- 03/05/2024
Former Arsenal manager Unai Emery came back to haunt his former club this weekend, and put an enormous dent in their Premier League title ambitions in the process. But after a first-half where Mikel Arteta's men looked in total control, how did his predecessor completely flip the game around in the second 45? Adam Clery looks at how a slight change of shape, and a massive change of approach, gave us one of the shocks of the season.
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00:00 Bonsoir, guten morgen and how's it ganning everybody, Adam Cleary from 442 here and this
00:08 weekend turns out title races, pretty tough.
00:13 No sooner had Liverpool left the cherry pie of opportunity cooling gently on the windowsill
00:18 had Arsenal managed to like slam their neck in the thing or whatever it is that happens
00:24 to the cartoon character in that situation.
00:26 The thing is, right, while this does feel like an Arsenal story this morning because
00:30 they've blown the lead at the top of the thing and now they're up against it to go and win
00:34 it, I actually think that game was more about what Aston Villa did brilliantly, especially
00:39 in the second half than necessarily what Arsenal did badly.
00:42 I'll tell you why.
00:43 All right, so this video is about Aston Villa, I promise, but we are going to start with
00:49 Arsenal because you need to get what happened in the first half to get what happened in
00:53 the second half and this was how they lined up.
00:55 Now you may recall if you watched it on Sky, Paul Merson saying too much going on here,
01:00 he's messed too much with the team.
01:02 Why'd you change a winning team?
01:04 What you dropped Jorginho for?
01:06 But actually I think Arteta largely got this right.
01:11 Now regular subscribers to the channel and indeed anyone who's watched a lot of Arsenal
01:14 this season will know that where they've majorly come unstuck this season has been against
01:18 their Achilles heel and I'm going to recycle the clip.
01:21 The mid-block.
01:23 We did a big thing on it after they got beat against Porto that time, but when teams set
01:27 up against Arsenal and they push right up to the halfway line, but also maintain a very
01:32 high line, this Arsenal side can sometimes struggle to play through it.
01:37 And I mean, it wasn't just Porto that got a result doing this.
01:40 Fulham set up the exact same way towards the end of last year, got themselves a shock win
01:44 and given that Villa like to have a high line as it is, this was always going to be the
01:49 system they faced.
01:50 So Arteta, knowing this pretty much changed his entire left side.
01:53 Trossard came in for Martinelli, Havard dropped back from centre forward to be on the left
01:57 side of midfield and Zinchenko came in for Kiwiall.
02:00 The logic here was actually pretty sound because it meant that when Arsenal were in long periods
02:04 of possession, they could get into the little box midfield.
02:07 Zinchenko would come across to help Rice in the centre.
02:09 Obviously for all his many flaws, Zinchenko does have a good incisive passing him.
02:13 So getting him in that area is really useful against a team that are going to have numbers.
02:17 But the main thing it was designed to do, and you saw this work several times in the
02:21 first half, was when Arsenal were a lot deeper, when they were still building out from the
02:25 back and Aston Villa had pushed right the way up to the halfway line to try and make
02:28 that hard for them.
02:29 Zinchenko could get on the ball in the left back area, where obviously he's way more effective
02:34 on the ball than Kiwiall is, and just hit it into this space.
02:39 And that's why you play Kai Havertia.
02:42 Not because he's amazing at running in behind or he's lightning quick, but from a wide eight
02:46 position, rather than being the centre forward, he can do so untracked.
02:51 Kai Havert's entire job in that first half was to use his spatial awareness in his reading
02:56 of the game to evade his marker in midfield and then burst into that gap in behind.
03:01 Because that gave Villa a hell of a problem.
03:03 Because if a centre back then goes with him, they're getting pulled all over the place.
03:06 That'll create huge holds throughout the rest of the back line and Arsenal would just play
03:10 through them.
03:11 And time and time again, they got him in either just with a slide pass behind the full back
03:15 or ball over the top.
03:17 And on another day, my friends, Arsenal take one or more of these great chances that came
03:23 about off this system change.
03:25 And instead I'm sitting here applauding Arteta saying what a great bit of management that
03:29 was, how he's just figured out Villa and it's gotten the win and they're on the way to the
03:33 title, yada, yada, yada.
03:35 But they didn't.
03:36 They did not score.
03:37 And say it with me, if you don't take your chances in this league, you will usually get
03:45 f***ed.
03:46 So how then, I hear you ask, did Unai Emery turn this into this?
03:50 And the simple answer is they didn't really change much.
03:54 They just did what they were doing a whole lot better.
