 Because Kennate and Van Dijk don't really have anything to do at this exact moment in time.
05:14 So they then individually make what are, on the face of it, very intelligent decisions.
05:20 When that ball gets to Zinchenko over there, Oerdegaard here is Arsenal's most advanced player
05:25 and he's slightly further onto the right-hand side.
05:27 So Virgil van Dijk has a look at him and says, "I'll pick him up."
05:31 And because Zinchenko is now running completely free down their right-hand side,
05:34 Trent Alexander-Arnold does what he has to do here and pushes up to deny him that space.
05:39 Which is completely fine because Kennate hasn't got anybody to mark.
05:42 He can move across to keep an eye on Martinelli and stop that ball going in behind.
05:47 Meanwhile, Andy is just out of shot, but Pekkaio Saka has held his width on the right-hand side as much as possible.
05:52 So Joe Gomez has to kind of stay in this area. He can't then come across to cover that gap.
05:57 Now I would say, genuinely here, all four of Liverpool's defenders have made the correct decision in that situation.
06:04 But as Alexander-Arnold gets to Zinchenko to put that tackle in, this is the shape it has given their defensive line.
06:11 And unlike this line, let's get one thing completely straight, and that is they've not done this
06:16 because they're suddenly bad at their jobs or their brains have fallen out.
06:19 They are in this shape to quote one of the greatest WhatsApp voice notes ever recorded.
06:24 You've manoeuvred me here.
06:26 But this is where it gets super delicious, right? Because even from this position, when Zinchenko checks inside,
06:31 probably say it doesn't look all that dangerous.
06:34 But Arsenal, in a split second and in two touches of the ball, kill Liverpool.
06:40 Split them down the middle and then bathe in their guts.
06:43 So two things to note here really quickly.
06:45 First of all, you'll remember that Van Dijk identified Erdegaard as the danger man.
06:49 He has stopped his run. Van Dijk has left him a bit of distance.
06:52 He realises that and he checks his own run, which is in theory the right decision.
06:57 But now Kai Havert is, of course, continuing his run from that pass to get back into the centre forward area.
07:01 But because he did so from so deep in Arsenal's build up, he's now being tracked by McAllister
07:07 because he'll have seen him making that run.
07:09 Again, correct decision.
07:11 And this is where they completely take advantage of the fact that Liverpool's defenders are not psychic.
07:17 McAllister is not going to go all the way into the back line.
07:20 That's not his job. He's effectively passing Havert, the centre forward, off to the players who are supposed to be marking him.
07:26 But he does so at the exact moment Van Dijk moves towards Erdegaard to stop him having all that free space.
07:34 And when that ball is played, because remember, Liverpool are so terrified of getting done down the flanks,
07:39 Canarte is worrying about Martinelli, Joe Gomez is still over this side worrying about Saka.
07:45 There's just this yawning chasm in the middle of the pitch, which Kai Havert has run into,
07:50 having initially received the ball in his own third, and is now through on goal.
07:54 Now, were we living in a fair and just universe, dear viewer, Kai Havert would just roll that into the back of the net,
08:00 possibly even a cheeky little dink and we could celebrate what an amazing contribution he made to that goal
08:06 all the way from the back, right to the front. But of course, it's not a fair and just universe.
08:13 It's horrible, horrible and shocking and cold. And it's just the worst finish going.
08:18 But thankfully, thankfully Saka's there. So we actually get to talk about this rather than just,
08:22 "Oh, do you remember that chance he had?"
08:24 Now, we're not going to go through every single goal in the same amount of detail.
08:27 Obviously, Liverpool's equaliser is just some baffling decision making from Saliba.
08:32 You look here, he is in control of that situation. But for some reason, he's just so determined to have his goalkeeper
08:38 come and pick that up so they can get another attack away rather than just clearing it out or doing something with it.
08:44 That's a mindset thing that a lot of these defenders at the top level have. He should just deal with it.
08:49 Everybody knows that. And you could probably say the exact same thing about the goal that got Arsenal back in front.
08:54 Van Dijk could deal with this if he wants to. But again, he'd rather have his goalkeeper come and deal with it
08:59 so then they're on the front foot and they can get back up the pitch.
09:02 But just one thing that's jumped out to me here that I don't think anybody's really pointed out.
09:07 I think, and I could be completely wrong about this, but I think the reason Van Dijk lets this bounce
09:13 and is so confident Alisson's going to come and get it is because he thinks for a second that's Kai Havertz in front of him.
