Last night Arsenal were out played, outclassed and outgunned to a 3-1 loss but a key element of the loss came by the great play of the Bayern full backs Alaba and Lahm, often left to run riot down the wings with Podolski and Cazorla unable or more likely unwilling to track back.
Arsenal like a lot of top teams around Europe play a 4-2-3-1 formation, this formation is great if you are able to dominate games and push the opposition back but if you are under the cosh can leave you often facing a 2 on 1 situation down the wings. Last night Vermaelen was often in a 2 on 1 situation which pulled Koscielny across slightly and left too big a gap between Mertesacker and Koscielny. Philip Lahm is one of the best attacking full backs in the world and if anyone should have known this it should have been his compatriot Podolski. However Podolski was too often found up field and Bayern exposed this weakness.
In the first few games of the season Podolski was praised for his relationship with Gibbs and especially his work-rate to get back and help his left-back out however this seems to have disappeared, is it entirely his fault. With the formation the players in the 3 behind the forward need to support him when we get the ball or we will lose it all to quickly. This is even more of an issue when Walcott is the sole CF and his inability to hold up the ball due to his small stature. Podolski and Cazorla realised they should be near him to try and help him lay the ball off then try play the ball in behind. However they didn’t even manage to do this as Arsenal were lobbing balls forward like Giroud was the CF and Walcott was simply outmuscled by Van Buyten and Dante. This often left Podolski and Cazorla in no man’s land, not defending and not supporting the attack.
In a 4–4-2 lets say with Giroud and one of Podolski/Walcott, Giroud can either flick the ball off to the striker or hold on the ball and lie it back to the advancing midfield. You then have two dedicated plays out wide to mark the opposition wide men and negate the threat of 2 on 1′s down the flank. Walcott showed last night and a few weeks back against Man City he can not be the CF when we are going to be defending for large parts of the game. He doesn’t offer an out as opposition defenders will sweep up anything in the air and he doesn’t seem to have the same impact of running in behind when not cutting in from the wing. His best piece of play came from when Rosicky played him in behind on the wing and he pulled it back for Giroud to unfortunately hit it cleanly right at the keeper.
Too often opposition know how we will line up and modify their tactics to negate this, they pack the middle and keep us passing the ball in a semi-circle around the box, Blackburn swamped the box often leaving Giroud trying to fend against 3 or 4 players and as such minimised his impact. We lack the Fabregas to be able to play the incisive ball to break this swamp and as such our attacking threat is minimized. Even when we go behind we still stick to this 4-2-3-1 formation, Wenger doesn’t try and alter the situation and put 2 in the box to increase the threat. As bad as Chamakh was I think if behind with 20 minutes to go sticking him upfront with Giroud would give the opposistion defenders a hand full to deal with.
Manchester United change their formation week on week to keep the opposition guessing this season they have played 4-2-3-1, 4-4-2, 4-4-2(diamond),4-3-3 and even effectively 4-2-4 once. This is a nightmare for opposition managers as they can’t prepare specific tactics. Ferguson does have a much better squad so he can rotate personal and formation more easily but with the may our season is going its worth an effort.
Do we have the players to play a 4-4-2? That is a legitimate question. Any two of Wilshere, Arteta, Ramsey, Diaby, Rosicky could play in the central two. Oxlade-Chamberlain and Rosicky could play out wide but I don’t think Cazorla, Gervinho, Podolski or Walcott have the defensive abilities to play out wide. I don’t know where Cazorla could play in 4-4-2, he is great going forward but his defensive abilities leave one wishing for a more physical presence. With Gibbs returning one of he or Monreal could play on the left wing as well.There may be debates over whether Wenger should come or go but he is here till at least the end of the season and we need to change something to ensure we have Champions League next year. An example 4-4-2 for me would be
——————————————Szczesny—————————————–
Sagna————-Koscielny——————Vermaelen———-Gibbs
Ox—————-Wilshere———————Arteta—————Rosicky
————————-Giroud——————-Walcott/Podolski
What do you think?
