Blackpool 1-3 Arsenal: Diaby displays temporary flash of brilliance

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Blackpool 1-3 Arsenal, 10 April 2011, Premier League

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After a disappointing March in which Arsenal all but slipped out of the title-race, it was vital they responded against a struggling Blackpool side. Arsenal beat Blackpool 6-0 at the Emirates early on in the season and this game could have been almost as comfortable if Arsenal had taken their chances.

Arsene Wenger was forced into fielding a patched up defence – with Manuel Almunia apparently injuring himself just before kick-off, 41 year old Jens Lehmann returned between the sticks for the first time since 2008 for Arsenal while Sebastien Squillaci and Laurent Koscielny (neither of whom are first choice) continued at centre-back and Emmanuel Eboue filled in for the absent Bacary Sagna meaning Gael Clichy was the only member of the back four that played on Sunday who is actually first choice in his position when everyone is available.

Blackpool Pressure

Blackpool started with a high, attacking tempo – pouring players forward to attack an Arsenal side short of confidence after recent weeks and a defence who have hardly played together this season.

Blackpool’s wingers, Luke Varney (on the left) and Gary Taylor-Fletcher (on the right) pushed right up alongside DJ Campbell, while Charlie Adam came from a deeper midfield position to take up one on the edge of the box, or about 30 yards out – becoming the primary playmaker. Their full-backs as well looked to overlap the wingers and overrun the Arsenal defence in the early stages.

In defence and midfield, Arsenal kept very narrow – Clichy was constantly having to back off into his own area since Arshavin was offering little defensive support and Eboue was caught getting too tight to Luke Varney on more than one occasion. Fortunately for the away side, Blackpool were unable to convert their early dominance into goals and they only completed 2 out of 18/ 11% of crosses.

Arsenal Counter-Attacking

With Blackpool playing a risky high defensive line against a quick Arsenal side with good movement, but trying to pack the midfield and put pressure on Abou Diaby as soon as he received the ball to feet, Arsenal were able to find pockets of space and create several opportunities on the counter-attack.

The pressure on Abou Diaby – as well as the French midfielder’s general positional indiscipline and his eagerness to get forward – meant that Cesc Fabregas dropped deeper in an attempt to control the tempo of the game, as well as being the focal point of most counter-attacks. Fabregas was constantly picking up the ball around the half-way line and playing the ball over the top of the Blackpool defence – looking to take advantage of Robin van Persie’s excellent movement and the poorly constructed offside trap which only succeeded in its purpose on 5 occasions.

Abou Diaby is congratulated by his team-mates.

Blackpool pushed so many bodies forward that they tired after about 20 minutes (when Arsenal got their first goal through a similar counter-attacking move) in both the first and second halves and Arsenal took full advantage.

Arsenal’s third goal was a typical of moves we’ve seen late on in games Arsenal are winning and playing well in. With Fabregas again dropping back to help out in a congested midfield, Blackpool looked to play Van Persie offside (and succeeded in doing so) but this meant that Theo Walcott was able to run behind the full-back from a starting position two or three yards onside and break away to set up the third and final Arsenal goal for Van Persie.

Despite starting in an offside position, the new offside laws meant that he was not interfering with play when Fabregas’ played the ball forward for Walcott and was therefore able to become ‘active’ again after Walcott had touched the ball to finish off the move. This move and goal was identical to Arsenal’s second goal against Wolves when the same three players were involved.

Richard Kingson – Sweeper ‘Keeper

What is a ‘sweeper goalkeeper’? In modern terms, the idea of a sweeper keeper is to have a goalkeeper who can perform two duties. On the one hand, he must obviously carry out his normal goalkeeping responsibilities – making saves and catching crosses etc.

Jens Lehmann returned to Arsenal for the first time since 2008.

In addition to this, however, he is instructed to either stay on the edge of his box, or to rush off his line when the offside trap ahead of him fails – intercepting through balls before the striker can get to it and clearing the ball up-field to launch counter attacks of his own for breaking players ahead of him.

How did it work for Blackpool? Despite some from their full-backs, Blackpool’s defence has little pace and didn’t set up a particularly efficient offside line. As a result, Richard Kingson was forced to come off his line several times in the first half to kick or punch away long balls over the top from Arsenal’s midfield.

Although not entirely convincing, Kingson did enough to put off the forwards or try to rush them into making decisions quickly. An example of this was when he came to punch the ball away but didn’t get enough on it and Arshavin sliced a volley high and wide fairly early on, as well as Fabregas’ ambitious effort from halfway which although well wide, emphasised the risk factor in Kingson’s unusual role.

This role can also be compared to Jens Lehmann’s decision in the Champions League final to rush 30 yards from his line and get himself sent off and was also a function adopted by Manuel Almunia in recent seasons, but this wasn’t quite so extreme.

Conclusion

Blackpool’s ambitious and admirable decision to attack Arsenal arguably cost them the game, or at least made it more comfortable for Wenger’s team than it might have been. Despite almost scoring several times bar some poor finishing, and getting a little bit unlucky with refereeing decisions, Arsenal also could have had more goals on the break.

