Over time, it’s become accepted that way to prevent the world’s best player, Lionel Messi, from wreaking havoc is not to stop him – although there have been concerted efforts to man-mark him – but to cut off his supply line. That’s seen opponents deploy a number of subtly different approaches: press up the pitch to prevent the centre-backs passing the ball into midfield; defend deep in front of your own box to limit the space in between the lines; or push up to compress space in the middle. Either way, you’re unlikely to see much of the ball and as such, the strategy must be consistent from front to back. If you don’t, good players – the best players – will always find pockets of space to punish you.
In a broad sense, this was the problem Newcastle United had with Arsenal on Monday night in the 3-0 defeat. It’s true that Olivier Giroud isn’t Messi and as such, Alan Pardew confidently thought he could play a high line as he knew Giroud lacked the pace to get in behind. Of more concern to Newcastle, however, was to stop Arsenal’s ball-players from combining with each other therefore Pardew detailed his team to squeeze the space in the middle of the pitch where logically, Arsenal are most dangerous. Except playing without any intensity, the synchronicity between the forward players and the back four, it made the task for Arsenal’s master passers all the more easier.
The inadequacy of Newcastle’s plans was quickly highlighted when Aaron Ramsey played a glorious width-of-the-pitch pass from the left-back position all the way to Mesut Ozil on the right. It didn’t result in a chance for Arsenal but it showed how clever movement can break free from Newcastle’s stifling tactics. Later, Alan Pardew was seen scribbling something furiously on his notepad. Arsenal finally sprang in behind to make it count when Bacary Sagna played a diagonal pass to Olivier Giroud and he was hauled down for the free-kick which Laurent Koscielny scored from. The second goal came from a similar type of scenario: Mikel Arteta, with all the time in the world, was able to pick a pass from midway inside his own half to pick out Giroud. The striker needed two bites at the cherry before the ball eventually fell to Mesut Ozil to finish.
The obvious thing would be to blame the high-line as the root of Newcastle’s downfall in the match but the high-line, in the right guise, is a perfectly viable tactic. If they wanted it to work, Newcastle should have pressed up the pitch thereby squeezing the space more effectively when the ball came into midfield. Failing that, they should have dropped back accordingly, so Arsenal couldn’t run in behind. Instead it was a bit of nothingness. They were compact, yes, but by not pressing or dropping off, Newcastle basically camped in the middle of the pitch like an army not quite waking up to the call of the warhorn and been attacked with their breeches down.
Indeed, we saw previously in the match between Liverpool and Chelsea, which the latter prevailed 2-0, that what really kills possession teams is a lack of space behind. If Newcastle defended deep, they could have stopped the running of Ramsey and Ozil which terrorised them all game.
Arsenal, though, are a curious animal, more susceptible when pressed up the pitch rather than facing up against a parked bus, because that means they play less of the game where they want: in the opponents half. As Stewart Robson says, (once a player at Arsenal, now a poisonous, if sometimes insightful human being), “it’s widely accepted that there are two ways of playing against Arsenal; closing them down high up the pitch or dropping deep. By far, the best option is the former.”
That it forces Arsenal to revaluate they collect the ball because usually, they tend to push players up the pitch when they have the ball deep. “The teams close us down so much high up because they know we play through the middle,” says Arsene Wenger. “I push my midfielders a bit up at the start to give us more room to build up the game. When you come to the ball we are always under pressure. I am comfortable with that, although sometimes it leaves us open in the middle of the park. We want to play in the other half of the pitch and, therefore, we have to push our opponents back. But my philosophy is not to be in trouble, but to fool the opponent into trouble.”
Wenger likes to give his players freedom of movement, the balance created by the intelligence of his players. With a little bit of help from the opposition we saw that against Newcastle with Mesut Ozil constantly flitting into space. His modus operandi is to normally drift wide into the spaces his teammates vacate, this time it was generally Santi Cazorla although Lukas Podolski’s ambling movement, sometime stumbling into the right position at the right time is the perfect foil for his clandestine running. When Ozil picks up the ball, it can seem innocuous but suddenly he turns and the opponent is on the back foot.
One move saw him seemingly being forced wide before pulling off an audacious 180 degree turn to send Yoan Gouffran and the cameraman, the other direction. Indeed, the way Arsenal play, bumping passes off each other, it requires little triggers so that the players know when to move their passing game up a gear. Ozil is brilliant at that, moving quietly into space, trading a few innocuous passes, always with his head up waiting for the moment to increase the tempo. He makes the game look easy which certainly, is what Newcastle’s tactics contrived to do.
