Arsenal 1-2 Man Utd: Could we borrow some full-back funds from Rosie47?

Arsenal fell short for the sixth time in seven games against Manchester United due to a late Danny Welbeck winner after Robin van Persie equalised for The Gunners. This marks Arsenal’s third loss in a row and is the first time they have lost three straight since 2007. With both teams attempting to play on the break, the flow of the game went up and down at times, but ultimately it was two key tactical errors that ended up dooming the home side.

Early first half

For the most part, the first half was very slow with each team playing cautiously trying to assess the other. This was also partly down to the fact that each team was trying to play on the break with neither team really looking to press too highly and lose their shape.

Neither team created many great chances but Arsenal did have the better one’s early on with Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain at the heart of Arsenal’s best attacking moves. Arsenal’s best chance came when a through ball down the right from Alex Song released AOC to the byline. He then took on Patrice Evra and beat him with skill and pulled the ball back for Theo Walcott who, unfortunately, made of mess of the chance.

United react and attack down the left

Both makeshift full-backs lost their marking for Man Utd's first goal, with not only Djourou backing off, but also Vermaelen slipping into centre-back space

Something that was tactically strange that United eventually noticed is that even though Arsenal were standing off and inviting pressure, they were still playing with a fairly high defensive line.

This is potentially suicidal because it allows players time to pick out an easy ball over the top.

And sure enough, Michael Carrick, who completed eight of nine long ball attempts1, was able to find time on the ball deep in the midfield and continually hit diagonal long balls over the top to Nani who tortured Johan Djourou (who was playing out of position) throughout the first half.

With United having found the weak point in Arsenal’s defence, the defending champions turned up the heat and began to attack continually down their left flank (51 percent of United’s attacks came from the left during the 90 minutes¹).

Patrice Evra and Nani continued to find themselves in very dangerous positions in the box and on the byline, and eventually United’s first goal came from a Ryan Giggs cross on the left that found Antonio Valencia for an easy headed finish.

Second half

Arsene Wenger started the second half by substituting Johan Djourou and bringing on Nico Yennaris who is a natural fullback. This was an obvious choice and ended up being a very wise one in that it shored up the right side of Arsenal’s defence.

The next thing Wenger did was instruct his team to press, which is what the team should have been doing from the get go. Many teams miss the boat that it is still possible to play counter-attacking football and press high up the pitch. The best example of this is Barcelona (for all the possession oriented goals they have, they still score a ton on the quick counter) and for an Arsenal example you could even look back to the 3-1 win over Chelsea at The Emirates last year.

The pressing helped nullified the long ball threat by putting pressure on United’s center mids and back four. This tactical change almost paid off right away when Chris Smalling slipped on the ball and game it away to Thomas Rosicky who charged forward and laid the ball off to Van Persie who showed he is still human by missing an incredibly good chance.

Arsenal were finally rewarded for their efforts by scoring after countering a United counter attack. Laurent Koscielny made an excellent tackle in the box on Valencia and quickly found an outlet pass to Rosicky who then fed The Ox who charged forward with the ball and found The Captain for a cool first time finish.

The substitution

First off, let me say that it is very easy to criticise the substitution of Arshavin for AOC simply because hindsight is 20-20. Also, I 100 percent believe Wenger when he says that Oxlade-Chamberlain was struggling fitness wise. The fact of the matter is he hasn’t played a lot this year. Also it is important to remember that the substitution was set to be made before The Ox set up RvP’s equalizer.

With that being said, I think Arsene Wenger got this substitution completely wrong. First off, Andrey has been in probably the worst form of his life. Secondly, he is a terrible defender and given the circumstances of the game, was never the right choice. And right on que, United quickly exposed him through Antonio Valencia getting into the box and setting up Welbeck’s winner.

So who would have been the correct choice? That’s a tough question to answer due to Arsenal’s lack of depth through injury crisis but perhaps Park Chu-Young would have done better due to his work rate and physicality.

Conclusion

In the end Manchester United were able to capitalize on two tactical miscues. The first being playing a high line with out pressing and the second the decision to bring on Andrey Arshavin, both of which led to the two United goals.

However, even after losing three straight, it is still important to remember that we are close to getting some key players back in Sagna and Wilshere, as well as other members of the squad, and that we are only five points out of fourth place. With a home game against Chelsea still on the fixture list, Champions League football is still an attainable goal.

Rainbiscuit

1. Aaron Ramsey is playing awfully match after match and yet he gets selected. He has to be dropped. Rosicky / Benayoun should start instead of Ramsey.

2. Laurent Koscielny is the new Franz Beckenbauer. As soon as he started going forward and joining the attack, we looked great. He has to keep doing this or else we are doomed.

3. Ox > Walcott.

4. Djourou is a terrible RB.

5. Vermaelen loses his head at LB.

6. Our 4411 / 4231 / 451 has lost us 3 consecutive matches with our make shift full backs. Perhaps it is time to take a leaf out of Barca’s book and play a 3 man defense.

7. Our 451 has another fatal flaw. If we play with a deeper line, we do not have the ability to meaningfully bring the ball out of defense. Combined with opposition pressing we simply hoof the fall forward to nobody. Almost every team has figured us out. Press our back line and our goalie and we will lose the ball. If we play a higher line, we look great in attack, but as we do not press properly, we are extremely vulnerable.

