Newcastle have one foot in the Carabao Cup semi-final after a shock 2-0 victory over Arsenal at the Emirates. But while they raced into an early lead with their customary attacking play, Eddie Howe made the decision to remove Alexander Isak, Anthony Godron, and Jacob Murphy, and instead play a 5-5-0 formation.
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00:00Hello everybody, my name is Adam Cleary, welcome to 442, and Mikel Arteta, it's happened again.
00:11Now of course it is only the first leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final, nothing has been won or decided yet,
00:16but I think that performance by Newcastle United might have a shout as being the best one ever under Eddie Howe.
00:24When you factor in the opposition, the graft, the work rate, the occasion, what was at stake,
00:28every little thing like that, I certainly think it's in the conversation.
00:31But how? How did they do that?
00:34Well, in nerd-speak, it's because it was one of the most effectively adaptive tactical performances I have seen so far this season.
00:43That, and the f***ing ball apparently.
00:49Right, so here were your two teams, Newcastle United were without Bruno Guimaraes,
00:53without whom, since he signed for the club, they've never actually won a game of football.
00:58And that's true, by the way, he's missed seven games, they've lost four, drawn three, or something like that.
01:03And they were without Fabian Schär, who was very handsome.
01:06For Arsenal, there were two points of note.
01:08Firstly, Leandro Trossard was shunted all the way to the right-hand side because of the injuries to Pekkai Osaka and Ethan Nwanyeri,
01:14and they had Kai Havertz up front because Alexander Isak plays for Newcastle.
01:18But from the very moment those team sheets were handed in, you could see exactly what Newcastle's game plan was going to be.
01:24Because the obvious replacement is the industry, the work rate, the positional discipline, and the selflessness of Sean Longstaff,
01:31who was previously playing that position before they rejigged and put Tenali in the six.
01:35But it wasn't him, was it? It was Joe Willock.
01:38And what does Joe Willock give you besides the immortal line, come on you Maggies?
01:43Well, he gives you ball progression up the length of the pitch, he gives you good movement in the final third,
01:49and he gives you a really excellent high-pressing option.
01:52And those three things are precisely, in the first half, what Newcastle were doing.
01:57Like, it's a little bit spotty and certainly not the most dramatic one I've ever used,
02:00but if you look at Willock's heat map from that first 60 minutes that he was playing, you can see all of that in action.
02:06Because they did have to sit deep and they did have to drop in, because Arsenal are really, really good and they're playing at home.
02:11But when they did get out, boy did they get out.
02:15And of course, the key to that getting out was, I'm not going to shock you here,
02:20Alexander Isak.
02:22Like, I've got no qualms whatsoever about saying that Galiba and Sabriel are the best centre-back pairing in the Premier League.
02:29Yes, that was on purpose.
02:30They routinely bully Haaland when they play him, both on and off the ball,
02:34but neither of them seem to have a clue what to do with Isak here.
02:38Now, this is his heat map from the game as well.
02:40It doesn't really tell you too much, but it does show you just how frequently he was dropping away from the forward line
02:46and receiving the ball, sort of in these pockets.
02:49And what made all this movement so effective was the variation he had in it.
02:53Because sometimes, when Newcastle were in transition, he would look to be the one that made the runs in behind
02:58so they could find him with the ball.
03:00You can see him skipping through here quite happily.
03:02And when he did do that, if he got one-on-one with either of them,
03:05he showed that he was more than capable of going by them,
03:08which means they've got to be very cautious about how tight they get.
03:11But then on top of that, in a lot of transitions where you would expect him to be making a lot of runs,
03:15he would actually remain static and allow players to go beyond him
03:19so he could drop off and get on the ball.
03:22So it was impossible to know exactly where to be or exactly how to defend against him.
03:27Like, this moment with Jacob Murphy is just an unreal bit of play, right?
03:30You can see, as Newcastle win the ball, Arsenal are a little bit all over the place.
03:34Like, this is the shape they're back for.
03:36So Isak could very easily make a run into this space.
03:41And if you look, you can actually see Saliba, I think, starting to anticipate that.
03:45Like, he knows there is a gap to Isak, but he starts to drop off all the same, I think,
03:50because he's expecting that run.
03:51But then instead, he suddenly comes short and finds himself here.
03:56He's got loads of space to turn, and now Saliba doesn't really know what to do.
04:00Like, instinctively, in this situation, if you're a centre-back,
04:03you want to rush out and put the pressure on that player to stop them playing forward
04:07to try and turn them around and go back to their own goal.
04:09But Saliba's a very intelligent defender, and Arsenal work on these things during the week.
04:13They'll have known that a hallmark of Newcastle's play
04:17are these long, bursting runs from all the midfielders.