Holloway can perhaps be accused of being slightly naïve in his tactics – Blackpool tried to attack Arsenal at the Emirates and lost comprehensively while his decision to put on Andy Reid, a player who has significantly less pace and athleticism than Luke Varney, didn’t help their cause.

In contrast, Wenger’s decision to put on Walcott, despite the winger carrying a knock, was important not just for his assist but because he was able to use his threat of pace behind the defence to pin Stephen Crainey deep into his own half.

Finally, Fabregas’ man of the match performance (as chosen by voters on arsenal.com) is encouraging at a crucial time in the season and the title-race as Arsenal look to make up 7 points to the top of the Premier League.

Second Opinion by Ix Techau

As Manchester United played and won their 32nd league game (against Fulham) on Saturday with ease, there was even more pressure on Arsenal to show why they should be considered title challengers. Ian Holloway’s Blackpool started out in a positive 4-3-3 variant, closing down Arsenal for as long as their legs could handle, and the Gunners got away with some valid penalty claims from the Tangerines.

Blackpool Focus Down The Right

From the start of the first half it was evident that Blackpool identified Arsenal’s left flank as the weakest – probably because of Andrei Arshavin’s lack of defensive tenacity. Most of Blackpool’s crosses came from their right channel throughout the match – 12 out of 18 attempted crosses (66%) were from the right flank – with Gary Taylor-Fletcher (right forward) supplying six of them, and Alex Baptiste (right back) attempting three.

The problem was that even though Arshavin is defensively lazy at times, Blackpool ran into trouble with Clichy preventing many of their crosses from reaching their intended targets. With around 72% tackling accuracy and 4 interceptions, Clichy made sure that only 2 of Blackpool’s 12 crosses from the right were successful – pressing and forcing Taylor-Fletcher and Baptiste to quick decisions, lowering their accuracy.

Arshavin’s Offensive Approach

In the first 30 minutes of the game, Arshavin attempted several “Barca”-type lateral runs – trying to break Blackpool’s offside trap and playing on the shoulder of Ian Evatt and Craig Cathcart. He often ended up in a central forward position, pushing Robin van Persie out left to keep the shape intact. This was helped by Gael Clichy and Emmanuel Eboue bombing forward down their flanks, pushing the wide forward positions narrow so that Arshavin and Samir Nasri ended up in more central positions than usual.

Blackpool was pushing their defensive line up high, something Arshavin tried to exploit on several occasions. Forcing Van Persie to fill in the gap on the left flank also caused doubt in the marking department for Blackpool’s defenders, and Abou Diaby’s goal was a result of this confusion – Van Persie had drifted left and no one picked him up quick enough to prevent the assist to be distributed across the penalty box.

Diaby Momentarily World-Class

The enigma of Diaby continues, mostly in regards to his ridiculous inconsistency that can transform him from completely useless into world-class in the timespan of weeks. In previous matches when played in the ‘Song role’, he’s had problems interpreting the role correctly, failing to cover the width of the pitch and instead focusing on running the length of the pitch in a box-to-box type method.

But in this match Diaby understood the ‘Song role’ all of a sudden, putting his own slant on it without compromising on the important tasks included in that position. He attempted a total of 17 (!) tackles during the match, including aerial challenges and take-ons, winning 13 of them. Usually this number is around 4-5 on average for Arsenal defenders and midfielders, so 17 is a massive amount of tackles compared to the norm.

Not only that, but he had one of those days where his tight ball control proved itself to be key to Arsenal’s offensive attempts, ending up directly involved in two of the three goals, even scoring one for the first time in roughly 8 months.

Second Half Shift In Mentality

Blackpool came out even more determined to close Arsenal down in the second half, upping the pressure in midfield and causing more problems for Wenger’s surprisingly “old” squad (26.6 average age – 25.2 if we take the 41-year old Lehmann out of the equation). Cutting off diagonal channels, the Tangerines were blocking many of Arsenal’s preferred passing patterns.

Arsenal responded by eventually bringing on Theo Walcott, allowing Arsenal to pose more of a threat on the counter – which in turn caused the Gunners to increase their pressing, confident of serving a through ball down the right flank for Walcott to latch on to. This exact strategy led to Arsenal’s third goal and essentially sealed the match and an important three points at the end of the day.

gooner15

if diaby can play like this more often he would be starting for arsenal. his ability has never been in question but his focus needs to remain constant
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Blackpool 1-3 Arsenal: Diaby displays temporary flash of brilliance by Joss Bennett

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Jens Lehmann

Emmanuel Eboue

Gael Clichy

Sebastien Squillaci

Laurent Koscielny

Abou Diaby

Jack Wilshere

Samir Nasri

Andrei Arshavin

Cesc Fabregas

Robin van Persie

Richard Kingson

Stephen Crainey

Ian Evatt

Alex Baptiste

Craig Cathcart

Keith Southern

Jason Puncheon

Charlie Adam

Gary Taylor-Fletcher

Luke Varney

Dudley Campbell