Stoke 0-0 Arsenal: Secrets Behind Arsenal's Defensive Improvement
Lets take a look at how Arsenal achieved this metamorphosis.
Overview Stoke City have started their fourth season in the Barclay's Premier league. They have managed to comfortably survive by sticking to their hard working style of play, with its emphasis on fanatical defending and quick counter attacks, interspaced with calculated and well rehearsed set pieces. Their coach, Tony Pulis, has also been shrewd in his player purchases and subsequent player selections for the games. Arsenal football club has had a hard time playing at Stoke over the last four seasons (two losses, a tie, and a win). Their tough style is a difficult match-up for the highly technical football that Arsene Wenger normally brings to Stokes Britannia stadium. In the clash between these two disparate teams last weekend, however, Arsenal never looked like they were affected by anything that Stoke did technically or tactically. In short, there was an obvious shift in the way that Arsenal handled the elements of the Stoke style. Lets take a look at how Arsenal achieved this metamorphosis. Defensive shape The first thing that jumped out was the solid defensive shape that the Arsenal team displayed in the game against Stoke. The team is much more balanced this year; ready to cover each other if a ball or player should get in behind the line of the defense. Several players, including Thomas Vermaelen and Kieran Gibbs, have mentioned what a difference having new assistant coach Steve Bould (a former defensive player for the club) working every day with the defense in practice has made to their overall understanding and general team defensive play, and it shows. Arsenal over the last four or five seasons have had problems with weak side coverage by the fullbacks. At times they have looked like playground kids in the ways that they have been stretched, exposed, and scored upon by teams that are nowhere near their technical offensive level. Regardless of technical level, however, the truth is that in modern football, if one team scores first, most of them will retreat the entire team to the area thirty yards in front of their goal and try everything in and out of the rule book to keep their opponent from equalizing. It is not attractive, nor is it creatively stimulating, but it works more times than not, and it often works better than coming out and playing freely against a team that you know will dominate you, if isolations start to happen across your back line. In addition to better coverage of their weak side, the Arsenal team countered Stokes attackers by stepping up constantly (the best example was on the goal by Stokes Jonathan Walters that was called back for offside) to keep them out of the eighteen yard box, giving goalkeeper Vito Mannone a clear field of view on crosses from the wings. Finally, Stokes option of the direct long aerial ball up to Peter Crouch (14 goals last season) for flick ons was effectively stopped by mostly Abu Diaby fronting Crouch and allowing the center backs space and time to read the Stoke runs out of midfield and the trajectory of Crouchs flick ons. These tactics severely limited Stokes second balls, and therefore, shot opportunities (six shots at goal, one on target) during the run of play. Dead Ball Situations
Stokes ability to stay in the Premier League the last four seasons has not been built on intricate inter-play between their forwards; rather, it has been built on a high level of proficiency at set pieces. In the 2011/2012 season, they scored 58% of their Premier League goals from set pieces. Interestingly, six of the nine goals that Stoke have scored against Arsenal has been from set pieces. They have been particularly good at throw ins from either side of the eighteen yard box. Arsenal have been victims to Stoke throw-in initiated goals more than once at the Britannia. In this game, the Stoke throw ins were nullified by tight marking in the box and by a free roaming Olivier Giroud, who came across to head clear on several of the throw ins. Giroud (6 feet 4 inches tall) is one of the new players brought in by Arsene Wenger, and he is very good in the air. In general, he was strong and physical, constantly competing and often winning his aerial challenges with multiple Stoke players, a feat that very few Arsenal players can boast over the last four seasons. Goalkeeper Vito Mannone (Arsenals third string keeper) also did well in coming out and claiming some of the long throws. Now, one could argue that Rory Delap (who is now 35 years old) was not in the team this weekend, and so Arsenal did not face the full fury of the Stoke throw in machine, but Delaps back up for Stoke throw ins (mostly new American signing Geoff Cameron) delivered long throw ins with good line and pace, but Arsenal was first to most of them. I believe Arsenal just handled these situations better this time around. Counter Attacks When an Arsenal team has the ball for 67% of the game, most of their possession will be in the other teams half. Usually this means that when the other team wins the ball, there will be, in theory, a possibility for a counter attack. Stoke are a good counter attacking team, yet Arsenal was able to hold them to very few effective counter attacking opportunities by disrupting the play immediately as the ball was lost, by closing down Stoke attackers quickly, and by responsibly tracking back to recover their defensive shape. In particular, the speed of Gibbs and Jenkinson was clear as they sprinted back to take up good covering positions, effectively plugging potential holes in the Arsenal backline. Gibbs was guilty last year of jogging back while counter attacks were going against him, and several goals were scored against Arsenal in this fashion last season. Mikel Arteta again gave a masterful display of covering by first anticipating and then blocking several of the Stoke players one-on-one moves or open field runs that resulted from potential counter attacking moves. Another player who showed a lot of defensive awareness and grit was Lucas Podoski. He was tireless in his desire to track back and cover the left side of the Arsenal midfield and defense. He blocked several crosses and disrupted the runs of the Stoke players coming out of the midfield when needed. The final thing that Arsenal did is something I already mentioned: they kept the ball. Stoke was limited to one shot on target and zero corners because they were not given the ball lot. And when they got the ball, they were effectively closed down by the midfielders, including Santi Carzola and Abu Diaby. In fact, once Santi Carzola and Podolski were substituted, the defensive intensity in midfield dropped and Stoke was able to enjoy their best offensive spell of the game. Conclusion Arsenal are a better defensive team through two games than they were all of last season. If they can regain their usual scoring prowess, they should compete well for a top four finish again this year. Lets see how they fare against Liverpool (a much better team than both Sunderland and Stoke) this weekend.