04:20So we can already see you've got Joe Linton, you've got Murphy, you've got Willock
04:24all beginning to run into that gap behind Arsenal.
04:28And if he over-commits there, if he jumps forward,
04:31he possibly leaves space for one of them to get into.
04:33So now he's kind of stuck.
04:35He should have gone in the first place, but he didn't,
04:37and now he can't really drop off too much, but he also can't go and challenge for it.
04:42Gordon will get on his bike at some point, Tonali's got a great engine,
04:45so if he over-commits and he doesn't win the ball,
04:47and possibly even again Isak skips by him,
04:50he'll just leave an enormous amount of space.
04:52So instead, he's got to then drop off, despite the fact there's nobody anywhere near him.
04:56And because of this sort of indecision, this impossible situation he's in,
05:00just gives Isak all the time in the world to play this frankly pornographic pass to Jacob Murphy.
05:07And were it not for this frankly brilliant and deadly serious foul by Leandro Trossard,
05:13Murphy likely rolls this back to Isak here, and he's got a really good chance.
05:17And I do genuinely want to highlight that pullback as quite a good thing,
05:21because this is the sort of team Arsenal have needed to become
05:25over the last 12 months.
05:27You've got to take a risk here and there, you can't just be a soft touch.
05:31Yes, if he gets caught by the referee, that is a really dangerous free kick,
05:3525 yards from goal and a yellow card, but he's let him go, he's lost him.
05:40Isak's in a really good position here, and if that ball comes back,
05:43the chance he's going to get is much better than a 25-yard free kick.
05:48So, do it.
05:49But he gets away with it, so it's a really smart bit of play.
05:52And so, by extension, is this.
05:55I feel like I'm going mad here, but I've genuinely seen quite a lot of hand-wringing
05:59over this, and I need bigger air quotes than I can do with my hands,
06:02push by Isak on Erdegaard.
06:05Like, yeah, OK, a really, really fussy referee might disallow a goal
06:11for something like that, but there's no appeal from Erdegaard whatsoever,
06:14so he clearly doesn't even think it's a foul.
06:16So if you can buy yourself the yard required to score a goal
06:19by just gently putting your hands on somebody's back and getting away with that,
06:24also brilliant.
06:25These are two examples of teams taking liberties with the rules
06:29to try and win a massive game of football.
06:33If anything about either of those pictures upsets you in any way,
06:38then that is a you problem.
06:41Go and have a bottle of milk, you f***ing baby.
06:44Anyway, yes, Alexander Isak's movement, that's what we were talking about.
06:47Obviously, it's just good strikers' instincts in that first goal.
06:50He buys himself.
06:51Oi, oi, a little bit of space finishes nicely with his left foot.
06:55But the second goal, that's what we're talking about.
06:58Here he is, standing completely idle, being marked by both centre-backs,
07:02and maybe I'm getting carried away here, but does it look to anybody else?
07:06Like, even their body language looks quite unsettled.
07:09Maybe I've entirely made that up, but also, maybe not.
07:14But as before, he darts into the gap between Arsenal's lines,
07:17and neither of the defenders feel confident getting drawn out with him.
07:22Just to remind you, he showed in the first half,
07:24he's capable of beating them one-on-one so smartly.
07:28It's not a criticism of them, I think they're doing the right thing.
07:30They're trying to avoid ending up in a situation
07:33where they come out of the back line, he skips around them, and he's in.
07:36This is Joe Willock here, and if you recall back five or six minutes ago
07:39when I said it, why is Joe Willock in the team?
07:42He's got no movement in the final third.
07:44He makes that run the opposite way to Isak,
07:47and that draws Arsenal's back line a little bit deeper,
07:51and creates this pocket of space.
07:53And this is an unreal pick-out by Jacob Murphy.
07:57Like, it looks like a fairly routine pass at first,
08:00but if he just pulls it at the moment he strikes the ball,
08:03he cannot see Isak.
08:06He does not know for definite that he's going to get into this space,
08:09but also, he does know for definite that he's going to get into this space
08:13because having an understanding and a partnership
08:15is a tangible, worthwhile thing.
08:18Like, at some point in the very near future,
08:20Newcastle are going to go out and spend something like £50 million
08:23on a really nice, exciting, shiny new right winger
08:27that they've been desperate for for years,
08:29and in every way, I imagine, he will be technically superior
08:33to Jacob Murphy.
08:35But you cannot, cannot buy an understanding between two players
08:40like these two seem to have.
08:42And it might come, don't get me wrong, you'd hope it would,
08:44but on day one, he will not have that.
08:47And genuinely, intangibles like that are worth something.
08:50Like, to Newcastle this season, they've been worth like seven goals.
