What we miss most is Fab’s ability to take one or two quality touches after getting the ball, which allows the team to quickly re-group and snap back into shape. It allows quick transition from defence to attack.

One Arsenal blogger, in an attempt at wit, put up the headline; “If Diaby is the answer, that must be a stupid question”. This other (occasional) Arsenal blogger here is very excited about Abou Diaby. Diaby is not the new Patrick Vieira. He’s the new Abou Diaby. A player with physicality and skill. He’d not the best passer of the ball in the team. But he is a player who can be very useful to Arsenal now that Cesc is injured and even later.

We saw the first glimpse of what I am talking about against Fenerbahce. Diaby playing behind Adebayor in a 4-4-1-1 formation. He was the player joining the frontmen on counter-attacks. Anytime he won the ball, and found space he drove forward, went past men, and his trickery in and around the box was a large part of what helped us dismantle Fenerbahce.

In the game against Manchester United he did the same thing. The Villa Park game was the game in which I really warmed up to Abou’s game. It just became clear that his ability to burst upfield quickly and powerfully is a huge plus. It allows him to play central midfield.

Diaby, unlike Fab4, is not strong on reading the pass early and executing it quickly. He doesn’t have the long passing range. That’s why he runs into trouble with the ball at his feet sometimes. But his ability to burst forward through the middle running in a straight penetrating line with the ball at his feet makes up for this. What we need is someone he can pass the ball to.

Here’s an example to illustrate what I mean. Diaby wins the ball deep in our half out on the right. He nutmegs the defender and bursts forward. He gets close to the edge of the opposition goal area, passes the ball and continues his run. He gets the return and finishes superbly. We don’t have any other player that can do that. Why do we need someone to do that? The answer: Because it is efficient. It’s the same reason Walcott is very useful. In this case, Diaby is not relying on sheer pace. He is relying an decent pace, power, and trickery which all combined can be as direct as the long ball. The one caveat is that this kind of play is only useful on the counter. But it does not matter because Diaby can shoot, and he has a fair amount of physical presence in the middle of the park which counts for a lot in these parts. Especially when we have to defend corners. He has height, which is a big big plus.

We can tweak this example. He wins the ball, bursts forward, gets to the edge of the box, and finds someone with the vision, who plays the defence-splitting pass or otherwise makes the play.

Continuing the comparison with Fabregas, I want to say what Arsenal miss most when Fabregas plays is not just the passing. I personally don’t believe Cesc is the best passer in the world, but I think he is the most complete passer. Nobody matches his range of passing. Long, short, fast, quick, lobbed, chipped, spun, clever, basic, heavy, light……. So it’s natural we miss his passing.

What we miss most is Fab’s ability to take one or two quality touches after getting the ball, which allows the team to quickly re-group and snap back into shape. It allows quick transition from defence to attack. Diaby offers us the same. His ability to burst forward quickly and powerfully allows for quick transition in a different way.

This is what Diaby can do. This is what we should use him for. I know all his weaknesses. He runs into cul de sacs. He doesn’t keep it simple. He isn’t consistent. He is not a ball player or playmaker. He doesn’t tackle cleanly enough. He sometimes switches off. He doesn’t seem able to take the team by the balls when things aren’t going right. If he played with 10 dismal players he’d be just as dismal as they are. He gets injured too often and is thus unreliable. But his faults can all be coached away and will be.

Nasri is another matter altogether. When a player comes into a club like Arsenal and scores on his debut, and is involved in most of the team’s best attacking moves, you know he is quality. He can shoot with either foot. He has vision and can execute great passes. He shoots well. He knows where to be when we’re attacking and takes great positions. He has pace. We have recently found out he can be very effective through the middle.

That’s a very exciting prospect while Cesc is out. He is comfortable taking the ball in tight areas, and he has the ability to pick the right pass to set attacks into motion. It is not clear whether we can comfortably play him in central midfield. The defensive part of his game is good, but he does not get stuck in, and probably doesn’t do 50-50 challenges very well. I am also not sure he understands the Arsenal game, and his team mates well enough yes. He is also a bit injury-prone and still adjusting to the pace and physicality of the Premer League.

