Has Pogba Just Lost the English Premier League Championship for Manchester Utd? Weekly English Premier League Opinion #15 Jonny Carter gives his opinion on how Pogba's red card could have cost them any chance of winning the EPL. What do you think? Agree? Disagree? Please let us know by commenting below.
Continue readingHOW THE MATCH WAS WON by Keith Scarlett Player Focus Dimitar Berbatov Monaco 3 - 1 Arsenal Perhaps fortune does favor the brave, but the Champions League favors solidarity. One of the most recent latest editions have once again reminded us of this; that whatever the initial game plan is the most organized and cohesive team
Continue readingHOW THE MATCH WAS WON by Keith Scarlett English Premier League October 5, 2014 Stamford Bridge Chelsea 2 v 0 Arsenal By the time this match came around, Chelsea had already begun their championship run at high speed, 19 points from a possible 21 and already five steps ahead of trailing Manchester City. Arsenal, on-the-other-hand, were
Continue readingHOW THE MATCH WAS WON by Keith Scarlett UEFA Champions League September 16, 2014 Signal Iduna Park Dortmund 2 v 0 Arsenal Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Henrikh Mkhitaryan had enough chances, but Borussia Dortmund could not turn their superiority into more goals. Nevertheless, Dortmund kicked off their Champions League campaign with a resounding 2-0 win over Arsenal in
Continue readingBy Stevie Grieve Arsenal allow City to attack down the left; tempt Kolarov forward and use his space to counter via Sanchez Arsenal expects that Man City will use Kolarov down the left, so Alexis Sanchez is not to track back. Instead, Mikel Arteta will shift over and cover the space with Debuchy. When City
Continue readingHOW THE MATCH WAS WON by Keith Scarlett 2014 Community Shield Sunday, 10 August, 2014 Arsenal 3 v 0 Man City To some, it is nothing more than just an over-hyped friendly. To others, it is the first official match of the season. Regardless of which camp you fall into, the Community Shield is an occasion
Continue readingHOW THE MATCH WAS WON by Keith Scarlett English FA Cup Final Saturday, 17 May, 2014 Wembley Arsenal 3v2 Hull City The 2005 FA Cup. Just a tad shy of nine years. Almost a full decade. Yet a complete generation in terms of football. A total of 3,283 days since Arsenal had last won any
Continue readingBayern Munich’s attacking movement to lose markers from crossing position - By Stevie Grieve.
Arsenal played Bayern Munich for a long period with 10v11, and defended fairly well against possibly the most fluid attacking team in Europe. Pep Guardiola teams play high possession football with total freedom of movement within specific areas of the field for each player.
Each player has 3 or 4 team mates that they make rotations in tandem with depending on ball position and team mate position, similar to Barcelona under Guardiola, but Bayern Munich have the ability to score goals from crosses, a weapon Barcelona didn’t have, which makes if more difficult to defend against this Bayern team as they can go over a defence, as well as through.
Muller Goal – Intelligent movement to cross over a low block
Here, Kroos has Muller and Robben moving between the lines looking for a way through the defence, either by
Continue readingBy Vasco Mota Pereira, PortuGOAL correspondent
Robin van Persie's return to the Emirates hogged most of the headlines of last April's meeting between Arsenal and Manchester United, where Arsène Wenger's men offered a guard of honor to the new champions.
Even though Manchester United's newfound linchpin ended up scoring a goal, it was Arsenal's goal that showed some of the frailties in Sir Alex Ferguson's team - which leads up to a sub-question: is the midfield pairing of Michael Carrick/Phil Jones enough to bring United the victories they crave, especially in the European stage? Let us then break Arsenal's goal down and see what Manchester United did and didn't do.
1. Van Persie misplaces the pass
In this picture, the ball gets to Van Persie after Manchester United had just won it back. Van Persie almost immediately tries to get the ball to the other side, but the pass goes astray (kids everywhere, this is why your coach is always insisting that you do not try this sort of pass) and eventually arrives at the feet of Arsenal left-back Gaël Clichy.
2. Clichy quickly passes the ball to Cazorla
Clichy delivers the ball to his team's chief orchestrator, Santi Cazorla, so that the Spaniard can
By Stevie Grieve, Author of Coaching the 4-2-3-1, Modern Soccer Tactics and Winning Soccer Tactics.
