ARS v AVL
Formation
Arsenal and Aston Villa both played their best line-up with their usual formation.
Villa mostly played 4-4-2 while Arsenal played three at the back when defending and 3-2-5 attacking.
Villa's Fantastic Four.
Jack the captain created an opener for Villa within minute. Although it was ruled out for off-side, Arsenal defence seemed shaky facing Grealish.
Villa front four except for Trezeguet, are pressure resilient. Villa play pretty simple football.
They play air ball to Watkins, who is exceptional winning them, and Grealish creates chances with his dribbling skill.
While Barkley causes overload moving around, sometimes carrying ball and Trezeguet plays rather defensively and provides late-run option.
This is a typical Villa attacking play. Grealish lures one defender out of postion, and Barkley infiltrates into the vacated space.
Ollie pins two centre-halves, and Trezeguet providing wide option to pin Saka wide.
Jack carries the ball for distance. Superb finish from Ollie.
creating overload
In this match, Villa was very attack minded. In some occasions there were 6 players participating attack. Full back on attacking side, front four and one of two pivots.
See how Villa creates overload with full back and one of Luiz and Mcginn.
Ollie the kid
Arsenal centre-halves had struggled defending free-flowing Villa attack. Ollie put another outstanding performance winning most of the air balls(unlkie Rashford), held the ball and lured Magalhaes out of position numerous times.
Ollie wins the ball and exploit the very space he lured out.
Unlike Laca, Ollie moves around to receive and play the ball.
Arsenal struggle to create
Width
Arsenal attack most of the time consisted of 5 players. With two midfielders as supporting players.
Playing width intends to accomplish two things.
First, to create gap between each defenders.
Second, to easily pass the ball to touchline hugging player.
U-shaped side change
I am sure most of us are aware of U-shaped build up play.
This has been Arsenal's obvious problem.
There's no player in the field who can achieve quick side change to cause opposition defence trouble.
Side change is so slow that Villa's defence have more than enough time to prepare for the defence.
This is the real problem for Arsenal's attack.
When wide player has the ball, he only have two attacking options.
Waiting for tucked in attacking player to make infiltration into the box to pass the ball in, or to cross it.
However since Aston Villa well anticipated infiltration from half-space, and crossing is low-return option, they turned the ball back to midfielders. Same thing happened on the other side.
Followings are detailed reasons why Arsenal's pass-map looks like 'U'.
predictable box infiltration
Arsenal's main attacking route through Saka is well analyzed by other teams.
Villa blocked Arsenal's left side attack with Trezeguet's shadow cover.
This measure is pretty basic in that Villa still gave some space near the touch line.
Predictable. Willian pass the ball back to Holding. Saka isolated. Gets a foul.
Arsenal attackers isolated themselves and couldn't infiltrate well into the box.
They just played crossings in later part.
Saka just gets into the box to get the cross. No intention to play half space anymore.
poor crossing
Tierney provided some good crossings. However, Laca and Auba didn't win much.
Bellerin needs to work on his crossing.
See the illustration under U-shaped build-up.
Even it's 81 mins on the clock he should deliver better.
It is rather harsh to criticize full-backs alone, since this measure is last of option for Arsenal style of play.
But we should equip all the guns sharp and ready. Even though our main tactic fails.
comparison: Villa's crossing.
Cash exploits the loose side. Second goal for Villa.
Downside of crossing: fast transition.
Arsenal able to get the ball to Tierney who then crosses it to Martinez. Arsenal now faces counter attack and concedes goal.
No one between the line
Auba not a playmaker
No one in Arsenal team played between the line.
Auba desperately sought some ball but wasn't provided rather he played provider here.
Yet he's not really a playmaker, link play was not really well constructed.
Opinion
I'd like to address some of ideas that could work 'in theory', but since I am not able to see training data and all, I am not going to and leave it up to professionals.
I can see why Arteta plays attacking shy football. In my opinion, Arteta wants to build mentality, and balance first.
We saw how he achieved those things. Arteta won FA Cup in his first managerial year, and we were having good run of defence until Villa.
Partey could be the key to Arsenal's attack. He played every move with intention to go forward always thinking progressively.
See some of examples here. Some might say he plays risky football and sometimes he lost ball and gave turn-over. However, we need this in our attack.
All of these plays by Partey speed up Arsenal's attack.
Arteta is planning to gear up Arsenal's attack with Partey imho. Nonetheless, Partey alone cannot carry the attack. In this match, Arsenal exposed sluggish attacking speed, lack of attacking vatiations, and lack of playmaking from between the line. It will be interesting to watch how Arteta solves these problems in the upcoming match.