(Not so) massive attack: Arsenal left to rue familiar failings in United draw
After losing 5-0 at home to Chelsea last weekend, there was only ever one way Manchester United were going to play at Emirates Stadium on Saturday. Last season, United shut the Gunners out on three separate occasions and after such a poor start to the season, Eva Olid was always likely to want to get a foot on the ladder for the season and her United tenure. United have Sheffield United in the Subway Cup this midweek, she can readdress their attacking principals then.
That always meant that Arsenal were going to have to take on another low defensive block, which has been their kryptonite on and off for the last three or four seasons now. Arsenal selected an attacking team, a midfield of Stanway, Mariona and Russo is one that is intent on creation and dominance, as Renee Slegers confirmed after the game.
‘Basically we were expecting to be spending a lot of time in their half. So for us looking at how can we pose as much threat as possible in the in the box and hence why both Stina and Alessia started. So there’s double threat in that position. So we wanted to keep Alessia as high as possible on the pitch.’
However, intention and execution were once again too far apart for Arsenal in this game. Again, Slegers confirmed this candidly in the post-match press conference. In my first question, I asked what her biggest takeaway from the game was. She didn’t ponder on her answer. ‘That we don’t turn dominance into danger.’ My follow-up question centred on a continued impotence against low defensive blocks and I thought Renee’s answer was very interesting here.
‘I think especially first half, but also a couple of moments in the second half when there’s bigger spaces to go fast, can we really capitalise on those moments when the box is not congested? And I think the final detail in those moments wasn’t there, plus counterattacking moments, set pieces, those are also moments for us to be dangerous from. So it’s not only breaking down a low block, we also have to look at other situations in the game that we can use.’
It was an interesting answer because she offered a further criticism of her team’s attacking that wasn’t offered in the question, which is rare in post-match press conferences. I am going to use data from the excellent Scott Willis, who is producing more publicly available data viz for Arsenal Women games.
Arsenal forced 18 high turnovers on Saturday but that only led to three shots on goal. According to Scott, Arsenal had no shots from fast breaks. They produced 0.6XG from corners. In the end, Arsenal created threat at the end of the game by putting their best crosser, Smilla Holmberg, on and their best aerial striker in Selina Cerci. It’s a totally valid and necessary route to creating threat but it is also not a tactical clinic.
Arsenal bought in a lot of talent from the Bundesliga this summer and part of that was about being better in transition moments. Arsenal are good at forcing turnovers but have been weak at creating shots and chances from those situations and that didn’t change today. What is concerning about Slegers’ additional critique (which is also a correct critique) is she is effectively saying ‘yes we haven’t been good enough at opening up settled defences but we also haven’t been very good at other aspects of attacking either.’ One of the reasons that Arsenal face low blocks so often is because they allow teams to get back into that shape with ponderous approach play.
1.4XG was a pretty meagre return for Arsenal’s dominance and Holmberg’s late goal was the best chance they created by far. Tullis Joyce did not have to make many difficult saves. Perhaps it is a good thing that Arsenal won’t be facing low blocks in their next two WSL games but anything less than a perfect or near perfect return from Chelsea and City away renders another title challenge pretty much over in October. The improvement has to be immediate.
The post (Not so) massive attack: Arsenal left to rue familiar failings in United draw appeared first on Arseblog News - the Arsenal news site.