Friday 15 December 2017

Problems away from home continue

West Ham 0-0 Arsenal

points against West Ham on Wednesday night, as the Gunners played out a frustrating 0-0 draw.

The game took on a familiar pattern with Arsenal enjoying the lion’s share of possession against a side determined to sit deep and defend in numbers. Yet although the Gunners enjoyed up to 70% of possession, they did not do enough with the ball to create goal scoring opportunities. As their dismal away record shows, this is not the first time this has happened this season as Arsene Wenger’s side appear unable to break down the opposition away from home. In fact, the fine win away to Everton aside, Arsenal have failed to score more than one goal in any of their other away games so far this season.

This must be something that is extremely perplexing to Wenger as his side’s home form has been excellent so far. Apart from the recent loss to Manchester United, Arsenal have won all of their home games this season and it is not as if they face two completely different approaches from their opposition. Whether they play at home or away, Arsenal will more often than not come up against a side that will allow them to have the ball and will defend deep and in numbers. Yet while the Gunners have dealt with these tactics comfortably at the Emirates, they have appeared flummoxed when faced with them on their travels.

In general, the key to breaking down such sides is to move the ball quickly, with players tacking one or two touches at most, before releasing the ball. Movement is also key as the players must be prepared to give the ball to a teammate and then make a forward run to move the opposition out of position and create space in between their defensive lines. Movement also presents the man on the ball with passing options and therefore prevents him from dawdling on the ball and tempo being reduced to a snail’s pace as a result. The final key ingredient is to make the pitch as wide as possible by getting the ball out wide and attacking the opposition down the flanks rather than attempting to play intricate passes through the already congested middle of the pitch.

Unfortunately Arsenal have not been doing these things on a regular basis away from home and results ultimately speak for themselves. Wenger elected to move away from his system of three at the back against West Ham, elected to go back to a back four instead, but still there was little improvement. With Alexis Sanchez and Alex Iwobi either side of Olivier Giroud, in theory Arsenal could switch the ball wide and then get crosses into the box for Giroud to attack. However neither Sanchez nor Iwobi stayed wide and in fact kept on drifting inside, narrowing the attack and effectively playing into West Ham’s hands.

Up front, Giroud offered very little movement and it was therefore rather easy for the West Ham defenders to defend against him. The Frenchman didn’t hold the ball up well either and therefore could not link up with the midfield, who did not attempt to run on beyond him, in the hope of running onto a flick on, as a result.

With Iwobi and Sanchez failing to offer any width to the side, the onus was on the full backs, Bellerin and Ainsley Maitland-Niles. Although the youngster did perform rather well and did deliver a few quality crosses into the box, he tends to favour his right foot and therefore as he was deployed as a left full back, he would turn in to deliver the ball with his right foot which gave West Ham the opportunity to close him down. On the other flank Bellerin, who has performed far below his best so far this season, seemed reluctant to ever cross the ball without taking a touch first. Therefore whenever Arsenal had generated some space for the right back and switched the ball towards him, Bellerin would negate the space that had been created by taking a touch rather attempting to cross the ball first time. In such a congested area, with West Ham defending in numbers, taking a touch only served to provide the opposition with an opportunity to recover, having been caught out of position. A first time cross, delivered well, which in fairness has been beyond Bellerin this season, would have caused panic amongst the defence. Therefore even if Giroud couldn’t get on the end of the cross, the chance of a West Ham player deflecting the ball into his own net or executing a poor clearance, would increase significantly. Instead, Bellerin’s attempted crosses were blocked all night long, much to the frustration of the Arsenal fans.

At the final whistle the Gunners could at least point to a clean sheet which had been there undoing in their previous two league outings. However in the final minutes, Arsenal did their best to throw the game away, with Koscielny’s poor and inexplicable pass across the box, eventually falling to Javier Hernandez who saw his shot come back off the underside of the bar. Replays showed Petr Cech had done well to get his fingertips to the ball and divert it onto the bar but the goalkeeper had produced a poor performance up until that point. His punching from crosses into the box had been abysmal and only a goal line clearance earlier in the game had saved his blushes.
Ultimately Arsenal must do better. There is no point in dominating possession if you do nothing with it. The Gunners are simply not doing enough to create opportunities and there is a feeling that they simply expect chances to present themselves having dominated the ball for large parts of the game. That is not good enough for a club of this size and Wenger should demand more from his players. This poor run away from home will only continue if his players do not wise up to the basics required to break down stubborn sides who sit deep and in numbers.  


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