Interactive Pitch

Arsenal 1-0 Manchester United, 1 May 2011, Premier League

55%

45%

Wojciech Szczesny

Saves: 4

Bacary Sagna

Total Passes: 69
Pass Completion: 79.7%
Key Passes: 0
Interceptions: 0
Tackles: 6 (won 6)

Gael Clichy

Total Passes: 64
Pass Completion: 73.4%
Key Passes: 2
Interceptions: 5
Tackles: 8 (won 6)

Johan Djourou

Total Passes: 33
Pass Completion: 90.9%
Key Passes: 0
Interceptions: 1
Tackles: 3 (won 2)

(69′) for Squillaci

Laurent Koscielny

Total Passes: 31
Pass Completion: 83.8%
Key Passes: 0
Interceptions: 3
Tackles: 4 (won 3)

Alex Song

Total Passes: 58
Pass Completion: 84.4%
Key Passes: 2
Interceptions: 5
Tackles: 9 (won 9)

(62′)

Jack Wilshere

Total Passes: 53
Pass Completion: 86.7%
Key Passes: 0
Interceptions: 0
Tackles: 5 (won 1)

Theo Walcott

Total Passes: 22
Pass Completion: 54.5%
Key Passes: 1
Interceptions: 0
Tackles: 5 (won 2)
Shots: 1 (on target: 0)

(78′) for Eboue

Samir Nasri

Total Passes: 33
Pass Completion: 90.9%
Key Passes: 1
Interceptions: 1
Tackles: 2 (won 1)
Shots: 0 (on target: 0)

(45′) for Arshavin

Aaron Ramsey

Total Passes: 62
Pass Completion: 88.7%
Key Passes: 0
Interceptions: 2
Tackles: 4 (won 3)
Shots: 4 (on target: 1)

(90′)

(56′) assist by Van Persie

Robin van Persie

Total Passes: 42
Pass Completion: 71.4%
Key Passes: 1
Interceptions: 1
Tackles: 7 (won 3)
Shots: 3 (on target: 1)

Sebastien Squillaci

Total Passes: 3
Pass Completion: 100%
Key Passes: 0
Interceptions: 1
Tackles: 3 (won 2)

Emmanuel Eboue

Total Passes: 5
Pass Completion: 40.0%
Key Passes: 0
Interceptions: 0
Tackles: 2 (won 1)

Andrei Arshavin

Total Passes: 14
Pass Completion: 85.7%
Key Passes: 0
Interceptions: 2
Tackles: 3 (won 3)
Shots: 0 (on target: 0)

Edwin van der Sar

Saves: 1

Rio Ferdinand

Total Passes: 48
Pass Completion: 75.0%
Key Passes: 0
Interceptions: 1
Tackles: 4 (won 3)

Nemanja Vidic

Total Passes: 53
Pass Completion: 79.2%
Key Passes: 0
Interceptions: 1
Tackles: 5 (won 5)

Patrice Evra

Total Passes: 41
Pass Completion: 73.1%
Key Passes: 1
Interceptions: 2
Tackles: 9 (won 6)

Fabio

Total Passes: 49
Pass Completion: 75.5%
Key Passes: 0
Interceptions: 1
Tackles: 9 (won 4)

(76′)

Michael Carrick

Total Passes: 40
Pass Completion: 80.0%
Key Passes: 0
Interceptions: 1
Tackles: 1 (won 1)

(85′) for Owen

Park Ji-Sung

Total Passes: 34
Pass Completion: 85.2%
Key Passes: 0
Interceptions: 3
Tackles: 6 (won 3)

(66′)

Anderson

Total Passes: 17
Pass Completion: 82.3%
Key Passes: 1
Interceptions: 1
Tackles: 0 (won 0)
Shots: 1 (on target: 1)

(56′) for Valencia

Nani

Total Passes: 40
Pass Completion: 70.0%
Key Passes: 2
Interceptions: 0
Tackles: 13 (won 5)
Shots: 4 (on target: 1)

Wayne Rooney

Total Passes: 46
Pass Completion: 31%
Key Passes: 2
Interceptions: 0
Tackles: 8 (won 2)
Shots: 3 (on target: 2)

(40′)

Javier Hernandez

Total Passes: 7
Pass Completion: 85.7%
Key Passes: 0
Interceptions: 0
Tackles: 1 (won 0)
Shots: 0 (on target: 0)

(74′) for Berbatov

The youngest starting XI of the Premier League season (at 23 years and 296 days) blew the title race wide open with three games to go after a dominant performance against Manchester United which gave Arsenal their first win in 7 attempts against The Red Devils and their first Premier League win since the 3-1 defeat of Blackpool.

