By Gary Mardle -
Chelsea 2-2 Arsenal. How Arsenal managed to get a draw playing with 10 Men for an hour!
Premier League Tours Director Bhavish, myself and two coaches from the Maryland State Youth Soccer League attended this match together. This was the first time the two coaches ever experienced watching a premier league match live in person. I’m a huge Arsenal fan and I was intrigued to see how Arsenal would play under their new Head Coach Mikel Arteta and also what tactics he’d use throughout the match. Chelsea lined up in Frank Lampard’s favoured 4-3-3 formation and Arsenal lined up in a 4-2-3-1 which has been preferred by Mikel Arteta since he became Arsenal’s Head Coach.
The first 30 minutes of the match were even until David Luiz was red carded for a foul in the penalty area. Chelsea then went 1-0 up from the resulting penalty with still an hour of the match left to play. This led to Mikel Arteta changing Arsenal’s formation to 4-4-1 or 5-3-1 depending on how Chelsea built up their attacks. Arsenal also shifted from their high press to a deep low block with compactness between defence and midfield with Ozil now one of the two holding midfielders. This resulted in Arsenal stifling Chelsea’s attacks through the middle of the pitch. It also allowed Chelsea to advance up the pitch and in their own half almost unchallenged which left a lot of space for Arsenal to exploit on the counter attack. Arsenal’s full backs also tucked in very narrow and this denied Chelsea space in front of the Arsenal centre backs. This caused Chelsea serious problems as there was a lack of space near Arsenal’s goal and Chelsea’s attacking players did not have the creativity to counter the defensive changes that Arsenal made.
Arsenal’s defence were happy to let Chelsea have the ball in wide areas and put crosses in and then either head the ball, clear the ball away or try and start a counter attack after retrieving the ball. Chelsea then looked to exploit the space in wide areas in Arsenal’s half with their own full backs Emerson and Azpilicueta due to the Arsenal defence and midfield staying compact and in the middle of their own half which did lead to a couple of half chances for Chelsea.
Arsenal were struggling to create any meaningful attacks after Arsenal went down to ten men. Mikel Arteta changed his team’s tactics in possession and clearly instructed his team to play on the counter attack when they regained possession of the ball from Chelsea. They did this by having Pepe and Martinelli drop off and play inside instead of playing on the wings. This tactical change directly resulted in Arsenal’s equalising goal from Gabriel Martinelli. Arsenal’s equaliser came directly from a Chelsea corner and due to Chelsea trying to use their numerical advantage from the corner they left Kante defending on the half way line by himself with all their other players in Arsenals half for their own corner kick. Usually teams when having a corner kick leave two players from their own team defending on the halfway line and Arsenal exploited this weakness very well but had a little luck on the way due to Kante’s unfortunate slip.
Chelsea took the lead and then by trying to close out the match for a 2-1 win dropped off and went into a deep low block for the last 5 minutes of the match in a similar way to Arsenal when they went down to ten men. This was a huge error as Mikel Arteta then changed Arsenal’s attacking tactics and played more in Chelsea’s half in the last ten minutes of the match. He instructed both full backs to get forward as much as possible and this led to Arsenal’s full back Bellerin receiving the ball out wide just outside of Chelsea’s penalty area and he dribbled inside onto his left foot before placing a beautiful curled effort into the bottom corner to make it 2-2.
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I believe that despite Chelsea’s 59% possession, 19 shots on goal and numerical advantage for 65 minutes their game management and decision making was poor particularly in the second half. When Arsenal went down to ten men Mikel Arteta’s tactical changes worked fantastically. Due to Arsenal’s compactness in their own third of the pitch they denied Chelsea space through the middle and in between the lines of their defence and midfield. Arsenal’s red card of David Luiz was almost a blessing in disguise as when it was 11v11 Arsenal really struggled to create any chances and also struggled to keep possession.
Against 10 men Chelsea were therefore forced to create chances from wide areas and their quality wasn’t good enough apart from their second goal. Arsenals defensive discipline without the ball was very good and Mikel Arteta made sure the players adapted quickly into their new formation and shape with ten men. Arsenal showed resilience, belief and bravery going forward with the ball and were rewarded with two excellent goals and a well-deserved point at Stamford Bridge. I feel that Mikel Arteta has instilled a new belief and confidence in this Arsenal team mixed with a sound tactical system with and without the ball and it was due to this tactical flexibility that Arsenal achieved a draw.
This article was submitted by Gary Mardle of www.premierleaguetours.com
