No Rice, no Odegaard, no problem. Arsenal kept pace with Man City in the early weeks of the season thanks to a second-half goal from Gabriel. But without such key players, how did Mikel Arteta ensure his side emerged with a vital 3 points? Adam Clery looks at what they did both with and without the ball that gave Spurs another North London nightmare.
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00:00All right, okay, so you're missing not only two of your best and most consistent players,
00:06but also your two most important summer signings.
00:09How do you fix that?
00:11And while the Tottenham team was pretty much as we expected, no real surprises there, no
00:15major injury concerns, this was what Arteta had to improvise his Arsenal side into being.
00:21And with apologies to Tottenham fans, this one ain't really about you.
00:26Can you pick that up?
00:27Now if you watch a lot of Arsenal, you'll know it's normally this 4-3-3 shape to start
00:32with, but from there, there's a lot of changes depending on the opposition.
00:35They're a very adaptive team.
00:36But the solution that Arteta devised for the injuries was to kind of go to more of just
00:41sort of like a standard 4-4-2-ish.
00:46And I say ish, by the way, because this was actually Arsenal's system out of possession
00:51when they did not have the ball.
00:53Now normally that's not how you would represent the overall play style, but it was very
00:57clear yesterday that Arsenal's strategy was to be very comfortable not having the ball.
01:03Like they came out with something like 36% possession in that game when last season they
01:07averaged just shy of 60%.
01:10So it's very clear that what they were looking to do was not dominate the ball.
01:14And it's this sort of like lack of possession that's already given us a bit of a false narrative
01:19about this game.
01:20Because I've seen people saying that Arsenal were dead deep, they were dead negative, they
01:23were dead defensive, they were just looking to hit Tottenham on the counter.
01:27And that is true to an extent, but it does a complete disservice over how ambitious and
01:33brave this game plan was and how much credit Arteta deserves for going with it.
01:39Now I'll show you what I mean, right?
01:40You saw this shape from Arsenal every single time Tottenham had possession.
01:44You can see their disciplines, you can see they're keeping the gaps nice and small, they're
01:48not really allowing them to play.
01:49But instead, I'll show you Arsenal's average positions across that game.
01:54Now it looks totally different because an average position graph is basically made up
01:58of all the times you impacted the play directly.
02:01So that's a pass, a touch, a successful tackle, everywhere you touch the ball, that feeds
02:06into that graph.
02:07So it looks very different from what you're doing out of possession, usually.
02:11And given that you so frequently saw Arsenal in this shape during the game, like literally
02:16over 60% of it, they were doing this.
02:19This looks mad by comparison.
02:20You've got Thomas Partey dropping all the way in between the two centre-backs to get
02:24on the ball, but mostly to do extra defensive work.
02:27You've got both Timber and Ben White looking like conventional full-backs here, despite
02:31them being the least conventional full-backs in the league.
02:34You've got a lot of wide threat from Saka and Martinelli, which yes, I guess they can
02:39both do that.
02:40But the interesting thing is this sort of total absence of any presence up top and this
02:45mush just behind where it should be.
02:47What Arsenal had here was basically Trossard and Havert kind of playing as like, I don't
02:53even think there's a word for it, like dual false nines.
02:56They were both playing as the centre-forwards, leading the press when they didn't have the
03:00ball.
03:01But as soon as Arsenal did have the ball, they had like total free rolls.
03:05Now, I'll show you what I mean by that, right?
03:07So this is Kai Havert, heat map.
03:09And first of all, yes, there is a little splodge here where he was winning headers in the box
03:13because he is a good aerial threat.
03:15We'll talk about that more in a little bit.
03:17But beyond that, he's doing pretty much everything in his power to get on the ball and influence
03:22the play aside from being a centre-forward.
03:25He drops out wide to help Saka a lot.
03:28He covers back across into the middle.
03:29On occasion, he goes looking for it on the other side.
03:32That's great.
03:33That's kind of a false nine.