03:57 And then at the vital moment, made a substitution that Arsenal just had zero answer for.
04:03 So first off, the proverbial space between the lines, right?
04:07 Villa set up in a 4-2-3-1, but out of possession, they went into a 4-4-2 shape because most
04:13 teams now defend or press in a 4-4-2 shape because it gives you good coverage.
04:16 Like you see, we'll just pause it here.
04:18 And have you ever seen a more perfectly disciplined 4-4-2 in your life?
04:22 Yes, probably.
04:24 But for the purposes of this video, let's pretend you haven't.
04:26 And the thing is, in that first half, it was good and it was effective and Arsenal's only
04:30 real chances were coming from those balls over the top.
04:32 But they were still doing the one thing you don't want to do against Arsenal.
04:36 And they were allowing Martin Odergaard to get on the ball.
04:39 And here for your viewing pleasure are all the passes Martin Odergaard successfully made
04:44 in just the first half.
04:46 So he's equally able to get on the ball in the buildup.
04:48 He was joining in with Rice and Zinchenko at the back to find a bit of space.
04:52 But also crucially, he was able to get on it in this half space where he likes to be
04:57 just outside the box.
04:58 And he was starting to make things happen.
05:00 And for as complicated as people like to make football sound, that's really simple.
05:04 If a player like that is getting on the ball that much in that area, you're leaving him
05:09 too much space.
05:11 So Villa in the second half had a simple solution.
05:14 They just sat much deeper and sat much narrower.
05:17 And when you do that, that reduces the amount of space available in the centre of the pitch.
05:23 And then incredibly simply, Odergaard's impact on the game drastically reduced.
05:28 Like he went from this in the first half to this in the second half.
05:33 That's every successful pass he made until he got substituted.
05:36 They just completely shut him out of the play.
05:38 Now look, he successfully makes one pass into the box in that entire half of football.
05:44 And do you want to see it?
05:45 There is not an ounce of space for him to really operate in.
05:47 He just about finds Mikaio Saka, who has two defenders within a couple of yards of him,
05:52 and it rolls out harmlessly for a goal kick.
05:54 But the thing is, right, this is easy.
05:57 Like anybody can get deeper and narrower and more compact and deny the space.
06:01 The reason you don't want to do that normally is because it makes it that much harder for
06:05 you to get up the pitch.
06:07 The reason Villa were more open was because they had more attacking intent.
06:10 They wanted to be easy to play up when they did get the ball.
06:13 So they sacrificed that ease of play for defensive salinity.
06:18 So how do they fix that problem?
06:19 Arsenal will pressure really high.
06:21 They'll pressure really aggressively.
06:22 And in that first half, Villa could not play through them.
06:26 They couldn't get through the centre of the pitch.
06:28 So in the second half, what they started doing instead was they were putting the ball directly
06:33 into Zaniolo on the left-hand side.
06:36 Now, I know you might be thinking, surely if you wanted to target long balls into one
06:40 of Arsenal's full-back areas, you'd do it on the side with Sanchenko, because he's only
06:43 wee, isn't he?
06:44 He's only little.
06:45 He's only diminutive.
06:46 And Ben White's actually quite big.
06:47 But you've got to think about what else is going on on that side of the pitch.
06:51 Urdegaard is Arsenal's right-hand side number eight, and he is the one who normally leads
06:55 the press along with the centre-forwards.
06:57 There's always a little bit more weakness recovering on that side.
07:01 So you had John McGinn here.
07:02 He was usually in behind him.
07:04 Saka presses high, so the full-back would get up.
07:06 If they could make the ball stick on that side, they tended to have a man advantage.
07:10 But also, and this is so subtle, but so effective, right?
07:14 The width on the right-hand side for Arsenal didn't normally come from Saka.
07:18 Like, he wants to get the ball and move in field.
07:20 So you do look for overlaps from Ben White, right?
07:24 Having Zaniolo there and keeping him high and making him the target of so many out-balls
07:28 completely pinned Ben White back in his own third.
07:32 Like, just to show you what I mean, right?
07:34 This is Ben White's heat map from the Brighton game.
07:36 You can see he's rampaging forward.
07:38 He's providing all the width down that side.
07:40 Great performance.
07:41 And this is Ben White's heat map from the Bayern Munich game.
07:43 He barely touches the ball in his own half.
07:46 He's all the way up that side, helping out Saka, stretching the defence, doing his job
07:51 there.
07:52 So, Ben White's heat map from the Aston Villa game.
07:55 Does he get to the halfway line occasionally?
