“A very complete performance,” is how Mikel Arteta summed up his Arsenal’s victory against Inter this week. Mature, ambitious and controlled were three other adjectives he used to describe a performance that earned him a 1-3 in the UEFA Champions League and allowed him to maintain full points in this season’s league phase.
Arsenal’s performance offered all of the above and more against an opponent that tested them to the maximum, especially through the attacking pairing of Lautaro Martínez and Marcus Thuram, as analyzed in the following report from UEFA’s match analysis unit.
‘Equal duels’
“They are very good and they make it very difficult for you because they make you stretch a lot: in two passes you are already unmarked.” Arsenal manager Arteta’s comment on the challenge posed by Inter is illustrated in video clips one above.
It was a very open match, with a notable number of duels, as the players competed for second balls all over the field. Inter won 52% of their recorded duels, underscoring the home team’s challenge, but Arsenal were equal to the challenge. As UEFA technical observer Jan Peder Jalland says: “We really saw their competitiveness in the duels and both teams were very evenly matched in this.”
Inter’s forwards pose a different question
A key question for Arsenal on Tuesday night was how to deal with Inter’s two forwards. With fewer teams playing with two centre-forwards these days than in previous eras, Arteta’s defenders faced a challenge they don’t usually encounter.
Inter usually quickly look for the ball to their two forwards and, from there, build their attacks. The graph above reflects the importance of the work their forwards do, showing the number of times they received passes that broke the defensive line against Arsenal: 11 times in the case of Martínez and Thuram, and seven for Pio Esposito, who was a substitute. That was more than in their previous league match against Liverpool.
Arsenal responded to the challenge by having their centre-backs, William Saliba and Cristhian Mosquera, man mark. It was a different approach to the one we saw against Liverpool on Matchday 6, when Arne Slot’s centre-backs were supported by Ryan Gravenberch in a +1 at the back. According to Jalland, Arsenal’s approach “means that the central defenders have to be able to defend one on one in wider spaces. There is no reinforcement.”
As the previous videos show, Lautaro Martínez sought to delay his position, which raised another question: how far should they follow him? Jalland adds: “In the video you can see how Lautaro Martínez sets up Thuram, and Saliba, at one point, considers that he is too far behind and lets him go. This was one of the games within the match: Lautaro Martínez was trying to get away from Saliba and then Thuram was ready with his back against the goal or turning and running behind.”
Later in the match, after midfielder Declan Rice came on in the 64th minute to replace Eberechi Eze, Arsenal’s centre-backs now had more support. “Rice brought defensive cover and also his dueling skills, which helped Arsenal be more balanced as a team,” notes Jalland.
“When you come to these fields, you need to have a certain level of efficiency, and we certainly had that tonight. The team has been mature, very ambitious and also very emotionally controlled.”
Arsenal controls the match
Returning to Arteta’s words at the beginning about Arsenal’s performance, Inter coach Cristian Chivu added his own comment on the Premier League leaders’ strengths. “They have quality, rhythm, intensity and players with a lot of individual class,” he said.
This latest video shows the many virtues of this Arsenal team. In fact, the first clip offers compelling evidence of why Jalland describes them as a “complete team”, as it shows the ‘Gunners’ in various phases of the game: from high pressing to medium and low blocks, from counter-pressing and counter-attacking to building play with patience and intelligence.
“They know how to defend and counterattack, and they can dominate games,” says Jalland. “And whether they attack or defend, they always play with intensity, which is helped by the fact that the players are always very close to each other.”
They can also score goals in all possible ways, as shown in videos two and three: first, Gabriel Jesús opens the scoring after a free kick of his own, and then Viktor Gyökeres finishes the game with a goal after a counterattack while defending a set piece.
Coach’s thoughts: defending against a big striker
Jan Peder Jalland reflects on the lessons that coaches can draw from the strategies discussed above.
For Jan Peder Jalland, UEFA technical observer and Norway Under-21 coach, the trend towards smaller forwards has given way to the return of big numbers 9. How can coaches prepare young centre-backs to meet this challenge? He offers the following guidelines.
With the trend towards one-on-one defence, we are seeing more physical number 9s and, in youth football, that means we have to work on defending balls against a bigger centre-forward who plays with his back to the goal. The challenge for central defenders is that they have to be able to control a number 9 both in the air and on the ground, when moving in wider spaces.
“To develop a player capable of defending in an elite team, you have to learn to mark the man without cover in high pressure. When I trained players at the U-15, U-16 and U-17 categories, I told them: ‘Normally, you have a +1 at the back, but you have to do it one on one because, if you want to go far in your career, you have to be able to handle this.'”
“Another important point has to do with the midfielders, as when the ball reaches a big number 9, the midfielders need to be good at recovery runs. With individual marking, if the ball goes over you and your team doesn’t win the second ball, you need your midfielders to make recovery runs, as the full-backs can be too far forward on the field.”
“As for exercises on the training ground, I would suggest a session – from six against six to eleven against eleven – in which all the players are marking individually on a field with two goals and a lot of space. The goalkeeper can start by throwing long balls and ideally the central defenders work on defending one on one and the midfielders focus on winning the second balls and making recovery runs. It is essential that the space is large enough, since you are also working with the forwards at the same time to take advantage of those larger spaces.
Worth a look
