Match date: 22 October 2013

Arsenal are in exceptional form this season, revitalised with the summer arrival of Mesut Özil and Aaron Ramsey’s return to form. Dortmund, however, pose Arsenal their biggest test of the season, with the German side finalists in the Champions League last year. Arsenal are without Mathieu Flamini and pace in midfield in match Dortmund’s quick breaks, but being at home, in the form and with the confidence they have coming in, should take the match to Dortmund.

Dortmund are in good form as well being only a point off Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga, however, 2-0 loss against Napoli earlier in the Champions League has put them in a position where they have to take the game to Arsenal and Jurgen Klopp, despite not being on the touchline for the match, will want his team attacking and pressing as they do.

Both managers set out their teams in a 4-2-3-1. However, Arsenal’s side contain Mikel Arteta, Aaron Ramsey, Mesut Özil, Jack Wilshere, and Tomáš Rosický, which did not provide the Gunners with much width. This in turn caused Dortmund’s midfielders to become more narrow, opening up space for both sets of full backs, a crucial point in the match.

Robert Lewandowski v Olivier Giroud

Similar type of striker. Both are very good at getting involved in their respective team’s build up play, but both can also offer an aerial outlet for their teams. Lewandowski offers more to his team in deeper areas on the pitch and has better work rate and defensive abilities than the Arsenal striker, but on their current form, both are excellent strikers.

The match was certainly a good advert for both and showed their importance to their teams. Both were able to get goals, both from crosses from full backs, but overall, Lewandowski’s play was better than Giroud’s and a lot of it had to do with Mertesacker and Koscielny’s defensive play.

Far too many times, Lewandowski was able to drop into the pocket of space between the Arsenal back four and the midfield, turn with the ball, and pass to either Reus or Blaszczykowski in the wide areas, or to Mkhitaryan, who did an excellent job at supporting the Polish striker. Mertesacker and Koscielny were not tight enough, and when they were, too often they either fouled him or still allowed Lewandowski to receive and pass out with little pressure. Below, in the first image, you can see Lewandowski has dropped into midfield, is receiving the ball, and has the ability to turn. In the second image, while just a few yards outside Arsenal’s penalty area, there is still no pressure on him.

When he did receive the ball, Lewandowski made relatively good use of it, bring others into play and getting himself an assist, perhaps more largely credited to Dortmund’s initial pressing than the pass itself. Even on Dortmund’s second goal, scored by Lewandowski, it was the Polish striker that won a ball with his chest near the halfway and then dropped the ball back to Sahin, who then quickly switched the field of play that led to Grosskreutz getting space on the right to put his cross in for Lewandowski’s late run to meet. In terms of receiving the ball, the image on the left, below, just shows how well he made himself available for his teammates as a vertical outlet as there are plenty of passes over 10 yards that found him inside the Arsenal half.

For Arsenal, however, Giroud struggled to find that same amount of space as Lewandowski did and thus failed to influence the match as much. Mats Hummels and Neven Subotic were usually both touch tight to the Arsenal forward, while only fouling him once and this was not when his back was to goal, but rather on the edge of the area towards the end line.

This was incredibly problematic for Arsenal as Giroud was really their only outlet up the field that could stretch the Dortmund midfield and back four. With the Dortmund centre backs playing a higher line than Arsenal and with them touch tight to Giroud, Arsenal needed another player to act with Giroud, someone else to offer an option, which they didn’t have during the first half. Compared to Lewandowski, Giroud had to take up wider positions, mostly because Arsenal lacked any natural width, as mentioned before and so a lot of the balls he did receive, he did so in wider areas and a bit too deep to be effective, unlike Lewandowski who was feed centrally and just outside the Arsenal penalty area many times. Also, when Giroud received the ball, he had little link up play with his midfielders, which is something that is a big part of his game as he and Jack Wilshere showed against Norwich in their Premier League match prior to this tie.

Compare Lewandowski and Giroud’s passes received images and that really shows you the difference in their ability to get involved in the match. You can see the pocket of space that Lewandowski was able to find against Arsenal, but it was hard for Giroud to consistently find dangerous areas where Arsenal could find him. Defensively, Lewandowski contributed more to his team,  though Giroud could visibly be seen urging his midfielders to press with him at times, but Dortmund’s gegenpressing is all about going as a unit, something Wenger didn’t have Arsenal doing despite being at home. Interestingly, Lewandowski was fouled more often than Giroud despite the Arsenal defenders not being as tight to him throughout the match, but while Giroud was fouled just once, in a dangerous position, but not upon receiving the ball, Lewandowski was fouled 4 times, three of which were when trying to receive a ball in the air against an Arsenal centre back.

