ARSENAL (1) VS (1) MANCHESTER CITY 🔴🔵 - Haaland x Doku x Reijnders ⚡️ - Arsenal's solutions in phases - Martinelli and Eze's impact 🔑 - City's mid-block issues 🔓 THREAD 🧵
Arsenal's line-up fielded Merino, Zubimendi and Rice midfield that lacked attacking aggression and creativity. This limited Arsenal especially in the first half especially with the gaps that were found. Arsenal's 3-2-5 had constant rotations between Calafiori, Rice and Trossard
With Bernardo constantly pushing to Rice, Rice often dropped into the backline which dragged Bernardo out. Calafiori inverts in this case to ease progression with the aim to find the free man. At times we saw Arsenal make full use of Rice's movement to manipulate the block
In possession, Calafiori was high up the pitch with Rice and Zubimendi forming the double pivot as we've seen lately. Rotations between the 2 gave fluidity on the LHS.
Arsenal's patience to manipulate the City's block in the first half led to them growing in the game and finding solutions. However, City's gaps within the 4-3-3 mid-block made this a bit easy for Arsenal at times than it should. This has been City's problem recently (failure to
However, Arsenal found gaps Their patience led to finding gaps within the block and moving the opposition by regressing in order to progress with the aim to penetrate when the block became less compact or shifting the opponent. Asides City's setup not being as aggressive going
While watching the game, you could see Pep's gesture instructing his team to be compact and squeeze the block, but Arsenal's quality, patience and rotations helped counter this. Arsenal's 10s had good inroads driving forward at City's defensive line (Merino/Eze & Calafiori)
Another case here.... Arsenal progress centrally to find Gyokeres with Rodri out of his space (looking to mark Trossard who faked to drop), finding Merino (free man) and Trossard making a run in behind, with the space conceded by Dias (Up-Back through movement). Good sequences
The space conceded by City gave a lot of room for Merino and it was clear that Arteta needed a lot more creativity for his side to exploit these spaces and gaps. Eze was the solution and was subbed on in the second half.
Pep switched to a back 5-4-1 to be more compact and stable in the last line, with defenders also being more aggressive in jumps when the oppostion 10s received the ball. Gvardiol jumping out of the defensive line with the aim of being more aggressive to Eze.
In the last minutes, we see no pressure on Eze as he picks up a pass to Martinelli to level the score. City's line being high with a back 5 makes a run in behind worth the risk because it's more difficult keeping a high line with 5. Eze picks a long pass over the top with
On the other hand, City's approach to be a transition team worked to give themselves an advantage early on and I think the goal just shows how important Haaland is to this City side and how he's improved in his link up game. His ability to read Reijnders run, link the pass
City's low block defending was very good, and it helped them to stay in the game with Arsenal consistently knocking to find a goal. Both teams played well to earn point.
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