A Predictable Mikel Arteta Re-inventing Unpredictability
Arteta
By Merlion
September 3 2024
During July 2023 pre-season trip to USA, Arteta commented “The idea is to be more unpredictable every year, to become more difficult for the opponents to stop and nullify what we want to do. That’s what we have now, especially at the back and in midfield.”
But the only unpredictability is Arteta had inadvertently discovered that Kai Havertz is superb as the no. 9 with Declan Rice was a more mobile and ball-winning attacking midfielder.
For the past two seasons, the basic structure is 4-3-3 and 5-3-2 during full-flow attacking phase with both full-backs invert into centre with the DCM forming the “3”. It is also based on Total Football with 3 lines pushing into opponent’s half with both Saliba and Gabriel or at least two defenders located just at centre-circle such that it is about 10 metres separating 3 lines. The principle is that during counterpress, attackers will not run more than 20 metres to shoot at goal.
The issue is that against both Wolves and Villa, Arteta played “Safety First” Football by compacting 3 lines of players within the 20-yard box, stoutly defending and clearing the ball out of the box. All teams knew it and they all knew that they will be given opportunities to attack Arsenal when all their players retreated back into the box.
Teams knew that once the ball is won, Arsenal will execute slow and short passes to organise players into a predictable formation to organize the structure. Isn’t time to develop unpredictability with sudden quick counterattacks such that within 3 passes, an Arsenal player will have a shot at goal?
Playing with 10 men against Brighton, Arteta did initiate swift counterattacks with Saka-Havertz combination. Pity that both of them were not clinical with 2 or 3 clear chances created.
Saka tends to cut inwards most of the time, but stop short centrally and rarely move to a shooting position at left flank. Teams solved this “Saka issue” by surrounding Saka with 3 players with one of them jostling or tackling Saka to win the ball. Pity that Saka and his teammates have yet to master half-touch “pass and move” Triangle to beat the press, and those intelligent fouls to stop Saka.
Arteta’s tactics are predictable with Saka cutting inward all the time. It depends on a brilliant Saka who has the guile and technique to gain a yard of clear space, a split-second before defenders reacted, and shoot accurate to goal, or to bend the ball into far post top corner. During 2022/23 season, Martinelli has also this skillset but injuries derailed his 2023/24 season and he is a pale shadow of himself and is still shockingly lack of confidence to beat the last man, and to shoot as he can.
Saka should roam freely from flank to flank with both Odegaard and Ben White acting as decoys running into the box. Say, Saka started at right flank, a quick pass to White with his back to goal, who then bounced the ball back to Saka – a half touch. A moving Saka instantly passed to Odegaard in the box. Odegaard has the option to do a quick spin and shoot at goal, bounced the ball to a moving a Saka, or squared the ball to a waiting Havertz. Meantime, Martinelli had cut inward to overload left flank with defenders focussing on Havertz and Odegaard in the box. Martinelli is the decoy, creating an opening for Havertz to slip the pass to Saka who then had a clear opening to shoot at goal. This is unpredictability with both Saka and Martinelli, interchanging, and option to shoot from the other flank.
A “floating” forward in Havertz, with a knack of finding open space, will add another element of unpredictability. Defenders will find it hard to maintain organisation with Forward-3 interchanging and dragging their man-markers out of position all the time. When defenders are fatigued from being dragging all over the places, and flanks overloaded regularly, plenty of clear chances will be created.
The game continues to evolve because of new ideas that coaches proposed when facing the problems that arose, especially modern players are quicker and closed down space quicker. Therefore, coaches and players need to continuously look at new ideas, interpret them, and reinvent them again, at both tactical and physical dimensions, hence propelling the tactical game to ever more elaborate levels. That is the challenge facing Mikel Arteta to continue to evolve to inject unpredictability into his predictable tactical formations.
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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2024:09:20:10:50:24 by Padre Pio.
However the corner and dead ball situation seems to have run out of steam with a lack of surprises
"When we had to suffer the team is a lion because they suffer together." 4 July 2020 at Wolverhampton Wanderers
Arteta on his team's first away victory at a club above them in the Premiership since September 2015 at Leicester.
Just needs burnishing, descaling and a new Liverpool emerged with Klopp players.
Liverpool vs Brentford:
Counterattacking
Brentford won a corner, swing it in and Konate cleared.
Grevenberch won the 2nd ball, tumbled to the ground but Liverpool players were surging forward.
An alert Jota picked up the loose ball with Brentford players in pursuit.
Two Brentford defenders were in front of Diaz, backtracking.
Diaz cut between the defenders and Jota slipped an accurate pass forward.
Diaz outpaced Brentford defenders and scored.
With 4 passes from Brentford corner, Liverpool scored.
Against Wolves and Villa, Arteta was obsessed with defending and did not setup the team for counterattacking. The team just failed to win those 2nd balls in our half, resulting in waves upon waves of attacks with us stoutly defending during 2nd half.
Arteta needs to re-invent himself to setup the team to win 2nd balls, with immediate counterattacks with Saka, Havertz and Martinelli ready to surge like what Slot coached Jota and Diaz did, which was a follow-up from Klopp's gegenpressing.
