Match date: 14 December 2013

Manchester City came into this match having just won away against Bayern Munich, a match in which they came from two goals down to beat the reigning Champions League winners 3-2. Arsenal, however, lost their mid week fixture to Napoli 2-0 and while they still progressed to the next stage of the competition, there were worrying signs that came with the loss.

Incredibly, Manuel Pellegrini had the luxury of making eight changes to his side for this match from the one that beat Munich, with only David Silva, Fernandinho, and DeMichelis retaining their spots. CIty lined up with a very fluid front four in a 4-2-2-2, reminiscent of Pellegrini’s Malaga,  with David Silva and Samir Nasri behind Sergio Aguero and Alvaro Negredo.

Wenger made 5 changes to the side that lost against Napoli, including both full backs. Somewhat surprisingly, Arteta was swapped out for Ramsey, while Wilshere and Walcott got starts in a 4-2-3-1.

City Exploit Space, Lack of Consistent Pressure from Arsenal

A good amount of Manchester City’s best play so far this season, shown in this match as well as their 6-0 win over Tottenham, has been their ability on the counter attack. They have the ability to play a patient possession game, but have been much more impressive on quick breaks. For this reason, it was surprising that Arsene Wenger opted to drop Arteta from the team and play Aaron Ramsey alongside Mathieu Flamini. Ramsey can tackle well enough, but he is not a defensive midfielder or a deep-lying playmaker and the absence of two holding players for Arsenal opened up a huge space between their back four and midfield when City countered.

Yaya Toure, David Silva, and Samir Nasri were able to take full advantage of the space that Arsenal conceded, which at times was due to Arsenal’s full backs being high up the pitch when Arsenal lost possession of the ball. This left Flamini to cover for them, while vacating the space in front of the back four, allowing the likes of Toure to freely dribble at Arsenal’s defense.

Above, you can see Silva with about 15 yards in front of him and Flamini covering Monreal at left back as Manchester City broke after Monreal lost the ball high up the pitch. Negredo was close to scoring this opportunity as well, but just bent the ball around the far post.

City’s second goal came about for a few different reasons, but again, one of the reasons was the lack of any central presence or pressure from Arsenal and that allowed Yaya Toure to receive the ball, turn, and pick out a good pass to Zabaleta, who then crossed for Negredo to tap in.

Here, Flamini had to go over to support Sagna (an issue that we’ll deal with next), while Ramsey dropped in to Arsenal’s back line between Mertesacker and Koscielny to help deal with Silva and Aguero, while Monreal was meant to deal with Negredo.

It was consistent throughout the match, however. Far too many times Flamini had to vacate the middle of the field to cover a full back or one of Arsenal’s attacking midfielders and it left a huge gap for City players to run into and create chances. Overall, City create 20 chances, with 16 coming from open play.

Silva and Nasri

Both Silva and Nasri played a big part in City’s ability to put six goals past league leading Arsenal. They were afforded a good amount of space, as mentioned above, but it was their movement with the ball and ability to recognise key moments to overload the wide areas that helped caused so many problems for Arsenal’s defense and opened up space for their teammates.

A good example of their overload in the wide areas came just before Manchester City’s second goal. With Clichy on the ball, both Nasri and Silva drifted to the left, which in turn forced Flamini to support Sagna and Walcott, leaving Yaya Toure open in the middle.

Once Navas came on for Aguero, City were less fluid and changed to a 4-2-3-1, but Silva still picked his moments to drift away from the centre of the pitch and support Nasri and Navas in the wide areas.

Walcott Under-Utilised 

Having Theo Walcott certainly helps Arsenal as it gives them another dimension to their play. You could see Manchester City’s back line playing a bit deeper than they usually do so as not to allow Walcott space to run into behind them. Neither of his goals necessarily reflected his ability to get behind the back four, but there were times where he timed his runs past Clichy well and just wasn’t found by the Arsenal midfield. At times he looked to be playing as a second centre forward, but which left Arsenal narrow when they were attacking and left Sagna a bit exposed at the back, as mentioned before.

About 15 minutes into the second half, Walcott switched over to the left side of Arsenal’s attack, with Wilshere mostly playing down the right and Özil through the middle. He got his second goal playing from the left, a position in which he has not been used much during his Arsenal career. Aside from his two goals, Walcott, like most of the Arsenal forward players, was mostly a peripheral figure. He was undoubtedly in the side to help exploit City’s defensive line, but had little chance to.

Earlier in the season, in their home match against Dortmund, Wenger switched Özil to the right side of Arsenal’s attack to give his side another vertical outlet. In theory, Walcott’s directness and pace should have given Arsenal another option next to the hold up play and aerial ability of Giroud and the patient play of Özil, but instead Walcott’s strengths weren’t necessarily used and when he got the chances, say in 1v1s, he didn’t excel up against Zabaleta and Clichy (as you can see above).

Both Press, Both Get Goals

Manchester City pressed Arsenal fairly well in the opposition’s half throughout the match, while Arsenal pressed in moments, but were more content to drop off and allow City to possess the ball. However, both team’s got goals directly from pressing well. Fernandinho’s first goal was the result of an under pressure Sagna playing a ball to a stretching Flamini and Fernandinho stepping in to then curl home City’s third goal.

Arsenal should have tried to press more than they did. Too many times City were able to play quickly through their midfield, because of the lack of pressure from the Arsenal midfielders, and up their front players. Just notice the difference in the above image between the amount of tackles attempt in the one another’s half and close to the halfway line. When they did press, however, they were effective in creating chances and even grabbed their first goal after Ramsey pressed Yaya Toure, won the ball back, and countered quickly.

Contrasting Changes

Once Aguero got hurt, Pellegrini opted to bring on Navas, which gave Manchester City a good amount of width on the right side, which also helped keep Monreal pinned back a bit more compared to how much space there was for the other fullbacks on the pitch. With Navas on, Manchester City switched to a 4-2-3-1 and the width Navas provided also gave City good balance. Navas was able to exploit the space and 1v1 situations that Arsenal granted him and was impressive running at Monreal, getting himself an assist. Navas’ presence again made Flamini have to leave central areas to support Monreal while Wilshere and Walcott did not drop effectively to help the full back.

While Pellegrini was able to call on Navas, Milner (who played well against Munich), and Javi Garcia as his substitutions, Wenger was made to rely on Gnabry and Bendtner. It was not just the personnel he brought on though, as he brought both Flamini and Giroud off. Defensively, Flamini was really the whole Arsenal midfielder putting in the work rate required to out play Yaya Toure and Fernandinho at the moment and a lot of his work was covering for Wilshere, Walcott, and Özil.

Conclusion

Yaya Toure and Fernandinho have really formed a great partnership compared to earlier in the season when they both looked to get forward quickly. Fernandinho now sits deep when Yaya gets forward and breaks up play very well for Manchester City and has great energy when City press.

Wenger substitutions must foreshadow a few moves in the transfer market in January. He worked hard to try to off-load Bendtner over the summer, but now he is forced to use him as his replacement for Giroud, so a move for a striker must be forthcoming.

Both defenses were fairly poor and Pellegrini said that his side can continue to win matches simply by scoring, but should look to work hard not to concede. Wenger as well talked about how his side’s defensive strength evaded them.