Thread by @EBL2017

Arteta is a phenomenal tactician but Arsenal having just over 40% of the ball against Brighton is not good enough. Below, I analyse his flawed tactics against 3 at the back teams and why Arsenal cannot keep the ball in those games before ultimately getting dominated.

THREAD.

Interestingly, Arsenal had 71% of the ball after the first 10 minutes - they didn't just play out from the back - they partook in a combination of both direct and short play and were successful with both thanks to their good technical quality and Ramsdale's long kicking.

Ramsdale's kicking enabled Arsenal to win second balls in areas deep in Brighton's, which is good. This is a position of control and strength for Arsenal because they're winning the ball back high as opposed to losing it in their own third and being forced to recover.

Pressing wise, Arsenal were forcing Brighton to go long and play risky passes because Arsenal were incredibly frantic because the game just started and their energy was high, as seen below.

However, the overload in Brighton's build-up enabled them to dominate the ball from this point (minute 10) on. Between minute 12 and 22 Brighton had 63% possession, and this marked the swing of the tide in the games dynamics and overall control for each team.

Once Brighton got their foot on the ball, Arsenal never got it back, & that's because Brighton had a spare man in the build-up vs Arsenal's subpar press. Brighton had a constant 5v4 when building play, & that's excluding Sanchez in goal who Brighton successfully used to circulate

Not only did Brighton have an overload in the build-up, but the vertical compactness with Arsenal's block wasn't tight enough. Ben White and Gabriel lacked aggression within their positioning so Brighton often had spare men between the lines.

This had a number of implications.

Ideally, in a good pressing system, Partey will push on & press the opposition pivot here as he is a clear pressing trigger. However, as seen in the same video, he was conscious of the spare man between the lines behind him so couldn't press high. This is White & Gabriel's fault.

Klopp constantly talks about how the last line must be aggressive within their positioning so the entire block is compact and the space in which the opposition have to play in is reduced. Arsenal weren't vertically compact, so Partey couldn't press high.

This means that Brighton can 1) play a simple short pass into the pivot to play out of Arsenal's subpar press or 2) play directly to the spare man between the lines. Either way, Arsenal are getting forced back because their press wasn't good enough.

For me, this is primarily Gabriel's fault. He was signed to be the leader in that backline so controlling where the line operates is one of his primary tasks. Again, this is also imperative for Arteta to drill into him and the defensive line, so both are certainly at fault here.

Look at Partey here. His body position is one that is conservative and lacks aggression in the sense that he's more concerned about what's behind him as opposed to pressing what should be his trigger which is the opposition pivot. Again, the defensive line is too deep.

So Arsenal's press was outmatched numbers wise and wasn't vertically compact. The reality of the situation is Brighton dominated the ball against Arsenal with the likes of Dan Burn and Shane Duffy in the team. That’s not good enough from Arteta.

The same thing happened against Chelsea and Chelsea dismantled Arteta's Arsenal on the day. There is a clear 5v4 in the build-up here, and this was how Chelsea directly exposed and scored against Arsenal on a number of occasions.

However, bizarrely, Arteta matched up against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge last season & completely stifled their game pressing wise before ultimately beating Chelsea at the Bridge on that day, so for him to make this error twice after beating Chelsea with it is utterly illogical.

Crucially, in the below pictures Holding (Arsenal's CB) was right behind Mason Mount ready to press high. Also, Arsenal were not outnumbered numbers wise either. They matched Chelsea up man for man. This was a successful & high quality tactic which should be used vs 3 ATB teams.

Arteta has shown before that he can implement a high quality press against a 3 at the back team but he must change or improve upon his current system to revert to those previous successes to make Arsenal less vulnerable in these games.

Brighton, on the other hand, showed Arteta who was boss on the day by matching up man-for-man when Arsenal had goal kicks. This structure forced Ramsdale to go long more often than he and Arteta would have liked - Brighton, however, had no problem playing out from the back.

As I maintain at the start of the thread, Arteta is a top tactician but has made glaring errors against 3 at the back teams on a number of occasions this season despite implementing a successful approach against Chelsea last ssn. This needs to improve to give Arsenal more control

Improved technical levels would enable Arteta's men to be more dominant on these games but Arsenal's XI was more than good enough to control the game vs Brighton, yet they didn't, and the team with D. Burn and S. Duffy did with the ball, which is unacceptable.

He must improve.