The Arsenal captain, Cesc Fabregas, injured himself in training the day before so Aaron Ramsey made his first appearance at the Emirates since he broke his leg in February last season. Other than that, Arsenal had everyone of their current First XI fit. Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson decided to rest Ryan Giggs while Paul Scholes completed his 3 match suspension while top scorer Dimitar Berbatov and midfielder Darren Fletcher failed to get fit in time for the game.

Game Plans

As always against Arsenal, Ferguson set out his team to defend for most of the first half – looking to counter-attack when Arsenal’s attacks rather inevitably broke down. With Arsenal often reluctant to get the ball wide and considering the dominance of Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand in the air (they have won 68% and 75% of aerial duels respectively this season), they can often afford to defend deep and narrow.

Arsenal took risks with their crossing - putting the ball in dangerous areas and hoping someone would get on the end of it.

Arsenal showed more versatility than usual, however, as Theo Walcott was constantly picked out on the right hand side and Arsenal’s wide players put several dangerous balls into the box and should have had a penalty when the linesman failed to notice Vidic trying to replicate the “Hand of God” in his own box after Walcott’s brilliant cross. Although Arsenal only managed to complete three crosses from outside the area (four if we include the one Robin van Persie would have connected with had Vidic not used his hand), they clearly responded to criticism from pundits and fans alike that they are too determined to walk the ball into the goal and make things more complicated than they need be.

Arsenal were also more willing to use Gael Clichy – often a weak-link in matches, the French full-back had an excellent game running up and down the left wing and exploiting the space that Utd’s deep defensive line allowed him. Although it’s in his nature to try and get forward at every opportunity, I pointed out against Blackburn that he wasn’t used enough by Arsenal despite having plenty of space to move into in the opposition half.

Against the big sides, Clichy has often struggled – partly because he doesn’t get enough support from the player ahead of him, but more on that later – and is often caught out of position when teams counter-attack in numbers. Here, however, Alex Song and Laurent Koscielny did an excellent job of covering the space behind him – the latter made two tackles (one successful, the other not), one interception and two clearances in Clichy’s ‘zone’ while Song made four successful tackles, and successfully intercepted one pass in the same area. This meant that Clichy was able to get forward, confident that the space behind was covered by his team-mates.

Defensive Wingers

After Arsenal’s 1-0 defeat at Old Trafford in December, Andrei Arshavin was dropped to the bench by Arsene Wenger who was clearly frustrated at Arshavin’s defensive laziness, as well as wanting to fit the returning Walcott into the side. Unfortunately, while Samir Nasri is arguably a better player than the Russian, he doesn’t do enough to help Clichy, either.

Andrei Arshavin made up for his defensive laziness by making several challenges inside the opposition half.

Against Manchester United, then, it was crucial that Arsenal’s wide players tracked the opposition full-backs when they ventured forward to offer the overlap. When Arsenal beat Chelsea in December, one of the best aspects of the performance was Theo Walcott’s willingness to track Ashley Cole, making tackles or simply denying Chelsea of that option by marking him in the Arsenal half. Walcott did this again yesterday and did an excellent job of staying with Patrice Evra, as well as pinning the attacking full-back into his own half – Evra didn’t manage to complete a single cross against Arsenal.

Fortunately for Arsenal, Manchester United were unable to move through the gears when they counter-attacked so despite Nasri not tracking back as much as Wenger may have liked, the Gunners got away with it somewhat. Nasri’s substitution at half-time was not a tactical one (he picked up a slight hamstring strain in the first half), but Arshavin did an excellent job of stopping counter-attacks as well as helping his side create several counter-attacking chances of their own late on in the game.

It’s important to note that Arshavin wasn’t the complete package against Utd. The Russian still didn’t track back to help out Gael Clichy but he made up for this by making several tackles in the opposition half. Furthermore, the statistics show that Arshavin had an excellent defensive game – committing 2 fouls, but also making one clearance, two interceptions and three successful tackles in the same time as Nasri, who made only one tackle and one interception.

Walcott was replaced by Eboué after 78 minutes. The Ivorian had little time to make an impact, but helped Arsenal in simply sitting deeper than the player he replaced and bringing fresh legs to the side late on – ensuring Evra couldn’t get forward without worrying about Eboue getting a chance in behind him.

Aaron Ramsey

Like Arsenal, Fabregas’ stand-in had little pressure on his shoulders. Making only his second Premier League start this season, there were few people expecting a man of the match display from the 20 year old. In Fabregas’ controversial interview with Spanish magazine, Don Balon, he suggested that it was difficult having the rest of the team look to him when they were struggling but Ramsey clearly didn’t have that problem and played his natural game as if he had never been injured.