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I think Cazorla would work well in a 4-4-1-1 behind Giroud personally. He gets the lay off from Giroud and then pass it forward to the advancing midfield on either side. But I agree, I would love to see a change in formation once in a while – get the opposition guessing. It all depends on the team we face as to which setup is preferred. We have become far too predictable in my opinion
Yeah Cazorla can play in 4-4-1-1 for sure just feel if we played 4-4-1-1 would turn into the 4-2-3-1 we play now unless we have players out wide that will track back
In arsenal team now there is a lot to change but my team wil like to be . ……Sczes1………jenk25 ….kosc6…..vem5……gibbs28…..arteta8……willsh10……rosicky7……theo14……podol9……giroud12
Let’s see, a 4-4-2 would enable us to play an extra forward and an extra defensive minded midfielder, the areas where we are weakest as team, at the cost of playing attack minded midfielders, the area where we are strongest. Brilliant!
We effectively played a 4-4-1-1 in the first two games of the year, Bouldball. We were very successful at preventing the opposing team from scoring. There was only two problems with it, we didn’t score either and it was really boring.
Why does the extra midfielder have to be defensive could just be a standard midfielder, I’ll agree with you about the striker we need another striker next season. Think your underrating Podolski as a striker though if played up there he is clinical as shown by Wenger saying best finisher at the club
442 433 4231 it does not matter if the same players are in the formation the results will still be we fall short of being a top club again. Many may feel I am wrong but I would replace almost every player in the squad of course you can not realistically do that all at once so we have to make some hard choices and keep the right players that are at least EPL squad quality but this team desperately needs 3-4 TOP special talents in key roles.
OK I will let you have Wilshere maybe if he was not having to try so hard to be everything he will eventually be capable of finishing off his good play but really I feel he is over rated I see him lose out at the most important moments NOT being at the right place playing the wrong pass (of course that could be because his team mate made the wrong run) or just not good enough to pull off the difficult play he is attempting If he had a truly amazing talent (or 2 or 3) out there with him he is good enough to support but he is NOT that special talent himself (not at the moment anyway) I do think he is good enough to not be a weak point in the team as other are but he is like Xavi Hernández without Iniesta and Messi. So I will reserve judgement as without great support nether of those 3 would be as good as they are ether. I also feel he MUST develop a better Shot and the ability to make space to and show up in the right places to Use it. Lampard is not a fancy moves guy like a Brazilian ether but he knows how to score. But again I think Arsenal’s style of play and the movement of the forward payers actually serve to help the opposition clog up the space in front of goal instead of opening up space like they should.
But I think some is tactics but when they create a chance and then blow it that is no longer tactics because the tactics created the chance the player just lacked the quality to finish. But there is still a problem with the style of Arsenal’s play they fail to open up space and MUST rely on making very difficult eye of the needle passes in tight spaces or a individual moment of brilliance to break through and frankly we have not had many players since RVP, Bergkamp, Henry and Fabergas that had that ability to provide that moment of brilliance on a regular basis.
That is why I still to this day wish Wenger had put more pressure on Arshavin to work hard and to keep him fit and in top form as HE had that ability but with little top talent competing for his place in the team he became complacent (which eventually did cost him his spot) unfortunately what he lacked Jack has in abundance if only we could fuse the 2 into one player.
I know there is still the CL second leg (a long shot if there ever was one) and there is the North London Derby we better at least take it to spurs and really fight to finish above them and then Really fight on the transfer market this summer. See I have already started looking forward to next season as I see little hope left for this one.
Sorry to say that Jack loses the ball to much etc and that is mental, have you not seen the last few games he has been the only shining light. Yes he can improve his finishing and if you listen to his interviews he always say he needs more goals and to be more clinical. Yes we do need a few more quality players but the transfer window is shut so we have to do with what we got. You can either change players or change the formation, we don’t have too much strength in depth to change players so maybe the formation is my argument.
Second Leg Against Bayern Muchen:
Mannone
Jenkinson-Sagna-Koscielny-Vermaelen
Chamberlain-Wilshere-Arteta-Podolski
Walcott-Giroud
I know Szczesny hasn’t been great as of late and needs a kicking but Mannone is not the answer, in the summer we need an established number two to come in like Mignolet who can challenge Szczesny and drive him. One of the reasons Szczesny probably has these lapses is lack of pressure due to only alternatives being Fabianski and Mannone/