The formations that work for Arsene and the ones that don’t
TWO main formations work for us.
The first is the basic 4-4-2. Two central midfielders, two wingers and two strikers. We have played it in 95 per cent of games over the last 11 years. You should be familiar with that one.
There can be a slight variation to it, where a third midfielder replaces one of the wingers. Sometimes it will be done out of choice to shore us up, other times it will be necessitated by injury. Even though he will commonly look like a square peg in a round hole, he man that comes in will largely stick to the wide position.
That variation is rarely ideal, but it can work, such as when we won at the Reebok a few weeks back and Cesc, Song and Denilson all played.
The other main formation is the 4-5-1, which was probably perfected in the run to the Champions League final in Paris in 2006. With it, we lose one striker. He is replaced by an attacking midfielder who is comfortable supporting the front man but also at dropping back and scurrying around like a mad-man.
The other two attacking midfielders will be a little more tucked in than were they playing as wingers in the 4-4-2 and while they would be expected to get forward, they would also be expected to run around frantically and helping defend.
The two central midfielders we see in the 4-4-2 are retained.
In 2006, we would typically play Gilberto and Cesc in the middle, Reyes left, Freddie right, Hleb floating and Henry up front. You will notice that even though the team had changed it’s formation, not a single player was out of position. It worked a treat.
Sadly, Arsene also appears to believe in other formations. Invariably, it involves him being too clever by half.
Take Sunderland. He wanted us to be more sturdy in midfield. Ignore the fact it is a joke that we are reorganising for a game against Sunderland (and that is said with every due respect). More to the point, he seemed to think removing by far our best midfielder from the midfield and sticking him off the striker was the way to do it.
So not only did we not have Cesc in the middle, where he should always be, we also had him playing completely out of position as well. To compound matters RVP was slung out left in that Reyes position we were talking about. The man is neither a left-winger nor defensively minded. So you get the worst of both worlds.
And all of this meant Nasri, one of our best players, was dropped. What a way to show Nasri how you reckon he’ll cope with the rough stuff: drop him for his first game outside London (he missed Blackburn and Bolton injured).
The silly thing is that if Arsene really had wanted to readjust for Saturday, he could have very easily. Walcott and Comrade Eboue could have done the Reyes/Ljungberg bit of the 4-5-1 and Nasri could have slotted in very happily behind Adebayor with RVP on the bench.
We have seen already that Nasri is more than happy to do a bit of defending and in Comrade, Cesc and whoever was partnering him would have had someone with defensive experience to further bolster our defences.
And more than anything: nobody would have been out of position.
7 October 2008 at 9:52 am
Spot on, I don’t understand these weird experiments at the back of a defeat against Hull in the premier league?
Sometimes there are some formations that completely destroys the shape of the team, specially with Arsenal missing width against Sunderland we took off Walcott who was responsible for the fist assist (the goal not given).
Secondly last season we had Toure playing in a winger position on the right? WTF?
United had Ronaldo and we were playing games with Toure on the right in front of Sagna. I think there is only one man responsible and he must answer to the Arsenal faithful.
Specially if reports of Cesc leaving at the end of the year due to lack of trophies then this man has to admitt his fault and go and buy players who can help us win these games.
7 October 2008 at 10:13 am
agreed. I think wenger got too many players wrong for sunderland. den and Song were both playing deep in the defensive position when Sunderland where not even attacking. Cesc was too far forward from where he normally likes to play and RVP was a fish out of water on the left leaving Ade too isolated and surrounded by red and white shirts since sunderland had so many players on the edge of their own box. we only had 2 players in the front 6 in their best positions and operating ‘normally’ - Song and Walcott. thats why the team failed to click.
7 October 2008 at 11:46 am
goodplaya, u’re wrong with the 2006 champions league run. Hleb didn’t not play behind the striker, he played right mid. Ljungberg or pires played behind henry. One would play there, the other would play left mid. if one was injured, then reyes would play left mid. Back then, hleb was awesome at right mid because his defensive work was excellent.
7 October 2008 at 11:55 am
Yes - I think you’re right. Though they were also able to interchange a fair bit as both Freddie and Hleb were comfortable either on the right or behind the striker.
7 October 2008 at 11:58 am
Nice post Goodplaya. Now, if we can get Wenger to read it… (Only half-kidding.)
What do you make of the “Cesc to Barca” stories? It’s the last thing we need, if it’s true.
7 October 2008 at 12:22 pm
Dont forget though that Nasri has just come back from injury - Arsene analyses every players’ pro zone stats and if the player makes less runs, covers kess ground, makes fewer tackles etc etc he will give them a rest. That is how he knows when to rest players.
