Match date: 20 October 2015

Arsenal have started their Champions League in poor form, losing to both Dinamo Zagreb and Olympiakos, leaving them with zero points from two games coming into this match. Bayern Munich have started in just the opposite fashion, beating both Dinamo Zagreb and Olympiakos in easy fashion.

As he looked to get Arsenal their first points of the campaign, Arsene Wenger set his side out in a 4-2-3-1 with Theo Walcott up top. The pacey Englishman’s inclusion as the lone frontman was a tell of how Arsenal were going to play on the night. Petr Cech started in goal for Arsenal, marking his first Champions League match for his new club.

As mentioned, Bayern Munich and Pep Guardiola came into the game in a good position at the top of their group. The Spaniard set his German side out in a 4-1-4-1 with Xabi Alonso as the holding midfielder. David Alaba started at centre back alongside Jerome Boateng. Despite fielding a strong starting XI, Bayern Munich’s bench was made up of mostly youngsters and inexperienced players.

Bayern Munich’s Midfield

For most of the match, the ball was in Arsenal’s half as Bayern Munich were in almost complete control. Arsenal had two good chances in the first half through Walcott and Özil, both efforts which were saved by Neuer. Other than those chances, Arsenal’s attacks were limited as Bayern Munich kept the ball moving and won it back quickly. In a 4-1-4-1, there were a few different parts that allowed Bayern to be so dominant with the first being Arsenal’s approach to the match that allowed Xabi Alonso time on the ball. The Spaniard was rarely closed down which gave him the time to not only pick out passes to Douglas Costa and Thomas Müller, both of whom found themselves in 1v1 situations against their respective full backs for much of the night, but Alonso was also able to pick out forward passes to Thiago and Vidal despite Arsenal’s compact shape.

This became problematic for Arsenal when Xabi Alonso was able to pick out forward passes to Thiago and Vidal in the space between the lines, as in the screen capture above. Cazorla is an excellent deep-lying playmaker, often starting Arsenal’s forward movements and he can make tackles, but he is not suited for the defensive responsibilities of playing as a holding midfielder when Arsenal are defending deep. The above screen capture is an excellent example of this. Cazorla should be goal side of Vidal, but instead Vidal finds space and gets on the ball. It was these little movements of Vidal and Thiago, evading Cazorla and Coquelin, that allowed them to get on the ball between the lines and disrupt Arsenal’s defensive shape. Below is an excellent example of Thiago getting free in a large space between the Arsenal midfield and back four after Bayern build up on the left and pivot the ball to an unmarked Alonso. This particular pass led to Thiago and Müller combining for an excellent chance for Thiago that Cech saved well.

Thiago, in particular, was outstanding on the night. He was creative and kept the ball moving and certainly would have been the man of the match for Bayern Munich had they gotten a goal, despite missing a good chance. At the beginning of the second half, Bayern Munich’s shape was a bit altered. Thiago, who was playing on the right in front of Alonso during the first half, shifted to the left and played alongside Alonso rather than in front of him. Vidal switched over to the right, but was higher up the pitch (more on this later). At this point, Thiago became the controller of the game, rather than Alonso, and came to pick the ball up deeper. This made sense as it gave Bayern Munich more central cover to break up Arsenal’s counter attacks with Alonso not being mobile enough, but Arsenal also played a little higher up the pitch so Thiago was able to break the first line of pressure on the dribble before finding a forward pass.

There was, perhaps, too much of a controlling aspect from the Bayern Munich midfield. At times, their ball movement was far too slow, which allowed Arsenal’s defensive shape to react quickly enough to cut off forward passing lanes.

Bayern Munich Look Wide

Bayern Munich have excellent attacking options all over the pitch, but this season Douglas Costa has stuck out the most. The Brazilian was bought in the summer and helped Bayern Munich to nine straight wins to start of their Bundesliga campaign. Costa is outstanding in 1v1 situations, which Bayern Munich looked to find him in throughout the match. With Arsenal’s midfield narrow, with Ramsey tucked in, Xabi Alonso and Boateng were able to find Douglas Costa on diagonal balls that found him isolated against Bellerin. The Brazilian was the constant target for Bayern Munich’s attacks as the German side looked to move Arsenal away from the left and then play a quick ball out to Costa. At times, however, Costa’s final ball across the box was lacking, but perhaps that is Guardiola not worrying about the ball in, but rather the second ball.

