Arsenal have whole-heartedly embraced the 3-4-2-1 that was made vogueish last season
by Chelsea after none other than Arsenal beat
them convincingly; Conte’s change famously seemed to spur the Blues to the title and
Arsene Wenger, famously intractable where formational shifts are concerned, must have
hoped his alteration would similarly energise Arsenal.
3-4-2-1 is a system that requires certain things in order to work: a back three comfortable
playing as such, ideally with a defender who can pass the ball; a midfield pivot who can
cover, disrupt, and create from deep; wing-backs who can dominate the wide spaces; and
two attacking midfielders with an understanding of space to dovetail with and complement a
striker.
While many teams play with the central, spare defender being the ‘passer’, Arsenal allow
their two wider centre-backs, Nacho Monreal and Laurent Koscielny, to step up and link
play, especially with the wing-backs.
This can leave the central centre-back isolated, but also has
benefits in terms of compressing the playing space towards the opposition.
The wing-backs, as with pretty much every good 3-4-2-1, play high and wide – Hector
Bellerin and new man Sead Kolasinac [SAY-ADD KOL-ASS-IN-AC] link with their respective
centre-backs, and Bellerin especially works well creating neat triangles of passing and
moving with the right-sided central midfielder and attacking midfielder to progress the ball.
It’s noticeable how much of Arsenal’s attacking play comes this way, rather than
via the central areas.
Arsenal are excellent at this sort of quick passing, cutting inside and often creating
a jagged in-and-out shape as a player moves onto an
inside ball, lays it back, and moves off again into
space in the attacking third.
Arsenal rotate their front and midfield players quite consistently and so it’s hard to make
generalisations about the use of space by Arsenal going forwards.
Generally, Alexandre Lacazette is a mobile presence who looks to
feed off inside balls, while Olivier Giroud enjoys
crosses and lays the ball off for the attacking midfielders.
Danny Welbeck , who has three league goals so far, works well as an attacking
midfielder or forward who cut play wider, as
do Alexis Sanchez and Alex Iwobi – this creates overloads.
Mesut Ozil’s presence shifts the dynamic to more of a 3-4-1-2, requiring either both
strikers to split wide to find space, or one of the
strikers to move into the channels – this, combined
with the often sluggish central midfield pairing of Granit Xhaka plus one other, can congest
the central areas and leave Arsenal exposed to counter-attacks through the half-spaces.
Defensively, Arsenal don’t press hard in the low block and fold back into a 5-4-1,
but do seem at times to lack a controlling presence
in the middle.
When the wider centre-backs are the more mobile, the central one will hang
back and not step up, which requires a greater mobility and screening from the two central
midfielders, especially when Arsenal have not
got back into a proper defensive posture.
While they are excellent going forwards, and always capable of beautiful passing in the
final third, it seems that Arsenal have yet to adjust
fully to the requirements of their new formation by balancing personnel
and defensive structure.