He can play in the middle, but behind a main striker or behind an attacking pair. His effectiveness and comfort in this role gives us many tactical options.

THE STATE OF ARSENAL’s PLAY—-A tactical review

One of the problems with the Arsenal team at present is the shape. It’s too static. It seems like they’re trying to play like they played last season but with different personnel. So it’s a rigid 4-4-2 with a flat backline, full-backs pushing forward and being the team’s width. They have Adebayor upfront so they can play it long right through the middle. He is also supposed to drop deep to receive the ball, play in other attackers, and take up positions in the box. We’re set up to counter-attack from corners by bursting forward at pace with no more than 3-4 passes before the shot on goal. We press high up the field when we lose the ball in the final third of the pitch. When the opponent have the ball from a goal kick or restart, we sit back with 9-10 men behind the ball and rely on the midfield men and full backs to contain the opponents’ attacks. The centre halfs are freed to track the opposing striker(s). When we have a set piece in the opponents’ half we send up the centre halfs and tall players plus Sagna. This means the players who cover at the back have to be effective at winning the ball, and pacy enough to deal with quick counterattacks like the one from which Ryan Babel scored in the Champions League in April 2008.

I might have left out something but, in a nutshell, that is how we play.

Injuries really hurt our ability to play that way. First of all, the full backs provide width not by going on long runs (which they do often enough) but by being played in either by the wide men or the strikers. The goal is to pass in triangles until one of the full backs can be played in behind the defensive line. There are currently three problems we have here. One is that we simply haven’t had enough creativity in left or right midfield to do this consistently and do it well. The second is that a lack of confidence in defensive midfield cover means the full backs are taking fewer risks this season. Yet, when we do play the full backs in they don’t make enough of it. The full backs ABSOLUTELY have to do much better when played in. Not only should they play the high crosses better, they also have to sometimes play low crosses to the far post and low passes to pick out midfield runners on the edge of the box.

We still have Adebayor and he’s still very important to the way the team plays. He might have just 11 goals but his partnership with Van Persie is a big positive. What has changed from last season is Van Persie’s sustained run in the team. Van Persie, I suspect, must be Arsene Wenger’s nightmare. I am not referring to his injuries. He is a striker, the one charged with linking midfield to attack. He does this very well, and he’s a real wil
d card who can do anything, at any time. The problem is that with Van Persie you can only play 4-4-2. What compounds the problem is that it’s not even a strict 4-4-2 or 4-4-1 a la Diaby. It’s a 4-4-0.5-1.5 .

If you go look at the touch position maps of how Arsenal play you’ll see what I said rather roughly in that last statement. He is a striker but not a twin striker. He is not a midfield player because he does not have the responsibility to win the ball in midfield and to keep shape when the opposition have the ball. Of course all players have to do that, but it’s not his job one or two. We can’t play 4-5-1 with Van Persie as part of the five. Perhaps I should say we haven’t played 4-5-1 effectively with Van Persie as part of the five. He simply has no sustained midfield role. And he can’t be a play maker because he’s not a ball player like Fab4, Rosicky, or Nasri. He’s a quick touch player who makes space for attack with his clever footwork, and an amazing shot. He doesn’t play with the ball at his feet, looking up. He plays with the ball at his feet looking down.

Later in the article I’ll suggest a way to deal with this problem which I already see emerging in the team’s play.

We are still very good at pressing high up in the field. Our victories against Man U & Shellsey came a large part from this. It allows us not just to dominate the possesion in the opponent’s half, but to even turn defence more quickly into attack. Some say we did this better when we had Flamini. There is a case to be made for that but I personally remember just the Milan game at San Siro in which he was the main high-presser. You don’t need a specialist tackler to do this. You just need to adopt this tactical device, work on it, and execute it. I think we still do this well enough.

