When a couple of Manchester City players turned up at Arsenal in the summer of 2022,
no one expected that they would help turn the club into a title-challenger from the off.
Perhaps the expectation that Gabriel Jesus could have a marked impact on how Mikel
Arteta’s Arsenal side would play was already there in the mind of the fans. But very few
anticipated the effect that Oleksander Zinchenko would have on Arsenal’s season.
So, looking back with the bias of hindsight and with Arsenal still
sitting at the top of the table, why do Zinchenko and Arsenal make so much sense?
Ask many Arsenal fans about the changes that Zinchenko has brought to the team
and it’s likely that you’ll hear the word “inverting” used at some point.
Inverted fullbacks have been around for years. But Zinchenko is perhaps the most
extreme inverter. In some games, you’ll see him popping up all over the field,
making it seem like he’s fulfilling the role of a central midfielder rather than a full back.
But what benefit does this actually give to Arsenal? The most important aspect of inverting
your full back is that it allows you control. This happens both “in” and “out” of possession.
In possession, bringing your full back inside enables a team to have an extra player in the
middle of the pitch. This usually gives you a player advantage over the opposition
midfield and can help you to create space that the rest of the team can exploit.
Let’s take two examples: inverting your full back can create space both horizontally and vertically.
By moving the full back into a more central position,
what often happens is that the opposition wide forward will have to track them more centrally,
opening up space in the wider part of the pitch. You could call this “pinning” the midfield narrow.
This space can then be exploited by either the wide forward dropping in
to pick the ball up or the number 8 on that side drifting out wide.
By doing this, space will be created elsewhere that can then be exploited by another teammate.
Alternatively, inverting your full back can also generate space vertically. Let’s imagine
that the opposition wide player doesn’t track the full back, Arsenal now have an overload in the
midfield area which they can use to manipulate the opposition and create space in between the lines.
So, by inverting their full back, Arsenal are able to develop a number of “solutions”
to problems in possession to help them to create space that they can then take
advantage of to move the ball down the field and generate more dangerous attacks.
Oleksander Zinchenko is perfect for this role because he has the skill set to play as a
central midfielder - a position he played throughout his career - whilst also being
able to function as a more traditional full back when required. This gives him a natural
advantage over someone like Kieran Tierney - who Arsenal used at left back previously.
With Zinchenko, Mikel Arteta is afforded a level of tactical flexibility which allows
him to solve more problems in possession than he might
do with a full back who couldn’t invert as well as the Ukrainian.
Inverting the full back also affords a football manager an out-of-possession advantage too. By
moving a full back inside, a team are able to adopt a more compact structure with their defence
which can help prevent opposition teams from overrunning them if they should lose the ball.
If the ball should be turned over, Arsenal’s compact block of five deeper players is well set
up to stop the counter attack. By allowing space in the wide areas for the opposition to attack,
Arteta is increasing the distance that the opponent has to travel to get to
the goal in these moments and reducing the distance his own team have to cover.
But Oleksander Zinchenko shouldn’t simply be viewed as only an inverting full back. He can
also function as a more traditional wide full back in certain situations. This is
increasingly important as Arsenal are coming up against teams who are going to sit deep
and look to prevent them from finding space to exploit by compacting themselves around the box,
just as Bournemouth did in the 3-2 thriller that Arsenal won in the last minute of the game.
In these situations, Zinchenko is far more likely to end up in wide areas,
keeping the opponent pinned back in their own box and looking to work the ball into
dangerous situations either by looking to hit the byline and cutting the ball back,
or by swinging in crosses from the left channel.
In these moments, it is important for Arsenal to control the game as much as possible. As
you can see, their players are positioned extremely aggressively, leaving a lot of
space in behind for their opponent to take advantage of if they lose possession. Again,
Zinchenko has the skill set to both work the ball into dangerous areas in the box
but also to retain possession in tightly congested spaces, helping to avoid turnovers of the ball.
As before, Zinchenko offers Mikel Arteta a clear tactical upside but now in a more attacking phase
of play. This flexibility has led to Arsenal being much more dangerous all over the pitch.
With all of the benefits that he offers his team,
it isn’t hard to see why Zinchenko and Arsenal work so well in harmony.