03:34And then you've got Leandro Trossard, who obviously is missing this bit here because
03:37he's about five foot and out.
03:39He's not going to win any headers, but he too goes looking for it all over the pitch.
03:43He even gets involved defensively a little bit here, which is what this blob is again.
03:48Not a centre-forward, way more of a false nine.
03:51And again, this lack of sort of presence up front, having two players basically floating
03:55around everywhere and just sort of evacuating that central area meant that Arsenal virtually
04:01never had long sustained periods of possession in Tottenham's half and by extension has led
04:07to this whole narrative that they were unambitious and defensive.
04:11But just because you don't have that central focal point at the top of the pitch and just
04:15because you are happy to let the opposition have the ball for long spells does not necessarily
04:22mean you are not being aggressive or ambitious or brave.
04:26What Havertz and Trossard enabled Arsenal to do was to have their usual levels of aggression,
04:31to have their usual levels of ambition far up the pitch without having to have the ball.
04:37There was a moment right at the very start of the game that showed you exactly what Arsenal's
04:41game plan was for Spurs here.
04:43I think this is like the third minute Tottenham have got a free kick sort of deep into their
04:48own half and Arsenal are like this.
04:51Now they're not dropping off, they're not scurrying back to the halfway line, they're not trying
04:55to get into a mid or a low block and go really defensive.
04:58They are still pressing Tottenham the way they would normally play.
05:02But thanks to a very nicely timed camera cut on behalf of Sky Sports, cheers for that lads,
05:08you can see exactly what the plan is.
05:11Arteta rushes to the edge of his technical area and he starts doing this, makes this
05:15sort of gesture which if you're not intimately familiar with all the weird things managers
05:20do on the touchline basically means squeeze.
05:23And within just a couple of seconds Arsenal go from this, which is obviously still high
05:27and still quite brave, to this, which is even higher and even braver and is restricting
05:33the space even more.
05:35In other words, they have squeezed.
05:38And what that should tell you is that yes, Arsenal were happy to let Tottenham have the
05:42ball but where a lot of teams would only look to congest the space in their own half and
05:46be difficult to play through here, Arsenal wanted to do it wherever Tottenham had the ball.
05:52And that, to quote one of the greatest movies ever made, is a bold strategy, Cotton.
05:59Let's see if it pays off.
06:00Basically, the way to look at this is that Tottenham play a very distinct way.
06:04They want to be moving forward as much as possible but they want to be doing it with
06:08short, sharp, incisive passing, good rotations of players, working the ball through the thirds,
06:15finding space where there usually isn't any and then getting into the final third in numbers
06:19to create chances.
06:20So the idea behind this, all the squeezing, is that regardless of where Tottenham have
06:24the ball, Arsenal congest the space in front of them as much as possible to make it really
06:30hard to play through.
06:32And this was just so effective at limiting what Tottenham were able to do in this game
06:36despite the amount of the ball they had.
06:38Like imagine you've got James Madison on your team, where do you really want him to be getting
06:44on the ball if he's playing as your number 10, right?
06:46It's right around the edge of the box.
06:48It's in these areas where he's just one little killer pass away from creating a chance or
06:53getting a shot off.
06:54But because of the way Arsenal defended, this is his heat map from the match-up.
06:58There's virtually nothing in that area where you would want him.
07:02It's all 10, 20 yards further back.
07:05Like, they were able to find him with the ball an awful lot but if you overlay his pass
07:09map, he never once successfully got the ball into the box.
07:13Like everything's just too many players in front of him, not enough space to work in.
07:17Sideways, sideways, backwards, backwards.
07:19Really good defending.
07:20Like as well, this is Dominic Solanke's entire touch map from the game.
07:24You'll see he gets one or two sort of half chances in the box.
07:27But other than those two headers, he only touches the ball in the 18-yard box once.
07:32He has to keep coming out wide to look for the ball.
07:35He has to keep getting involved, not in the areas he wants to be in.