The Premier League is taller this season. The promoted teams are full of giants. Many of the older teams have recruited a lot of height and muscle. We, arguably have remained the same. During the game against Stoke I saw that we seriously, as a team, lack height. This means Adebayor, Van Persie (Bendtner & Diaby if they play) have to take defensive positions on opposition set pieces and corners. The result is that we’re less dangerous on the counter as our attackers have more to do to get into attacking positions. This makes us weaker not just in attack but in defence. It makes us weaker in defence because, first of all, if Adebayor wins the first header and then has to think of getting into attack, he’s less focused on the 2nd ball. If Adebayor has won the first ball, Gallas or Toure or Djourou has to worry about the 2nd ball and might end up being a) late to the ball, b) in Adebayor’s way. Here’s another reason why having Diaby able to play central midfield is a good thing. By the way, this is why Alex Song plays.

Defending when the opposition have the ball, I think, has not been a big problem this season. With ten men behind the ball we can usually deal with most threats. We have the right shape, and the centre backs are effective then. It might sometimes make us vulnerable to long diagonal balls played in between the full backs, most often Clichy, but I have seen teams try to exploit that for years with not a lot of success. The one problem can be the space between the midfield and the back-4 which Stewart Robson (yes the ex-Arsenal man) keeps harping on. You really need a naturally defensive midfield player to track and block off opposition runners 30 yards from our goal line. Fabregas also has to do much more here. Too much blame has gone to Alex Song and Denilson and none is being spared from our classy Catalan. It’s the job of all the central midfielders to do this job. I also see another small problem emerging which has to do with defensive support for Clichy. He’s being left on his own too often for my liking, especially when the opposition have the ball.

It is based on this analysis that I think the problem is not of quality. It’s of team dynamics, and things that. To me the only personnel missing is a naturally defensive minded midfielder. If I have to concede any criticism of Wenger, I would say it was the wasted pre-season. Not because he didn’t bring in a big, blue-eyed, square jawed, 6 ft 100 centre half who eats raw meat for breakfast. It’s that the way the team is playing now is completely different from what we saw in early season which suggests Wenger didn’t evolve the team enough. On the other hand, reality has a nasty way of scuppering plans.

Some tactical ideas

1. Van Persie as the target of long balls with Adebayor as decoy.

Teams expect us to play Adebayor in with the long ball. This is predictable. Plus, he is often offside. Why not do what we did against Liverpool? Let Adebayor start the run but let Van Persie be the real target. He might not be tall, but he can run into a ball, and he has the trickery to make his winning the ball dangerous.

2. Nasri, Diaby, and Van Persie switching positions.

Here is the one that really excites me. Especially now that Fabregas is missing. Assuming we have a line up of

We can have Diaby starting and playing flat in midfield, Adebayor & Van Persie upfront, with us relying on the wings and Van Persie to link play. Then we can switch to Nasri in the middle, with Denilson, Van Persie dropping left, and Diaby behind Adebayor. We can even play the fashionable 4-2-3-1 with Ramsey- Denilson in midfield, Nasri-Diaby-Van Persie behind Ade.

Diaby and Nasri give the teams a lot of tactical options.

3. Playing Clichy in between the full back and the centre half.

We are a bit shorn of pace upfront at the moment and our man Gael could be used in attack. In the course of games we often find Clichy far out wide on the left. Instead of trying to play him in wide, we could try playing the ball between the centre half and the full back. The balls would have to have lots of spin, and the trajectory of the ball would be a convex curve. Clichy would have to time his run well and make one or two diagonal runs aiming to win the ball close to the by-line. Once he wins the ball he should aim to dribble. I think we can win penalties this way or get clear chances.

4. Have Ade or Van Persie try to play in the central midfielders once or twice during the game.

This can be a very useful way to open up teams which pack the bus in front of their boxes. It will not succeed most times but it’s another dimension to our game which has looked one-dimensional lately.

* Yes, it’s an abuse of the word but my opinions are as futile as masturbation. Fulfilling a need but inadequate nonetheless. What we bloggers write is based on incomplete info. We don’t know 5% of what the manager knows about these players and the team. So when we write, our views are narrow, however valid in context, we have a duty to point out to the reader that the manager knows better. We might be right on one or more narrow points, but be wrong in the grand scheme of things. I won’t bang my head on the wall if Wenger saw any of this and says; “merde! Ca c’est foutu…..vouz avez tort!