Full-Backs Struggle

It seemed like a match where the full backs would have a good amount of opportunities, as Wenger is still without his first choice wide players, thus creating a narrow midfield for Arsenal, which Dortmund players responded to, coming inside as well. This opened up the flanks for all four full backs to freely run into and put in crosses and contribute to build up play. However, much of the play from the full backs was poor given their importance in this match. Sagna and Grosskreutz (more of a utility player than a full-back) both failed to impress given their chances, despite both getting an assist. Below shows that amount of space the full backs had to run in. (Arsenal on the left, Dortmund on the right.)

The first real opportunity that any of the game’s full backs got to get involved came to Grosskreutz just four minutes into the match and the Dortmund man had an opportunity to bring others into play, but rather chose to shoot from long range which resulted in an off target effort. Overall, it was this lack of quality decision making where the full backs failed.

Arsenal’s Resurgence

At halftime, Wenger decided to put Özil on the right side of midfield and within 30 seconds of the second half, he had latched onto a great through ball by Rosicky and then played Wilshere on an overlap who then pulled the ball back in the area to a Dortmund player. The change though, to move Özil to the right, proved to be a very good move by Wenger. Up until that point, Arsenal’s only forward outlet had been Giroud, but with Özil on the right, Arsenal were able to play him the ball high up the pitch and it helped push Dortmund deeper towards their penalty area which allowed Arsenal to gain control of the midfield.

Özil was able to get on the ball more often in the second half, receiving it higher up the pitch as well, and had a much bigger influence on the match from the right side of the field. He created all three of his chances from open play during the second half.

The next change Wenger made was bringing on Santi Cazorla on for Jack Wilshere to play on the left side of Arsenal’s attack which really injected a good amount of play into Arsenal. With Özil on the right providing a wide outlet for the Gunners, Cazorla was allowed to drift inside and help the central midfielders in Arteta, Ramsey, and Rosicky outnumber the already pushed back Dortmund midfield and he did so very well and added good movement and an eye for goal, which he showed by clipping his first shot off the crossbar.

At this point in the match, Arsenal looked like they could have won it as they created 5 of their 7 chances from open play, but with Dortmund defending deeper because of Özil’s width, it made it harder for Arsenal to break them down.

Dortmund Exploit the Weakness

With Özil on the right offering width, it meant that Cazorla was allowed to come inside, as discussed before, but this left Kieran Gibbs in a 2v1 situation against Blaszczykowski and Grosskreutz. About 8 minutes after Arsenal brought Cazorla on, however, Dortmund put on Aubameyang for Blaszczykowski. The Gabon-international is incredibly quick (he was clocked at Dortmund’s preseason camp as running the 30-metre dash a whole second quicker than world record holder Usain Bolt) and is much trickery than Blaszczykowski. So this left Gibbs against a quick and tricky player compared to a powerful and direct runner that he had been passing and, with Cazorla drifting well inside, Gibbs also had to deal with Grosskreutz’s runs forward.

The weakness of course was this 2v1 situation, which became more so without Jack Wilshere’s work rate and wide tracking unmatched by Cazorla. Dortmund’s winning goal came from Lewandowski winning a ball in the air inside of Dortmund’s half and dropping it off to Sahin who then played the ball wide right to Aubameyang, who played the ball to the overlapping Grosskreutz. Below you can see the screen capture just as Aubameyang plays the pass to Grosskreutz. When Aubameyang received, Gibbs played him squarely and Cazorla was trying to get back to cover Grosskreutz, but had to do so from a central area, allowing Grosskreutz the time to pick out his pass as Gibbs couldn’t quite catch the full back.

Not surprisingly tactically, but based on the rest of the match, surprisingly individual, Grosskreutz’s cross met an intended target and Lewandowski volleyed in with no pressure.

Conclusion

A really good tactical match as each team tried their best to get control of the match through their changes. Dortmund will be very pleased to come away from London with a win after losing to Bayern Munich in the final of the competition last May. Arsenal came into the match in very good form, but Dortmund offered them their biggest test and while they grew into the match with the changes of Özil to the right wing and the introduction of Santi Cazorla giving them opportunities to win, they failed to take advantage of their tactics pushing Dortmund deep.