07:56 Yes, of course.
07:57 Arsenal had good territory in that first half.
07:59 But the vast majority of the contributions are way back in the right-back area because
08:04 he couldn't really leave it.
08:06 So just to recap, Villa cut off Arsenal's most potent creative weapon in Erdegaard by
08:10 reducing the space and sitting deeper.
08:12 But they also gave themselves a much better out-ball further up the pitch, allowing them
08:16 to go direct from the back, which is all well and good, right?
08:20 But how do you then turn those two things into almost consistent dominance for 45 minutes?
08:26 The thing is, as good as this mid-block is and as compact as Villa were, the fact they
08:30 had loads more of the ball in that second half should have been a good thing for Arsenal
08:35 because their pressing gives them a really good weapon of winning the ball back in a
08:39 crucial area, meaning they haven't got to worry about building up or playing through
08:42 you.
08:43 They can just get it in a dangerous position and get the chance from that.
08:45 So how did Villa stop that happening?
08:47 Well, and you're probably not going to like this one very much, Arsenal fans, but the
08:51 reason was this man, Martinez.
08:54 Not even one of those brilliant ball-at-his-feet goalkeepers that you think are pretty much
08:58 played as a third centre-back.
09:02 And all of a sudden, Arsenal's numbers game just did not add up.
09:06 Like, it's risky because you'll sometimes find yourself literally knocking the ball
09:10 across your own goal line, but Arsenal, like so many teams, will press you in a 4-4-2 shape.
09:15 So if you are happy to use your goalkeeper as a third centre-back and have basically
09:20 a 3-4 here, you're going to have a man advantage.
09:23 Like, you did see this against Bayern, like, Arsenal are pressing them really, really well.
09:27 They're targeting Eric Dier, but it goes to Neuer, and because he's really comfortable
09:30 playing, he just lifts that ball over Kai Havertz, and that's how Bayern get out for
09:34 the second goal.
09:35 What Aston Villa did really, really well here was they allowed the two centre-backs and
09:39 goalkeeper to go as deep as they wanted in the build-up.
09:43 They could be as close to that touchline as they needed.
09:45 Arsenal would then push and push and push and push, creating this huge amount of space
09:50 between the midfield and the defence, which the likes of Zaniolo and Watkins would really
09:54 happily just drop off into to receive a long ball.
09:57 Like, this is Martinez's distribution in that first half.
10:00 You can see he sweeps up once or twice when Arsenal were going over the top of Bayern
10:03 Lodz.
10:04 Neat, simple, tidy, left and right, not really anything incisive.
10:08 Second half, though, just whoosh, straight over the press.
10:11 You can see these three here straight into where Zaniolo would have been pushing Ben
10:16 White back.
10:17 He was all of a sudden a far more potent weapon in resisting Arsenal's press, which means
10:21 they just couldn't get the ball back off Villa in anything resembling a useful area.
10:25 But wrestling control back of a game of football against an allegedly much better side is one
10:30 thing, scoring the goal to then get you a 2-0 win is quite the other.
10:36 And this was the substitution that Emery made that Arteta just did not have an answer for,
10:40 right?
10:41 It was Moussa Diaby and he brought on Leon Bailey.
10:44 And the plan from there was we are deep, we are compact, we are controlling the ball very
10:47 well, we are beating their press.
10:49 But our best route to goal remains this space here that Sanchenko is not in.
10:56 And there was a warning sign for this, like, straight away.
10:58 Bailey's been on the pitch like four or five minutes at this point.
11:01 Villa get a free kick while Arsenal are in this shape.
11:05 Sanchenko's miles out of position and Bailey is screaming for it.
11:10 Look at all the room he has got out here.
11:14 If they just take that quickly and get him in, he's through on goal.
11:18 In the end, there's some kind of fanny on and it doesn't happen and they have to retake
11:21 it and Arsenal should have seen that and been like, all right, so that's what they're doing.
11:25 He's just going to stay there.
11:27 We should fix that.
11:28 But they didn't.
11:29 Villa get a corner and Sanchenko is one of the players defending the near post areas.
11:33 When it comes back and Villa reset, he is caught on the wrong side.
11:37 Miles out of position.
11:38 In defence, there's not really a window for him to go all the way back across.
11:41 He needs his teammates to help out.
11:43 He needs everybody to reorganise and Declan Rice, being one of these responsible, good
11:47 reading of the game types, moves out into that position.
11:50 Now, at the start of the video, we talked about those three changes Arteta have made,
11:54 right?
