Arsenal's Rambo-esque start of the season analysed

Arsene Wenger

It wasn’t exactly the scenario the fans expected for the return of the Arsenal.

The club has been facing hard times throughout the years and this summer is surely one of them. There is divergence among the fans on whether Wenger has come to the end of his spell, and the team didn’t start the season brilliantly. However, the season may have really started after that result: Arsenal was defeated 3-1 at the Emirates but gave the perfect reaction against Fernerbahce in the Champions League and on Saturday against Fulham. In both games the Gunners scored three goals on the road and only conceded once – which can be seen as a real performance considering the serious squad issue the club is facing.

Against the expectation set for fans by Gazidis’ comments in June, the club hasn’t spent a penny on the transfer market, which closes its doors on the September 2nd, or brought in any players except poor old Sanogo who definitely isn’t ready to be a first team challenger.

However, after a long period without any tactical analysis [simultaneous to the “non-football” period] “Captain Fan-Tactique” is back on Goonersphere. To avoid any conflict, I will only concentrate on the current squad and our current capabilities. My point is not to criticize the structure of the club, the board, the manager or the players for the gesturing of the club. Therefore, I will deal with the players but exclusively on the sport aspect.

And trust me, there’s already enough to say! Arsenal have played three games. All of them were quite different and showed an evolution in the behavior of the players on the pitch. Throughout this piece, I will highlight what I believe have been the tactical flaws and the good points… which for some haven’t changed from the past years.

I’ve organized my piece chronologically hence you’ll find the conclusion at the end. The aim is to point out what I believe has improved and what remains to amend.

Arsenal v Aston Villa

In this situation Arsenal suffer from a lack of width which consequently contains any build-up. Cazorla has drifted in to the center while Giroud is triggering a call. But Aston Villa have set three players just in front of the ball holder who in this example is Ramsey.

The latter is going a bit too high on the pitch: he should be sitting deeper and covering the area to prevent his team from any counter attacks. Therefore the bloc is disorganized. Ramsey isn’t a playmaker and with the Welshman sitting slightly deeper, the team should gain width as Rosicky and Wilshere move aside and drag with them a Villain or two.

Ramsey may have improved heaps in the last months but there is a huge difference between a double pivot made of Arteta and the Welshman than a partnership with him and any other player. Basically, he can’t do Arteta’s job yet. He is not a playmaker nor a defensive midfielder. He went great alongside Arteta when the Spaniard was in charge of lying deep and controlling the majority of the defensive tasks. So he has to do it his way, the “Ramsey” way – which is a pretty good solution when you have no other solution.

On the above image you can easily see the disorganization among the Arsenal players. Rosicky and Ramsey are on the same line. It would be interesting and I guess, possible to see Ramsey play as high if the other players asked intelligently for the ball but the fact is that is very rare.

Cazorla is drifting in way too much plus there is no real cover at the back except from the back four. It is worrying especially when three players are facing the ball holder and that there are no other options for Ramsey. His choices are limited; he will have to play backwards or sideways – or lose the ball.

Chamberlain, playing on the left, in the first half stuck much more to the side line whereas Cazorla, when in the same position, wanders around a lot more. It is something you can do sometimes throughout a short period of a game but it can be dangerous to do it all the time. Given that Cazorla wasn’t in his best shape – and everybody knew it – Wenger maybe should have played Lukas Podolski. I’m not a big fan of the German striker but he would’ve probably served the team better against Aston Villa at the Emirates.

Here is another illustration of this version of the double pivot that didn’t work very well in the Villa game. Here, Wilshere is holding the DM role while Ramsey is running higher hoping to get the ball and… run? Aaron was the one alongside Arteta last year, the one dealing with the defensive tasks before that, the one helping Arteta, the one running everywhere to defend… Ramsey and not Jack Wilshere who is even less suited to the DM role.

I genuinely didn’t understand Ramsey’s behavior against Aston Villa. Especially in the second half. He was playing much higher than he should have. I also believe the Welshman’s passing quality is better than Wilshere’s and therefore, it would’ve been more convenient to let the former deal with the first pass. Let Wilshere mainly deal with transitions.

It always was going to fail. Wilshere was left alone, without any proper solution to give the ball away. And that was eased by Ramsey being too far from Wilshere. The gap between both players could only handicap the team. Provided both players stayed close to each other, moving in an organized manner it could’ve worked but this situation pushed Wilshere to try complicated stuff to get out of difficult situations that he often faced. On Delph’s shot on the post, Wilshere suffered from isolation and lost the ball whilst trying to do too much.

There is way too much space between Wilshere and Ramsey. The most intriguing thing in this game was Ramsey seeming uninterested in helping his teammate with Wilshere sometimes struggling on his own. The double pivot is supposed to solidify the midfield by setting two players alongside one another who can count on each other for defensive and attacking tasks. Whilst one of them goes forward, the other covers the area deeper. Well in theory that it is how it is supposed to work. Except the space between both players is not meant to be huge and create danger; a longer pass is riskier. Besides, the player can come sideways to support the ball holder.

This is the “What the hell?!” image. The team looks cut in two. 2 defenders (?!) and 5 players running like hell to catch the adversary who probably himself wonders how come he has so much freedom. The first thing is, none of the two players from the double pivot are in a good position. One should be in front of the back four to contain the opponents. Then, nobody really knows why Sagna is not on his left flank defending – a bit like Jenkinson on the other side.