"To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.” Saint Thomas Aquinas
There was a lovely move by a creative Mo Salah.
TAA passed to Mo who moved to right flank, and TAA continued his run into the box.
Salah moved towards centre and a quick pass to TAA with his back to goal.
TAA took a touch and angled his pass back to Salah, who was chased by a Brentford defender.
Salah quickly passed to no. 8 Szobros, with his back to goal and inside the box, (i.e. a Triangle of TAA_Salah_Szobros).
A running Salah picked up the ball and passed immediately to Jota near far post.
Jota immediately cushioned a short square pass to no. 10 McAlister. (Both were in the box.)
And no. 10, with a half-touch, slipped a quick and cushioned short pass to right flank.
Salah is now at right flank but the quick Brentford defender, who was chasing Salah all the way, jut managed to get this foot to poke the pass into touch.
Salah is truly a worldclass player, a megastar, with his creative playmaking and a deadly predator as well.
Saka is still developing and quite a distance away to attain the standard of Salah.
Saka is stagnant with Arteta' coaching and will find it difficult to reach the next level if he still yet to develop that peripheral vision of Salah, and the ability to roam across flank-to-flank with that unpredictability of sudden cutting into the box where the midfielders and forwards can find him with running half-touch "pass-and-move" that his teammates had developed telepathic understanding amongst forwards and midfielders.
Saka is too static and stuck at left flank, and just can't understand why till now, Arteta cannot coach him to pass-and-move like Salah. Perhaps Saka still lacks that peripheral vision of worldclass players that played with their head up and at a glimpse out of the corner of their eyes, they read the developing tactical plays and thought 1 or 2 or 3 moves ahead of the defenders.
After Round #3, all attacking players have at least 4 players in the box, and able to drag the defenders out of position and clear open channels to shoot.
Arteta's tactics tend to congest the box with short passes executed by Odegaard, Saka and White at right flank. So predictable that EPL teams found it so easy to frustrate Arsenal by congesting the box.
With Maresca and Slot rejuvenating Chelski and Liverpool, a predictable Arteta living on past glories of previous 2 seasons will be in a shock this season.
Watching Newcastle vs Tiny Totts, Arteta will find it difficult to play against them with previous tactics.
Not forgetting that with Tonali getting up to speed before meeting us, It will be extremely tough to beat them now.
The saving grace is that the Defence had strengthen with Timber and Calafiori.
Keeping clean-sheets and scoring in every league game are critical for our title challenge.
Szobros immediately bounced the ball back to a running Salah.
"To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.” Saint Thomas Aquinas
Average life span of top managers in EPL is not more than 9 years.
They are worn out pretty fast.
We have 3 mainstays red carded and injured - Rice, Merino and now Odegaard.
Odegaard will not recover in time for NLD - sprained ankle.
Calafiori may recovered and most likely to start.
Arteta has the squad he wanted and time to prove his worth by trusting his squad:
..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... Raya
... White ..... Saliba ..... Gabriel ..... Calafiori
..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... Timber
..... ..... Nwaneri..... ..... ..... ..... Havertz
... Saka ..... ..... ..... Sterling ..... ..... ..... Martinelli
Odegaard had become too predictable with his short passing games and virtually parked at right flank without much playing-making to left flank. An injection of unpredictability in Nwaneri will derail whatever video analytics that Big Ange had setup his tactics to nullify movements of Odegaard.
The key to Odegaard as no. 8 was his engine to go box-to-box, tracking runners and anticipation to guard against all possible passing channels.
Timber as a sweeper should cover-up for absence of Odegaard. Of course, Nwaneri will put in a shift to press high up on the pitch and to track runners.
Havertz had improved rapidly to play as floating forward and coming in deep from Bergy's Hole. Arteta has no choice but to field Kai in this role with the absence of both Rice and Merino.
It is vital that Calafiori should start and is the key to the Defence.
Perhaps not too much inverting but as a solid Back-3 in Saliba-Gabriel-Calafiori when White doing his usual inverting with Saka-WHite-Nwaneri as the new attacking threat.
Sterling as no. 9 will upset all Big Ange tactics as a mobile and elusive no. 9 who can dribble and holdup the ball is a big threat with his ability to score and to play in Martinelli, Havertz and Nwaneri attacking from deep.
Please, no Trossard as a starter. He can't dribble, lacks pace and has no engine to press like Gabby.
Gabby is the joker in the pack and may be our match winner.
Let's hope Arteta has drilled intensely with him on his ability to beat the last man, the vision to cut back to a free player and best of all, to time his run on swift counterattack with long passes out of the box while defending. We miss that kind of Gabby's runs.
Jesus?
After a long layoff, best to start him on the bench.
Still early in the season and Big Ange has yet to come to grip with Arteta new tactics.
Let's hope Arteta will inject unpredictability into hsi predictable formation to surprise Big Ange.
"To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.” Saint Thomas Aquinas
"When we had to suffer the team is a lion because they suffer together." 4 July 2020 at Wolverhampton Wanderers
Arteta on his team's first away victory at a club above them in the Premiership since September 2015 at Leicester.
"To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.” Saint Thomas Aquinas