In the recent Arsenal v West Ham United match, the score was 1-1 at half time. Santi Cazorla was playing at the top of the midfield triangle in a 4-2-3-1, and was being followed almost everywhere across the line between midfield and defence by Mark Noble. In the 2nd half, Arsenal changed shape slightly, with Cazorla dropping into a midfield 3 with Wilshere and Ramsey, in theory, allowing himself to drop deep and play without Noble. In effect, Noble continued to follow Cazorla as he moved even deeper, and this allowed lots of space to open between the lines and opened up passing lanes that Noble had previously covered playing in the defensive midfield role. In one instance, Cazorla’s goal, Noble followed him around the field but once Cazorla passed and moved to the blindside, Noble never recovered into position, and Arsenal exploited this via good movement from Podolski, Gibbs, Giroud and Cazorla.
Cazorla inside his own half in possession
Cazorla has dropped almost into a defensive midfield position to receive and distribute, but Noble has
Continue readingBy Stevie Grieve, Author of Coaching the 4-2-3-1, Modern Soccer Tactics and Winning Soccer Tactics.
Manchester City and Arsenal go into this match both undefeated in the league, with Arsenal looking like a different team after some major changes in the summer – losing Robin Van Persie and Alex Song, Pat Rice retiring and Steve Bould moving to become Assistant Manager, signing Santi Cazorla, Lukas Podolski and Olivier Giroud. Different doesn’t mean worse, but defensively solid and with a new talisman in Santi Cazorla.
Man City brought in two central midfielders and a centre back in Javi Garcia, Jack Rodwell and Mateja Nastastic, but they still have major players like Yaya Toure, Sergio Aguero, Vincent Kompany and David Silva.
In this game, both teams lined up in a 4-2-3-1 formation, but City playing mainly on the counter attack with Arsenal enjoying 59% possession.
Arsenal’s defensive organisation in the 4-2-3-1
Aguero receives as Arsenal drop back to recover into defensive positions, the back 4 and 2 holding midfielders are in
Continue readingBy Stevie Grieve, Author of Modern Soccer Tactics
On Wednesday 7th May 2012, Arsenal played AC Milan at the Emirates Stadium, London, needing to pull back a 4-0 deficit from the 1st leg in the San Siro, Milan.
Arsenal knew several things would need to happen if they were to claw back a 4 goal deficit, and force Extra Time, or do the unthinkable and win 5-0.
Arsenal scored on 7 minutes via Koscielny, Arsenal played at their top level for 70 minutes, AC Milan played terrible for the 1st half, and Ibrahimovic and Robinho looked less than interested in playing a game they felt was already won in Milan. Arsenal played very well but the lack of match winning players on the bench meant that the game ran away from them at 3-0 needing a 4th goal with no real quality to bring on. They went out, but had chances to get the 4 goals they needed in the 1st half – they got 3 of them – and had a few bad passes and decisions in the final 3rd when a chance was on to score. I will look at one of the glorious chances Arsenal passed up from a combination of a bad decision, poor quality pass and when the play was retrieved, a final pass was a let down.
Tomas Rosicky receives in the final 3rd, 2v1 on last defender.
Bad Decision and a Bad Pass: Rosicky plays an unnecessary 1st time pass to Van Persie, and this prevents
Okay, here's a quick quiz. No looking online for the stats. Just give a quick answer within five seconds. The EPL's top four teams in order are, Arsenal, Man U, Chelsea and Man City. Which team has the fewest wins? Which team has fewest losses? Which team has the best goal difference? Which team has
Continue readingLiverpool are only one win away from a European spot (3 points behind 5th place Tottenham). Is all the hoopla about their poor start way overblown? Will this be a different season for Arsenal? Here's what I'm getting at. Arsenal typically start the season playing well. The weather is nice, playing surfaces are pretty good
Continue readingI wrote a blog post last week about whether the EPL title race was over already. Chelsea had won all five of their games and by big margins. I guess it was a reasonable question to ask. But, in my excitement at how well Chelsea had started, I didn't give enough attention to the teams
Continue readingToday's blog is a simple question. After just five games, is the EPL title race over? Are Chelsea a step ahead of the others - Man U, Arsenal, Man City, Spurs, etc. Yes, I know it's ridiculously early to even think about this, but I can't help it. Chelsea are producing some good performances and
Continue readingIt's that time of year again to figure out who will take the top four spots in the English Premier League. Let's start with a few questions. 1. Will Totenham repeat their feat of last season with a fourth place spot? 2. Can Liverpool be considered one of the Big Four anymore? 3. Are Man
Continue readingYears ago, a contract was a contract. If a player was in the middle of a contract with his team, he stayed there. If he wanted to leave and go elsewhere, it only happened if his team allowed it or wanted it to happen. But over time, things have gradually changed to a point where
Continue readingOver the years, I have begun to realize the importance of "team chemistry" as being a major component of a successful team. Over the weekend, I saw an article about William Gallas of Arsenal and the conflicts he has with some of the Arsenal players. Teammate Samir Nasri, says that there are 4-5 Arsenal players
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