The Welsh captain completed 92% of his passes – the third best behind Samir Nasri (97%), who only played 45 minutes and Sebastien Squillaci (100%) who only played 21 minutes – and was successful with all four of his long passes as well as obviously scoring the winning goal.

Despite filling in for Cesc Fabregas, Ramsey had a slightly different role in yesterday’s game; dropping back alongside Jack Wilshere to form a 1-2 pivot in central midfield rather than the usual 2-1 which sees Fabregas push forward into the space behind the lone striker. This was presumably more of an attempt to stop Rooney, who was effectively being man marked by Alex Song in a similar way the Cameroonian marked Lionel Messi out of the 2-2 draw with Barcelona at the Emirates last season.

Despite the tactical shift not necessarily being designed to get the best out of Ramsey, he excelled and instantly formed an understanding with Jack Wilshere who had a freer role than he usually does. With Ramsey deeper – but still the primary playmaker – Wilshere’s forward runs were no longer determined by Fabregas wanting to drop back and control the tempo of the game but rather just when Wilshere saw space to move into with 34% of his completed passes completed in a more advanced central attacking midfield area.

Conclusion

An excellent win for Arsenal that is unlikely to do much but restore some sense of pride in a disappointing season and sure up third place – they’re now 5 points clear of Manchester City despite the Blues having a game in hand (as of 2nd May) and make the title race that little bit more interesting.

Arsenal went into the game under no real pressure but determined to play their game and not be put off by their form and record against their rivals. While Sir Alex Ferguson will bemoan the decision to wave away a clear penalty claim for Michael Owen, Wenger can point to the mistake Chris Foy and his linesman made in Utd’s favour in the first half and in the end the decisions perhaps evened themselves out.

Opposition Report by Michael Ofori

In recent seasons United have had a good record against Arsenal and that has usually been achieved by playing on the counter-attack away against the Gunners, more recently utilising Wayne Rooney as a ‘False 9’ in a 4-3-3 system.

How Man Utd set up

However United’s formation had changed for this match. United have generally played 4-5-1 / 4-3-3 in big games, but with Rooney excelling in his “Number 10” role, United’s default big game formation has become much more of a 4-4-1-1 formation, with Rooney playing as an additional midfielder without the ball, in this case matching right up with Alex Song.

Instead of a 1-2 in midfield, United’s central pairing of Michael Carrick and Anderson formed a double pivot of sorts; however, this had an effect on the wide players. In order to protect the midfield duo, Nani and Park Ji-Sung were dropping back to form a second bank, instead of harrying and harrassing the full-backs much higher up the pitch (one of the factors why Park is often so good against Arsenal is the fact that he defends so well so high up the pitch, often winning the ball in dangerous areas to form an instant attack). This gave Arsenal’s dangerous full-backs space to come forward at will.

This also mean that United won the ball back deeper than usual, making counter-attacking transitions more difficult, and requiring more accuracy; something United lacked in their play today – completing only 77% of their passes.

The role of Alex Song

This was exacerbated further with Song playing deeper and clearly with instructions to mark Rooney out of the game. This meant that Rooney could not play in the wingers, and therefore time and again the counter stuttered and the few opportunities created broke down due to a lack of accuracy in execution.

The goal came when Aaron Ramsey ghosted in between the two banks after losing the man supposedly tracking him, Park. Interestingly, we can say that the area Ramsey strolled into normally would have been covered in the usual 4-3-3/4-5-1, as Carrick would have been deployed deep in front of the back four as part of his defensive instructions as well as being a fulcrum. Being the last midfielder it would have been more obvious that it would have been his job to track Ramsey’s run from deep, and while it may not have prevented the goal, Ramsey would have been a lot less able to approach the united area without a tracker in sight

United’s game plan ideally relied on a deep and ‘free’ Rooney and high wingers; here a lack of both meant that United’s normally razor sharp lightning counter-attacks were blunted.

Summary

A lesson here will have been learned for future games, perhaps for the CL final; the old 4-3-3/4-5-1 may yet return to protect the space in the gaps and allowed defence further up the pitch.

By defending higher up the pitch the 4-3-3 allows United to better pin back the opposition fullbacks. Given that the next Premiership opponents, Chelsea and probable Champions League Final opponents Barcelona use attacking fullbacks in a similar manner, it may be prudent to switch back in order to maintain the counter.

United still require 7 points from 3 games, and a big game at Chelsea has been effectively made the title decider, in some respects little has changed since United ideally needed to win against Chelsea, but an opportunity for comfort was lost today.

Yellow box marks the areas Park and Nani looked to first win the ball, the blue box marks where United’s wide players would previously have attempted to try to win the ball back. An approach that meant Gael Clichy and Bacary Sagna were able to push up to support attacking moves.