Arsenal were held to a 2-2 draw against a fairly average Hull City side on Saturday. For a large portion of the game, Wenger’s side looked completely lost – rampaging around the pitch with no clear aim or purpose. It would be a fair criticism to say our entire team were performing like a bunch of headless chickens; such was the lack of direction in their play.
But why was this? Why have Arsenal failed to find their passing rhythm and free-flowing football this season? For me, the answer is simple: the team’s shape is an absolute mess.
Now, I certainly don’t posses the same amount of football knowledge that Arsene Wenger does – and I’ll never pretend to – but I do have a keen interest in the game, and an insatiable love for the kind of football Wenger likes to play.
Although Arsenal is the only club in my heart, I hold a keen interest in teams that set out to play Tiki-taka (for lack of a better word) football; teams that pass the ball for fun and build their entire game on keeping hold of the ball no matter what. I love to watch the likes of Barcelona and Bayern Munich, not for any supporting pleasure, but to simply observe and admire the style of play that defines the whole way I view football.
So, I’m not going to criticise Wenger’s tactics. Instead, I am simply going to put forward the ideas of a similarly qualified manager and use them to pick holes in the current Arsenal team – and the manager I’m going to use for this is the legendary Pep Guardiola.
On Saturday against Hull, the Arsenal lads found themselves positioned like this for the majority of the game:
And it wasn’t by chance. Arsene Wenger has clearly opted to go for a 4-1-4-1 system this season, with all five of Arsenal’s offensive players being allowed to go and play in whatever position they wish, and our full-backs pushing forward in order to create width. Although this kind of set-up has been used by Wenger in the past, I’ve never seen him deploy such loose roles to so many players before, and this shape has caused us way too many problems this season.
The biggest problem this formation is giving us is the large space created between our two attacking midfielders and Flamini. This gap is due to our offensive midfielders’ tendency to travel far too high up the pitch when we’re in possession, and this leaves us open to the counter, with our opposition only having to face Flamini and our two centre-backs when breaking forward. The other defensive problem it creates is that our full-backs seem to get stuck in no man’s land – not moving high enough to act as real wingers, but not staying deep enough to prevent large gaps opening behind them.
However, it isn’t the defensive issues that I’m most concerned with. What bothers me the most is how our current shape hinders our attacking flow and rhythm. Due to our players being all wanting to cut inside and play in the ‘hole’, the space becomes unusable – transforming into an overly crowed mess.
Not only does our current formation limit the space we have on the edge of the box, but it also severely restricts both the number and quality of passing triangles we can create.
Our narrow front line makes it harder for our full-backs to connect with our wide-men, and the position of our two offensive midfielders breaks-down the passing channels between our centre-backs and midfield. This whole set-up stints the flow and accuracy of our passing, and this has had a detrimental effect on our play.
In order to rectify these issues, I’d like to see Wenger deploy a much more defined 4-3-3 formation, similar to the one used by Pep Guardiola.
The tight midfield trio eliminates the space that currently exists between Flamini and our attacking midfielders, and the extra width provided by our wingers would allow our full-backs to drop deeper when defending. As well as improving the defensive side of our game, this formation would make it easier for our full-backs to link up with our wingers, and it would also open up space in that no.10 position for players like Mesut Özil and Santi Cazorla to pop into.
Not only would we have more space in the final third, but we’d find ourselves with many more passing channels to use. Guardiola’s system relies on creating the maximum number of passing triangles between players in order to maintain possession and tire the opposition, and this formation would give us plenty more to play with. Furthermore, this set-up uses much more of the pitch that our current formation – a vital element when it comes to tiring out your opposition. With our wingers hugging the touchline, our midfield trio can simply move the ball from side to side of the pitch, stretching the opposition defence and created space for our centre-forward to use.
Overall, I feel this formation would suit us much more than our current one, and although I’m not qualified to criticise Wenger’s tactics, it is very hard to argue against the system Guardiola has used for the past seven years.
Do you agree? Let us know in the comments below.