8. We are terrible at taking throw ins. Some one should count the number of times over the past 4 years have we lost the ball within 10 seconds of taking a throw in.

9. We will end up behind Tottenham this season. Next season Luka Modric will leave like Cesc left us and we will overtake them. And Adebayor will also move to greener pastures.

10. To blame the 2nd goal on Arshavin is ridiculous. He tracked Valencia back as much as he could. He was not day dreaming. Blame should fall on Song and Verminator for doing nothing.

11. Rooney beat Mertesacker in the air once. Will Ramsey ever beat Vidic in the air ? Other than that he had a decent game.
http://twitter.com/bcfisher2 Brian Fisher

@be721b57b6621dd5bef5a6589078bf22:disqus

Since you have listed your points in order I will respond in order haha :).
1. To me Ramsey (and Joss and I have talked about this a bit) often tries to do way too much. And I think part of this comes from the fact of who he is replacing. He often tries to be Cesc when he just needs to be Aaron. One of the beautiful things about Cesc was he never forced anything. He played what was on, or what the defense was giving him and it seems to me that Aaron is trying to force things a bit. I think once Jack comes back and our midfield is healthy we will see a preferred trio of Wilshere, Arteta, and Song with Ramsey the one being dropped.

2. What a buy he has turned out to be right? Truly a bargin and the boss should be commended for that piece of business.

3. Ox has the one thing that Theo’s game really suffers from and that is technical ability. He has a much stronger left foot as well. Theo, as many teams are beginning to figure out, struggles against teams that play with a deeper line or have a leftback that can match his pace and this is simply due to his lack of technical ability.

4. I agree, he is an average centerback at best and an even worse right back. If Yannaris doesn’t start the next game I will punch a child.

5. Vermaelen is also playing out of position but he is much better outside than Djourou. That being said he does have a tendency to do two things. One he drifts centrally a little too much and he also gets flustered when pressed by fast wingers when he is on the ball and often just huffs the ball forward instead of attempting to play out of defense.

6. I think that this doesn’t have so much do with the formation as it does with the personell available at the moment. People ofter over look the importance of Fullbacks in the modern game and in my opinion they are the most important positions players to any team right behind a center mid who can really control the game. Its also important to remember how important fullbacks are to the way Arsenal play. Our wingers like to drift inside and get into goal scoring positions so it is often up to the fullback to provide the attacking width to our play. Unfortunately with centerbacks at fullback they often dont have the physical drive or mentality to bomb up and down the wing contributing to all phases of the game. As for going with a three man defense that may be risky for us because we dont quite have the players Barcelona do. They have 3 world class defenders, a slue of world class midfielders, and two world class forwards (one of whom is the best player in the world). Could we play with 3 in the back? Yes. But I think we would struggle even more than we do now defensively.

7. Once again I think this has more do with personel than anything. With Centerbacks playing as make shift fullbacks we lose a lot of technical ability as a team as well as players who are comfortable on the ball in wider positions. I think that once we get healthy we will find that ability to play out of defense again. I also think we wont quite be as vulnerable with a high line once we can pair Vermaelen and Koscielny in the center. I think Mertersacker is a good defender but struggles at times when playing up high due to his lack of pace so I believe he will move to the bench as a third choice.

8. I havent really noticed this but I’m definitely going to be on the look out now.

9. As much as it pains me to admit it I agree. They are the better team right now. I also share the belief that Modric and Ade will be gone next year. Hopefully we will be active the market again this summer and get some more talent and depth as well.

10. I dont think I blamed the goal solely on Andrey and if I came across that way I certainly didn’t mean too. Football is a team game and much of the time goals are conceded due to poor teamwork and communication defensively. My point was more that Arshavin was a bad choice for a sub given the circumstances of the game. United field big strong players who work very hard and Andrey has neither of those two qualities so I just felt that someone who was bigger with a higher work rate (and more over something to prove) would have been a better choice. But yes you are right Vermaelen and Song did not do near enough on the play defensively either.

11. This is also very true and I noticed the same thing. Definitely a head scratching moment.
http://www.arsenalreport.com Ix Techau

I just want to say that I think most players except Rosicky, Koscielny and Chamberlain were poor. Van Persie was marked out of the game way too easily, Vermaelen wasn’t focused enough. I know those names are treated like we’re never supposed to say anything bad about them, but they were just as poor as the other scapegoats.
Jamie

I enjoyed the article this week. I do not understand much of anything you said, but I appreciate your knowledge of football.
http://twitter.com/bcfisher2 Brian Fisher

I agree. Vermaelen had a poor game. He may not have been 100% fit but that is still not an excuse. Van Persie was average as well but I think credit needs to go to Six Alex too for picking the right centerback pairing to deal with RvP and his movement.
http://twitter.com/bcfisher2 Brian Fisher

Glad you liked it!

Arsenal 1-2 Man Utd: Could we borrow some full-back funds from Rosie47? by Brian Fisher

Early first half

United react and attack down the left

Second half

The substitution

Conclusion