The midfield is obviously worrying but the striker situation is far from ideal. Adebayor and RVP blow hot and cold but seem to do it together, so when it clicks he thrash teams (Bolton, Porto) but when they dont we struggle (Fulham, Hull, Sunderland). I think Bendtner should be given more opportunity - he is our most complete striker
7 October 2008 at 3:39 pm
If I were Cesc (hahaha) I would be considering leaving. We’d never leave but he’s not a fan like we are. The boy is ambitious and wants to fulfil his potential with a career rewarded with medals and honours. For 5 years it’s been “jam tomorrow” at Arsenal - he must be wondering, after our underwhelming start to the season, if this youth policy is ever going to deliver.
7 October 2008 at 4:10 pm
Goodplaya, did you actually watch the Sunderland game? Because the formation was really not a problem in the way that you describe it. We dominated midfield and looked very solid defensively, after having had some problems there against hull. The issue was that we weren’t able to create enough chances from all the possession that we had - walcott was particularly ineffective aside from a decent cross or two and van persie was pretty average.
In analyzing these formations, you need to realize that they are quite fluid, especially in the attacking positions - van persie, for example, was not bolted to the left wing in the way that you claim, nor was cesc “completely out of the middle” as an attacking midfielder. Your suggestion of nasri instead of van persie is an interesting idea that i would agree with, but that wouldn’t really change the formation they used.
I agree with Steve’s suggestion on a bigger role of Bendtner - I thought we looked a lot more effective after he came on. When we’ve got a lot of possession but are struggling to break teams down, he has the knack for receiving the ball in tight positions around the penalty area, drawing away defenders and finding players in dangerous situations, in a way that few of our other attacking players do.
7 October 2008 at 5:14 pm
I also agree about Bendtner. I would go further and say that Bendtner and Vela are our best combination up front. In pre-season and against Sheff Utd they showed a real awareness of where each other were, and played as a proper strike partnership. Ade and RvP are both individualists who tend to make goals for themselves but do not play off each other.
7 October 2008 at 5:32 pm
Start playing this team and we will win. Gallas is the problem. No one respects him. He needs to be dropped and sold in january. Let him go on a free transfer. that way, he will be willing to leave. Gallas is really bad for team morale. We also need someone tall to partner Toure. Silvestre can cover for this season and senderos should come back next season and become toure’s partner.
——————–Almunia
Sagna——-Toure(c)—–Silvestre—–Clichy
Walcott—-Fabregas(vc)—Song———Nasri
————-VanPersie—–Adebayor
Subs: Fabianski, Djourou, Eboue, Denilson, Ramsey, Vela, Bendtner
7 October 2008 at 8:33 pm
Donhowe,have to disagree.We ‘dominated’ midfield because Sunderland sat back & let us have the ball.We were solid defensively cos they had no ambition whatsoever.Against a team that played like that our system was madness. We should have gone with 2 proper wide players & 2 strikers & got at them.
7 October 2008 at 11:15 pm
No, we ‘dominated’ midfield because between denilson, song and fabregas we contested everything and put them on the back foot from the very beginning. They tried to use the same approach that hull used a week earlier; it didn’t work (well, it almost did, but not in the same way). You are effectively saying that Nasri should have played instead of Denilson or Song, that’s hardly a wholesale change to the system. Can’t argue with your suggestion that we ‘get at them,’ that’s tactical genius right there.
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8 October 2008 at 7:24 pm
We didn’t create a single chance in the first half. That’s hardly putting them on the back foot is it ?
Or even ‘getting at them’.
They didn’t use anything like the same tactics as Hull.Hull played 2 up front & tried to keep our back 4 under pressure.Sunderland left Cisse on his own & sat back for 0-0. That’s why us staying with one up front was crazy. We were going to get plenty of the ball anyway, we didn’t need 3 in the middle to compete for it.
Anyway, regardless of whether or not we agree on what our tactics were;the real frustration is that we’re Arsenal, they’re Sunderland. And we’re discussing our tactics ? Surely that shows Wenger doesn’t have as much faith in his squad as he lets on.
9 October 2008 at 7:42 pm
DPK
The wings were sodden, thus narrowing the game to help their tactics.
I agree with Don Howe that the formation was fluid apart from Theo sticking to his position. It wasn’t a day for Theo but Wenger was correct to keep him on because he set up a “goal”. Had that stood there would have been a different song sang around the blogs.
Song played, I expect because of the conditions & to help defensively, particularly at set pieces. How was Wenger supposed to know Keane would be so negative?
It is not strictly true that they surrendered possession because we passing the ball around quite well but without enough tempo & precision to break them down. Ade & RVP were not in top form, which didn’t help.
I would have liked to have seen Bentner on sooner because his creative play is developing, at a pace, & at the moment looks like he can be the 1 to create something in the box.
Shame our own supporters are so great at being very critical armchair tacticians & little else.
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