11:55 Why did he bring Sanchenko in for Kiryok?
11:56 Because he's better on the ball and stuff.
11:57 And why does he put Havertz in midfield?
11:59 So we can make those runs into the box.
12:01 But why Trossard for Martinelli?
12:03 Well, one, as you saw against Bayern, Trossard is a really good finisher in tight areas.
12:07 So if it was a similar kind of game, Arteta would rely on him to take that chance, maybe
12:11 a little bit more than he would rely on Martinelli.
12:13 But also he works back slightly harder.
12:16 Like this is a brilliant recovery run he puts in early in the game, because obviously with
12:20 Havertz breaking out of that position and Sanchenko moving into the middle, it does
12:24 kind of leave that side of the pitch quite exposed.
12:27 But the thing is, you see, at this point in the game, Leandro Trossard is no longer on
12:32 the pitch.
12:33 Gabriel Martinelli is.
12:35 Martinelli looks and he sees Leon Bailey.
12:37 And for whatever reason, he makes the decision not to drop back in and cover him.
12:43 And this is honestly one of those small decisions that can just go on to define your entire
12:47 season.
12:48 He just has one more look at him here.
12:51 And it's not too late at this point, Gabriel.
12:53 You can make that run.
12:54 You can cover that space off.
12:56 You can clearly see Declan Rice, who's dropped in as the left back, has his hands full.
13:01 He can't be expected to see what's going on behind him while clinging to the man in front.
13:06 This is this is your decision, buddy.
13:08 Seasons can swing on this.
13:09 I'm not trying to bury that guy in his defence.
13:11 Arsenal have also left a huge hole on the edge of the box and he does go into there.
13:15 So maybe he decides that's where the danger is.
13:18 But it isn't.
13:19 The ball rolls across the face of the goal and there is Leon Bailey with all the time
13:23 and space in the world to score that goal.
13:28 And you don't need me to explain the second goal to you.
13:30 That is just a team who are now one nil down in a vital game for a title race, pushing
13:35 as high up as humanly possible to desperately try and salvage an equaliser.
13:40 Just getting done with a very, very simple counterattack.
13:43 Or I mean, if you'd really want to try and find some poetry in that, that is a team exploiting
13:47 a high line and having somebody going after that ball capable of finishing it rather than,
13:52 oh, I don't know, top of my head, Kai Havertz.
13:56 So yeah, just to review, I know Zinchenko is getting a lot of the blame for this result.
13:59 I know Arteta is even getting some of the blame of this result.
14:01 But you've got a player there who has been very important to Arsenal this season and
14:06 what they were trying to do was largely doing that pretty well.
14:09 And a manager who has proven time and time again this season that he's very good at setting
14:13 up the right way and changing the game as it's going on.
14:17 So I think it's okay, as sad as it is if you're an Arsenal fan, to just hold your hands up
14:21 and go, ah yes, the other guy, he was very good.
14:25 And also, if I may be permitted to editorialise slightly, why are people going on like the
14:29 title race is over?
14:31 Like I know Man City are so boring that they probably just win every game now, just get
14:36 it by default.
14:37 But it's two points with six games to go, they'll slip up somewhere.
14:41 They've got to go at Tottenham, which is a place they don't like to go.
14:44 They've got to play Wolves, who've already beat them.
14:46 They've got to play Fulham, who are so unpredictable.
14:49 This is like anything can happen.
14:51 Cheer up.
14:52 Anyway, I have to go now because my lunch needs me.
14:54 But if you have enjoyed this video, please do consider subscribing to us here on 442.
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15:09 And hopefully we thank you with that by giving you cool videos.
15:12 If you're really more of an old media type, though, then may I present to you the latest
15:16 issue of 442, the Invincible Special, where we look at everything great about that Arsene
15:22 Wenger side.
15:23 We've got interviews with players.
15:24 We've got all kinds of cool features on it.
15:25 I even did.
15:26 Can I find it quickly?
15:27 No, I did a tactical thing.
15:29 Yes, I can find it.
15:30 Where are we?
15:31 Give me a second.
15:32 Did a tactical thing on how they used to play, which is really, really cool.
15:34 So you give that a read.
15:35 Available on all good news agents and the crap ones as well.
15:38 Social media at Adam Cleary, CLERY.
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15:42 That's pretty good.
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15:44 That's it.
15:45 I think that's it.
15:46 I'm going to say that's it.
15:47 And if it's not, well, I'm sure I'll remember later.
15:50 Bye.
15:51 Bye.
15:52 Bye.
15:53 Bye.
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