07:38Like Tottenham had 65% possession of the ball and they couldn't get Solanke or Madison involved
07:45in any areas where they could hurt Arsenal.
07:48Now, here's the thing, right?
07:50This is all the result of Arsenal having a really good game plan designed to limit spurs.
07:54But any team can turn up against any other team, have a plan to limit them, but because
07:59they're letting them have two-thirds of the ball, have it backfire spectacularly.
08:03Which is why I think, honestly, the thing that should please Arsenal fans the most about
08:07this isn't necessarily that they turned up with the right ideas, but about the individual
08:13execution of those ideas across the team.
08:15The amount of times in this match that Arsenal ended up with a back five because both Saka
08:21and Martinelli were prepared to run all the way back with their full backs to stop any
08:26kind of overload, any kind of two-on-one, any kind of numerical advantage in dangerous
08:32areas was...
08:33I forgot how I started this sentence.
08:35It was a lot.
08:36Saka, in particular, on this side, did a fantastic job against both Udoge and Son.
08:41Between him and Ben White, they constantly rotated who was sort of sitting in the half
08:46space if one of them went narrow, who was out wide if one of them went to the touchline.
08:50And as a result, Son had nothing.
08:52Again, I'll show you his heat map.
08:54He gets the ball on the touchline an awful lot because spurs were enjoying the possession,
08:58but there is no incision, there is no cutting edge into the box at all.
09:02And if you combine that with his pass map, again, just like Madison, everything has to
09:06go backwards, everything has to go sideways.
09:09Anytime they got good territory, Arsenal worked on those individual duels and won them.
09:15So that basically is how you stop a team as good on the ball as Tottenham are from really
09:21doing anything to you on the ball.
09:23You turn it with a game plan that limits what it is they're going to try and do, and then
09:27individually the players have to go in their duels, go in their battles, and make that
09:32a reality.
09:33Now, that's what gets you the nil part of the scoreline, but what's just as interesting
09:38is how they got the one.
09:39The one part of this narrative that Arsenal were deep and defensive and were just looking
09:43to spring a counterattack or get a set piece that actually is true, is that this was a
09:47far more direct version of their play style than we're normally used to seeing.
09:51First off, this is what your everyday, run-of-the-mill, all-American, corn-fed, David Ryer pass map
09:57for Arsenal tends to look like.
09:59You will see the centre-backs, they split, they all go nice and high, they get loads
10:03of options, and he tries to find them in his own third to begin a possession-based
10:08build-up.
10:09He certainly has the ability to go long, you can see that here, if there's a clear option
10:12on, in this case this was against Wolves, they were finding a lot of space on the left-hand
10:16side as they were pushing up.
10:17He's more than capable of using that ability to make Arsenal a little bit more direct,
10:22but primarily he's building up at the back.
10:24And this is your David Ryer pass map from the Tottenham game.
10:28There is the occasional flirtation with passing it round from the back, but by and large he
10:32is looking to go as long and as direct as he possibly can.
10:37And what's even more interesting about this, he says, as if any normal person on the planet
10:42finds a goalkeeper's pass map all that interesting, is that the majority of these sideways ones
10:48all take place in the first 15-20 minutes.
10:50One of the rare occasions they were knocking it around at the back, Ben White gives the
10:54ball away to Solanke, and if he was a little bit more on it, he probably would score from
10:58this and again, camera cuts to Arteta on the touchline, who tells them to just stop
11:03arsing on with it, get the ball forward as quickly as you can.
11:06And not long after that we get a sequence of play involving both teams that sums the
11:12entire game up in just a couple of seconds.
11:15David Ryer gets the ball at the back and he has a number of short options.
11:19Now under normal circumstances you would expect him to go into the number six here, he would
11:23play a bounce pass into one of the centre backs, or he could go all the way out to White
11:27here with a nice little chip or just find the centre backs himself, you would expect
11:30a build up to take place.
11:32But instead that is not the instruction in this game, he goes as direct and long as he
11:36possibly can to force Arsenal up the pitch and append Tottenham into their own half.
