Manchester City 1-0 Arsenal: Tactical Analysis

Manchester City hosted Arsenal for a third highly anticipated clash between Pep Guardiola and Mikel Arteta. This time, it was the master that prevailed, winning 1-0 in an entertaining tactical battle, a close encounter, according both to the score line and expected goals, 1.46-0.92. Here is how it unfolded:

STARTING LINEUPS:

[photo: whoscored.com]

Pep Guardiola opted for an unconventional back 3 set up, while right back João Cancelo’s inclusion in midfield sprung surprise to everyone watching. In reality, City’s shape on the ball was tailor made to break down both Arsenal’s mid/high press and low block.

Red lines: City outfielders pinning Arsenal players in the build up

Pep came up with the above system by noting some particular features that are constants in Arteta’s 4-3-3/3-4-3 variation:

1. The center forward, Willian in this instance, presses the opposing holding midfielder and not the center backs.

2. The left sided midfielder, Saka in this instance, acts as a left wing-back when Arsenal retreat to a low block, turning it into a 5-4-1.

3. Arsenal’s defensive players, are not particularly adept at stepping out of the defensive block to chase and press dropping forwards.

   In turn:

   1.Pep opted for only one conventional center back, Ruben Dias, and instructed the holding midfielder Rodri to drop into the back line in the build-up, in order to take Willian out of midfield and thus, making central ball progression far easier.

As seen above, City build with a conventional 4+2 shape, with Bernardo retreating to form a double pivot with Cancelo. This meant Arsenal’s midfield three had to push higher up to press the double pivot, increasing the space between the lines.

2. Pep loves to isolate Riyad Mahrez with the opposing full back due to his elite 1v1 ability. However, in the FA Cup semi-final, we saw the left sided midfielder/wing back double up on Mahrez in order to take away his threat. Cancelo’s positioning in the right half space pinned Saka away from Mahrez.

As we have seen so many times in the past, City built up mainly from the left, overloading that side, and then finding Mahrez on the under-loaded right side 1v1 against Tierney.

Overload the left…

… to then isolate on the right.

As a result of this tactic, Arteta quickly changed his team’s defensive shape to a 5-4-1 due to the extraordinary threat of Mahrez. This now meant that City had a numerical advantage in midfield, with Bernardo, Sterling and Cancelo having freedom to roam between the lines against the double pivot of Xhaka & Ceballos.

Rodri finding the free man in midfield, Cancelo

3. Pep instructed his two central attacking players, Aguero & Sterling to first pin Arsenal’s center backs, David Luiz & Gabriel, and then drop deep to pull them away from the defensive line. This is perfectly illustrated in the game’s only goal:

Ruben Dias finds Mahrez with a direct forward ball from deep, as Aguero has pulled Gabriel very high up the pitch with his dropping movement.

Mahrez finds Aguero inside, and Ceballos who has dropped in the defensive line to cover Gabriel’s absence is not quick enough to press City’s center forward who has loads of space in the middle of the park.

Aguero then slips in Phil Foden whose shot is saved, but the rebound is converted by Sterling.

In the second half, Arsenal abandoned the high press until the late stages in this game. This meant they had a much more compact defensive block and were able to counter City’s overloads between the lines, making their build up far less dangerous.

5 players surrounding Sterling and Foden

ARSENAL ON THE BALL

Arsenal built with their usual 4-3-3 with Saka and Willian dropping deep in the half spaces to assist ball progression.

The center backs split wide and Xhaka, the holding midfielder, dropped between them. Due to City’s intense high press, most attempts to play out of the back were predictably forced wide to the full backs. From there they would look to find Willian and Saka in the half spaces, otherwise they would try to exploit City’s high line by playing long balls to Pépé and Aubameyang, which proved to be largely ineffective.

Pep opted for a 3-3-4 high press, making it extremely hard for Arsenal to build up in the way Arteta wanted.

The center backs split wide and Xhaka, the holding midfielder, dropped between them. Due to City’s intense high press, most attempts to play out of the back were predictably forced wide to the full backs. From there they would look to find Willian and Saka in the half spaces, otherwise they would try to exploit City’s high line by playing long balls to Pépé and Aubameyang, which proved to be largely ineffective.

Pep opted for a 3-3-4 high press, making it extremely hard for Arsenal to build up in the way Arteta wanted.

Four attacking players leading the City press

Eyebrows were raised when Arteta selected Willian as a center forward, instead of more conventional options such as Alex Lacazette and Eddie Nketiah. While we have seen Lacazette operate in a ‘false 9’ type role, it was largely evident that Willian operated in different areas, making the Arsenal team “striker-less”.

Willian, a winger by trade, largely operated in the right half space creating a triangle with the right back, Bellerin and the right winger Pépé. It mirrored the natural triangle on the left side, consisting of Tierney, Saka and Aubameyang. In my interpretation, this was Arteta’s attempt to diversify Arsenal’s build up, which has been extremely left-side biased this season. Once again though, their threat from the right side was inexistent, and Willian was replaced by Lacazette in the 69th minute.

Arsenal’s wide triangles

Arsenal’s left side though, looked as threatening as ever, mostly due to the creative spark provided by Bukayo Saka. Arteta managed to use Cancelo’s positioning to his own team’s advantage when they were on the ball.

Cancelo was instructed to move to the right back position to create a back four when his team retreated to their defensive structure in their own third, but at times he was late to do so, due to his role in the high press.

In the example above Cancelo is not in his position in the back line, and at the same time Walker is pinned by Aubameyang who has moved centrally. Saka makes the run in the free space and is found by Ceballos.

City looked much stronger and more compact defensively in the second half by abandoning their extremely high press in the late stages. Furthermore, in the 65th minute, Aguero was replaced by Ilkay Gündogan, a holding midfielder, and so City could now retreat to a 4-4-2 mid-block.

City’s 4-4-2 mid-block

With the above structure, they were able to close out the game without being particularly threatened in the final 25 minutes.

CONCLUSION

Pep Guardiola came up with a brilliant tactical plan to end Manchester City’s bad run of form, out-coaching his former assistant. However, it has to be said that Arsenal had enough chances overall to get something from this game, while their play out of possession was solid as usual. In my view, it is definitely a performance to build on for Mikel Arteta and his side.

Written by Nikolas Stephanatos (@ncstef16)