On the other side, Thomas Müller kept his width throughout the first half, while Lahm occupied the half space. Müller’s width allowed Thiago to find that space between the lines, knowing that Monreal would not be able to move forward to press him, but it also stretched the Arsenal back line, which allowed more isolation for Costa on the other side of the pitch. Müller’s impact on the game was minimal. He seemed constraint to the touchline by Guardiola in the first half, which took away his ‘raumdeuter’ quality as well as his ability to get on the end of balls into the box. The second half saw him freed up a bit, with Lahm playing wider and Vidal, now playing on the right, a bit higher up the field than Thiago had in the first half in what was now more like an asymmetrical 4-2-3-1, as plotted below.

Bayern Munich looked for Müller’s inside runs a few times in the first half, but he mostly kept his width and worked with Lahm to drag the Arsenal defense over to the right before the German side would look to switch the ball quickly to Costa on the left. In the second half, with the slight change in space mentioned above, Bayern Munich looked to Müller more often. With Vidal and Müller now able to occupy Monreal, Bayern Munich looked to play diagonal balls to the back post for Vidal and Müller to get a head on. Unfortunately for Bayern Munich, the balls were never really testing enough and Monreal did well to defend them.

Arsenal’s Setup

Knowing that Bayern Munich keep the ball, Arsene Wenger came out with the plan to sit deep, absorb the visitor’s pressure, and play on the counter. This, of course, is something that Wenger started to do with Arsenal last year after poor results over the years against the big teams in the Premier League as well as failings against the likes of Barcelona in the Champions League. With that approach to the match, Wenger opted to start the match with Theo Walcott up top rather than Olivier Giroud as Walcott offers more pace up top. In the first half, Arsenal were able to use Walcott’s pace to create opportunities and overall the Englishman did very well as a lone striker up against Alaba and Boateng.

At times, however, Arsenal were so deep that it made it impossible for them to get out. Once they won the ball back, Bayern Munich were able to swarm the ball carrier and win the ball back quickly and Walcott, despite being an outlet, was unable to get the ball because the Arsenal players had no time to get their heads up and the covering Bayern Munich players were able to cut off the passing lanes into Walcott. Below is a good example of how deep Arsenal were, but also the positioning of the Bayern Munich players in case of a counter attack.

When Arsenal were able to get out of their deep positions and counter, which happened much more often in the first half than it did in the second half, Walcott did extremely well. He not only offered the pace in behind for Arsenal to hit long balls into, but he held the ball up relatively well, allowing Arsenal to get numbers forward. He also had an excellent chance that Neuer saved well. For Arsenal, it was all about the pace they had up top. Along with Walcott running in behind, Alexis Sanchez’s ability on the ball created chances for Arsenal as well. It was his run in the first half that allowed Özil to test Neuer early on.

Changes

Arsene Wenger was forced into the game’s first change, with Aaron Ramsey going off with a pulled hamstring. He was replaced by Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, but despite suiting Arsenal’s counter attacking mentality, the Oxlade-Chamberlain had little influence on the match.

Guardiola made the first tactical changes of the match, bringing on Joshua Kimmich for Xabi Alonso and Rafinha for Vidal. This moved Lahm into a central midfield role that now consisted of Kimmich, Lahm, and Thiago. it was an interesting change, but one that should have allowed for Bayern Munich to have further control of the midfield based on the personnel.

In Olivier Giroud, Arsene Wenger made the most telling change of the match. Walcott had done well so it was interesting that he was the one replaced by Giroud as Walcott could have moved into another attacking position, but Giroud’s height came into play on the set piece that won Arsenal the game. Neuer should not have come out for the ball, but he did and it allowed Giroud an open net to guide the ball into.

Conclusion

Overall, Bayern Munich were slightly the better side. It is difficult to say that Arsenal’s approach to the match worked enough to get them a win. They kept Bayern from scoring, so essentially their low block defending was effective, but the telling goal of the match came from a set piece rather than a counter attack. Following that goal, th German side pushing so many players up the field in search of an equaliser, Arsenal countered well and scored a second. This win leaves Arsenal in a much better position than they had been; they now have three points in the group from three games. Wenger will be pleased with how his side played. They were caught out at times defensively, but the game plan went as expected.

Guardiola will be displeased with how Bayern Munich conceded, especially as it was because of a mistake by Neuer. However, in the view of winning the group, Bayern Munich are still very much favoured to do so.