11:41Kai Havertz wins the ball and they nearly get a really good chance on the edge of the
11:45box.
11:46But instead it breaks down and Tottenham attempt to counter.
11:49Now at the point of them winning this ball back, Arsenal now have five players caught
11:54the wrong side of the ball in Tottenham's final third.
11:57And this is where you see why the execution becomes so much more important than just the
12:02game plan.
12:03Because Leandro Trossard, having just run the entire length of the pitch one way, tracks
12:07back the entire length of the pitch the other way and stops Tottenham having any easy ball
12:12through the centre and shuffles them slightly wide.
12:15Like you see at this very early stage of the move, Romero really wants to get this ball
12:18into Slanky who's just dropping off from the centre backs and from there if he gets turned
12:23he's got options left and right in Son and I think that's Johnson on the other side.
12:28But Trossard stops that ball happening and they have to go wide early.
12:32Tottenham play two basic passes into the middle of the pitch and already Arsenal now have
12:38every single player back behind the ball.
12:41Like they worked hard enough to force them out wide in the first place which bought them
12:44a little bit of time and then every single player did the hard work getting back to now
12:50shut down the centre of that pitch.
12:52And what that should show you is that nobody on this Arsenal team wanted to lose one single
12:58individual battle.
13:01Now guess where that goal comes from?
13:03Last season in this very fixture Arsenal scored two goals from targeting Spurs' weakness
13:09from set-pieces.
13:10Two corners both in swingers dropped into this very messy area where an Arsenal player
13:15would win their individual battle, beat their man and get their head to it in an area of
13:20the pitch you can virtually not fail to score from.
13:23Now Tottenham, credit where it's due, do look to have addressed this set-piece weakness
13:27in the summer.
13:28They seem to defend them a lot better.
13:29They're certainly not giving up goals the way they were but while they are now good
13:32at defending them, Arsenal are still great at scoring them.
13:37And just like last season this in-swinger direct into the banter zone, Gabriel beats
13:44Romero in his individual battle, gets up and scores the goal that wins the game.
13:49But all that is, is just a very, very long-winded way of saying that without Reiss, without
13:54Erdegaard, without Calafiori, without Mourinho, Arteta took what should have been a very nuanced
13:59tactical back and forth and just sort of turned it into a game of who wants this more.
14:06Do we want it enough to stay really disciplined in our shape?
14:10Do we want it enough to run all the way back down the pitch after we've just run all the
14:16way up it?
14:17Do we want it enough to win our individual battles in the moments that can decide the
14:23game?
14:24And Arsenal, he will no doubt be thrilled to learn, answered yes to every single one
14:30of those questions.
14:31Now there was just a load of other stuff we could touch on in this video.
14:34Like Jorginho actually led the press despite not being in the front line of it which shows
14:39what a supremely intelligent footballer he is.
14:42Durian Timber, dear God, all over the pitch was absolutely magnificent.
14:47He probably deserves a video all of his own.
14:50But I think the core thing to get across here is that if you have to chase after Man City,
14:55these are the games you cannot lose regardless of who's available.
15:00And that is a huge, major test, not just of Arsenal's ability, but of their mentality.
15:05So if you are an Arsenal fan, I would dearly, dearly like to know how you feel coming out
15:09of this game.
15:10Is it cemented that you've got enough about the team regardless of the personnel to go
15:14and win the league?
15:16Or does it just sort of highlight how much you have to compromise tactically when you're
15:19missing one or two players?
15:21But you also know the drill by now.
15:23If you're too good for the comment section, you can get me across all the social medias,
15:27all of them at Adam Cleary, C-L-E-R-Y, that's not really there for me, I just have to pretend
15:31to point that out.
15:32The 442 socials, they're in the corner of the video and probably what felt like the
15:37biggest, tensest, most championship deciding game of the season so far, with four games
15:42in, ends 1-0 to the Arsenal.
15:46Which just goes to show you can't beat the classics, can you?
15:48Anyway, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.