08:53Anyway, yeah, touch is class, shot is class,
08:56and Gordon just gambles on where it's going a fraction quicker than Timber,
09:00and that's how it got to be 2-0.
09:03But how it stayed 2-0, that's what we're really here to talk about.
09:08Because the adaptive strategy that Eddie Howe employed in this game,
09:12I think, is maybe the single greatest thing I've seen him do
09:16from the touchline.
09:18Genuinely really impressive.
09:20So around the hour mark, Kai Havert somehow misses this chance
09:24that he should just put it in, but the ball hits his face,
09:26and Eddie Howe immediately turns to his bench and decides,
09:29right, okay, we've got something really good here.
09:32I'm not going to let us chuck it away.
09:34About three minutes later, off come Murphy, Isak, and Willock
09:37to be replaced by Longstaff, Kelly, and Barnes.
09:40Why those three specifically?
09:43Well, in the first half, those were Newcastle's three most aggressive players
09:47in the press.
09:48Like, they were jumping between a high press and sitting quite deep,
09:51but when they were putting the squeeze on Arsenal,
09:53you can see here it's Isak, it's Murphy, and it's Willock
09:56who were predominantly leading it.
09:58And that means two things, right.
09:59First of all, it's just in their mindset.
10:01They find themselves drawn to making these kind of runs
10:04and applying this kind of pressure.
10:06So you take them off, you curb the sides,
10:09most sort of undisciplined instincts, if that makes sense.
10:13And secondly, they'll also be the most tired.
10:16Like, just in the last seven days, Newcastle have been away
10:19to both Tottenham and Manchester United,
10:21and spent large chunks of the second half of both of those games
10:25not really seeing the ball.
10:26And it is very hard and very tiring to play football
10:30when you do not have the ball.
10:32But more importantly than all of that, this change also,
10:36just spread these lads out a bit, changed the shape.
10:40Lloyd Kelly coming on meant that Newcastle now had a back five
10:44with four in front, and Anthony Gordon left all on his own
10:47to go and chase things down.
10:48But even that only lasted about 10 minutes.
10:51After a particularly leggy Gallop up and down the pitch,
10:54he was replaced by Miguel Almiron, who, and I could not believe
10:58I saw him do this when I watched it in the pub,
11:00like I genuinely went, eh, really loudly,
11:03went 5-5.
11:05And that is mad.
11:08But just to give you a little bit of context here,
11:10I'll see if I can do these quick enough.
11:12Arsenal, just like Newcastle, they play with a 4-3,
11:17hurry up, Adam, 3, don't they?
11:20Well, no, actually, of course they don't,
11:22because when they're defending, that single pivot becomes a 2,
11:25both the wide players drop right back,
11:27Edegaard or whoever's in the midfield goes and presses up
11:29with the centre forward, and they defend, actually, in a 4-4-2.
11:33And then even when they get forward quite successfully,
11:35this 3 becomes a 5, because you get loads of support
11:38from everywhere else.
11:39They end up having two of them in the middle,
11:41and it becomes a 3-2-5.
11:43And they've got loads of ways of making that happen.
11:45Sometimes that's a centre back, sometimes that's a full back,
11:47sometimes that's a full back.
11:48They make this shape and this sort of amount of bodies
11:52appear in the final third.
11:53And if you're an Arsenal fan and you're watching this,
11:55yes, that is a grotesque oversimplification
11:58of how Arsenal play, but it's just to show
12:00that for whatever shape they have,
12:02they tend to at least have five players in the attacking line.
12:05And Newcastle, in the first half,
12:07were already adapting to this quite well,
12:09because if you imagine, they've got four at the back,
12:12that does leave them a little short, man for man here.
12:15Whenever Arsenal successfully played through the press
12:17and had to sit a little deeper,
12:18they were going to a flat 4-5-1,
12:21but they were adapting it already into a back five,
12:24depending on how Arsenal formed their front five.
12:28Like, it was really, really good.
12:29Basically, if they pushed Lewis Skelly all the way up
12:32to be the fifth player in this line,
12:33so they could let Odegaard drift a little deeper,
12:35then Jacob Murphy would come all the way back
12:38and they'd form the five that way.
12:40But Arsenal are very good.
12:41They have more than one way to skin the proverbial cat.
12:43Sometimes one of the defenders would go into this space
12:46and Odegaard would be in that front line.
12:48So when they did that, instead,
12:49Murphy would stay where he was
12:51and Joe Linton would drop into this left centre-back area.
12:55And for the first 50, 60 minutes,
12:57that worked really, really well.
12:59But Arteta is an excellent reactive manager
13:01to what's going on in front of him.
13:02He makes very positive, very smart changes.
13:05So when the second goal goes in, he changes it.
13:08He brings Jorginho and Jesus on for Trossard and Partey
13:12and basically just goes to hell with it.
