Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta wants his team to control matches, he does not want to let other teams breathe on the pitch. When asked what his biggest challenge for this season was, he said: “Suffocating the opponent more. Create more chances. Conceding zero chances and play further from our goal.”
This may be the best way to describe the direction Arsenal have taken out of possession after nearly four years under the guidance of the Spaniard. Arsenal’s defensive line has crept higher upfield each season, with their defensive flexibility making them more imposing. This approach’s risk-versus-reward nature has been most obvious in their intense clashes with Manchester City.
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The clubs faced each other five times in 2023; three times in the Premier League, once in the FA Cup and once in the Community Shield — Arsenal triumphing in two and Manchester City winning three. The Athletic explores how Arsenal wanted to dominate space in these encounters compared to how they were able to and what that means for the rest of the season.
Arsenal’s defensive structure has been building for two and a half years. When Martin Odegaard arrived on loan in January 2021, they began setting up in a 4-4-2 off the ball, with the Norwegian pushing up alongside the striker. The main aim was to guide opposition defences towards the touchline and box them in to force turnovers.
One of the early showings of this being effective was against Wolves in the 2021-22 season. Most will remember the game for Alexandre Lacazette’s stoppage-time winner, but it was also one of Arsenal’s strongest pressing performances until that point. Months later, it was revealed in the Amazon All or Nothing series that Arteta joked about fining players £5,000 every time Wolves completed a pass on Arsenal’s right side.
Pushing up the ball-side full-back and centre-back was key to that on the day and has been an ongoing theme since then — as seen in the GIF below.
Last summer added another layer to their quest to ‘suffocate’ teams. Granit Xhaka explained that when he was asked to join the press, Gabriel Martinelli would take his position in midfield.
Xhaka highlighted an example during that pre-season against Chelsea and, weeks later, the tweak created a goal against Leicester City.
As Arsenal dominated space more adeptly, performances improved, but perfection was still required against the best head coach and squad in Europe. The aims out of possession were mostly the same in each of their matches against City: stop them finding central spaces. The execution and consistency over 90 minutes is where the differences came in. That is why the phrase “small margins” seems to be used so often by Arteta in the days surrounding these matches and the clearest example came in the title-deciding 4-1 loss in April.
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Arsenal’s method to achieving their aim was to be as aggressive in their pressing as possible. Below, when John Stones passes the ball across to Ruben Dias, it is Odegaard’s trigger to push up. He chases the ball back to Stones, who is forced to pump the ball long but finds Erling Haaland, who spins to find an onrushing Kevin De Bruyne. Arsenal’s issue does not stem from the press further forward, but the jumping out of the defensive line further back that created space to exploit time and again.
Players moving as individuals is what took the game out of Arsenal’s grasp.
It could be seen when some midfielders were drawn forward, leaving Ilkay Gundogan free to receive on the turn and carry the ball halfway up the pitch. Arsenal, however, were better in executing their plans to close off central midfield spaces and nullify Haaland in their two wins over Manchester City this season. There were two notable differences.
First, rather than going all-out to unsettle the opposition defenders and midfielders on the press, they took aggressive starting positions and looked to contain them early on. In the Community Shield, they did this by pushing Declan Rice forward to form a pressing trio with Odegaard and Kai Havertz. Their primary job was to occupy the goalkeeper/one centre-back and the two deep playmakers (Rodri and Mateo Kovacic). If one of those midfielders received the ball early, that would be a trigger to drop into the 4-4-2 shape, be compact in the middle third and try to force play out wide from there.
Both of these structures were implemented at the Emirates earlier this month, with the press more blatant than the mid-block, as seen by the three sequences below — all from the first 10 minutes of play.
City played through in the last example (which resulted in a Jorginho booking), but the approach kept them tame on the whole.
The second difference was the personnel and how they reacted to the knock-on effects of what happened ahead of them. William Saliba was back partnering Gabriel at centre-back for both games, which brought comfort to Arsenal’s defensive line resting near halfway. Both are imposing and proactive enough to at least challenge players receiving the ball in that area, which meant Ederson’s longer passes tended to go wide to full-backs and wingers. Naturally, there was more space to hit Haaland in behind, but Saliba was up to the race in the Community Shield and the coming together at the Emirates.
The foundation of Arsenal’s improvements against City in particular has been how well they dominate central spaces in all thirds of the pitch. In both their wins this season, they have started with an acceptance they will not have the ball, only to grow into the game around the 20-minute mark and find their feet.
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Their plan has been to stay competitive for as long as possible, then throw everything at the game for a win. In the Community Shield, they did it by sacrificing a defender and stacking the pitch with more technical attackers (Leandro Trossard, Emile Smith Rowe and Fabio Vieira). This month, it was the introduction of height and drive (Takehiro Tomiyasu, Havertz, Thomas Partey and Martinelli) that did the trick.
Though this approach has been beneficial in head-to-heads with Manchester City, Arsenal are still in a predicament. They are two points better off this season compared to the same fixtures last season (20, compared to 18 in 2022-23) and have also conceded fewer goals against those opponents (six, up from eight in 2022-23). But they have also scored fewer goals (16, down from 19 last season).
Arteta’s side have been much more considered overall, with the greater emphasis on what they do out of possession also evident in September’s 2-2 draw with Tottenham Hotspur. Rather than taking the game to Ange Postecoglou’s side, they had a slightly different pressing approach designed to stop Tottenham from playing out from defence and hoped to create chances through turnovers.
The below GIF shows three sequences. One where Rice (who is marking James Maddison) shouts at Vieira to push up on Yves Bissouma, another where Arsenal’s defensive structure forces Tottenham to go long, and a third where Rice passes Maddison on to Gabriel Jesus, who steals the ball inside the box but shoots over.
Arsenal do appear more solid, but the attacking flair of last season is still waiting to be truly unleashed. The fact they only trail Manchester City by goals scored and have overcome tests they previously failed (City and Everton away) is encouraging, but balance in the way they play on the ball needs to resurface.