09:21 If we look at when the ball is played, Havertz has moved all the way out to the left-hand side
09:25 where Martinelli should be and he has come across into the middle.
09:29 But I do think that was a very deliberate thing they've done because Liverpool came out really strong in the second half.
09:34 Arsenal couldn't really get on the ball. They couldn't play through them.
09:36 And obviously they weren't inverting with the full-back so there wasn't any sort of room to get in down the flanks.
09:41 But Martinelli is a lot quicker than Havertz. He's a far more direct runner. He'll chase things down.
09:47 So Liverpool still leaving all this space in behind with their high line.
09:51 It does kind of make sense to go over the top to Martinelli rather than play into the feet of Havertz, or at least to mix that up.
09:57 So I think, and again I could be completely wrong here, the reason Van Dijk displays zero urgency at the start of this
10:04 is because he doesn't think Havertz necessitates any.
10:07 So yes, I mean, don't get me wrong, free goal. You could replay that exact same scenario 100 times over
10:11 and Alisson will clear it 99 of the other times.
10:15 But I just, that little doubt that causes the situation to occur, I think that's again because of Havertz' movement.
10:22 Maybe that's a reach, I don't know.
10:23 But nonetheless, the way in which Virgil van Dijk adapted his approach through that game
10:28 was definitely the reason why Arsenal got the third one.
10:31 Because I've seen Roy Keane and Jamie Carragher being like, "Why doesn't he just come across?
10:36 Why is he just jogging? Why doesn't he throw himself in front of that shot?"
10:41 And I've got a theory behind that one.
10:43 Well, you've seen this Arsenal team before.
10:45 They love, they simply adore a clever little cutback from the byline towards a sort of penalty spot.
10:51 So you're Van Dijk, you're thinking, "I know what's coming here."
10:54 And give them his due, he is absolutely right.
10:57 Not one of those Arsenal players even tries to make a late run into the box.
11:02 And even if they did, Van Dijk has perfectly cut out this cutback.
11:07 And then partially because of a small deflection and partially because of Alisson phasing in and out of our space time for a second,
11:14 it just ends up in the back of the net.
11:17 That's why Arsenal, and especially Havertz, and especially Arteta, deserve so much credit for this.
11:23 Because on the face of it, all three of those goals look like Liverpool's defenders making bad decisions.
11:28 But they are making the correct decisions in those circumstances.
11:32 It's just that Arsenal had expertly manipulated those circumstances.
11:37 Now, is there an element of fortune in the second or third goal?
11:40 Yes, of course, absolutely.
11:42 The second one is like the best defender goalkeeper pairing in the league,
11:45 sticking their fingers down their throat at the exact same time.
11:48 And the third one requires a small deflection.
11:51 But you show me a team incapable of getting a little bit of luck here and there,
11:56 and I will show you a team that's never going to win the league.
11:59 But also, and I'm not even an Arsenal fan, but I think that's really nice for Kai Havertz.
12:04 He's had so much scrutiny and so many questions asked about him,
12:07 and he's played in so many different positions.
12:09 And some of his performances haven't looked great, and some of his finishing in front of goal,
12:12 even as we saw in this game, has been subpar.
12:15 But you can see here why managers just adore him.
12:19 Like, yes, OK, a six-year-old might have shown more conviction in front of goal here,
12:23 but this entire situation, one of my favourite ones I've seen in the Premier League this season,
12:28 that's all him.
12:30 He comes in and drops and forms the box and creates the overload and gives Zinchenko the space
12:34 and makes the run at the exact right time to drag McAllister with him,
12:38 but not to attack the attentions of--
12:40 It's just-- It's all really, really, really, really, really intelligent play, and it's all him.
12:45 And just one small thing before we finish, right?
12:47 I seem to remember Arsenal being accused of a fortuitous result at the Emirates against Manchester City
12:53 and then getting told off for over-celebrating that one as well.
12:56 Those are huge, huge results, which can actually legitimately define where their season goes.
13:03 And one, there's not really any such thing as luck in these games.
13:06 You absolutely have to create your own, and they've done that in both of those fixtures.
13:11 And two, fucking celebrate how you like. It's a big win.
13:15 I saw Jamie Carragher absolutely losing his mind at Martin Erdogan having a bit of fun with a photographer.
13:20 Like, what's the matter with you? Grow up.
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