13:153-1-6.
13:16They pushed Lewis Skelly up permanently,
13:18they pushed Odegaard up permanently,
13:20and it's basically a numbers thing.
13:22Like, you're trying to create an overload
13:23by having five in that line,
13:25but Newcastle are demonstrating
13:26that they're capable of dropping into a five
13:28and stopping you doing that.
13:29So how do you beat a five?
13:32With a six.
13:33So the reason Migi Almiron comes on going 5-5, lads,
13:36is because Newcastle's solution to this
13:38was to go to a natural back five
13:41with then three quite robust central midfielders
13:45in front of them.
13:46And he combined that with fresh legs,
13:47both on the left and the right,
13:48and this is virtually impossible.
13:50If everybody does their part and doesn't make a mistake
13:53and sort of keeps the lines nice and compact,
13:55that's virtually impossible to play through.
13:58So all you can do in that situation
13:59is sort of pass the ball around
14:01and start humping long, aimless, hopeful crosses
14:06into the box,
14:07which is normally quite a good idea for Arsenal
14:08because they're very good in the air,
14:09but now Newcastle not only have three centre-backs,
14:13one of which is the same height as the flippin' Big Show,
14:16but also three nigh-on six-foot-or-above
14:20robust central midfielders,
14:21and also Tino Liveromento's quite big.
14:24So Newcastle, aerially here, are not worried.
14:27And then, just to make matters worse,
14:29Newcastle are still more than capable
14:31of dropping Joe Linton into this back five
14:34to make it a six,
14:35with then four quite happily in front of it,
14:38and just, there was nothing,
14:40nothing Arsenal could do about this.
14:43Newcastle won 75% of all the aerial duels.
14:48So you can't play through them
14:50and you can't play over them.
14:51They cleared the ball in this game 48 times,
14:5640 of which were in the second half alone.
14:59Like, as a robust,
15:00and I keep saying adaptive defensive performance,
15:03because remember, they started the game
15:04pressing Arsenal really high
15:06and they just went back to this
15:07as Arsenal made changes themselves.
15:10It's one of the just most committed
15:13and impressive defensive displays
15:15I think I've seen all this season.
15:17Like, Martin de Bravka did not make one save
15:21in that entire second half.
15:23For all the ball and all the territory
15:25and all the possession, all the crosses,
15:26all the chances, everything,
15:27they didn't actually test the goalkeeper.
15:29Because I think it would be very easy
15:30to look at that and be like,
15:31oh, Eddie Howe just went really defensive.
15:33Oh, it was actually quite a negative thing to do.
15:35But like, it's such a dramatic
15:37and obvious change in tactics.
15:39He took Alexander Isak off after an hour.
15:42He took Anthony Gordon off after 70 minutes.
15:46He set this up so deliberately.
15:48If it backfired,
15:49if Arsenal had got a single goal
15:51or maybe even equalised,
15:52that is all, all on him.
15:55And because when you look
15:56at something like this on a screen,
15:58it's just so dramatically mental.
16:00You would never just say like,
16:02oh, well, you know,
16:03Arsenal are a better side.
16:04They broke through eventually.
16:05You would go, no, he sat too far back.
16:08He did this crazy thing.
16:10And they went from 2-0 up to drawing 2-2.
16:13Like, that's, that takes balls, man.
16:17Just enormous balls.
16:19And not to overly stress this point, right,
16:21but Eddie Howe gets a lot of criticism
16:23for sort of his substitutions
16:25and his tactical analysis.
16:26He's seen as a very good motivator
16:27and he sets his teams up well.
16:28But in terms of being one of these elite managers
16:31that can influence things from the sidelines
16:33and do stuff like this,
16:34that's not really how people think of him.
16:37So if he'd done this and it backfired,
16:40that's, that's a lot of scrutiny
16:43to put yourself under.
16:44But he did it.
16:45He genuinely thought that was a good way
16:47to hang on to that 2-0 lead.
16:49And it was.
16:51You can say what you want about Arsenal,
16:53maybe not having a bit of luck
16:54and on another day,
16:55one of those chances maybe goes in.
16:56But I only deal in facts.
16:59I can only talk about facts.
17:01And it finished 2-0.
17:03And they did that.
17:04And the two things are related.
17:06Just proper British
17:09heed the ball, eggs and chips defending.
17:11You love to say it.
17:12So yes, that's how Newcastle United beat Arsenal.
17:15Again, and before I go,
17:17someone has already done the research
17:19on the ball and whether or not
17:20that makes any difference to Arsenal.
17:21And no, it doesn't.
17:24He doesn't actually think that.
17:26He said it because that's now
17:27two disappointing results in a row.
17:29There's a few big players underperforming
17:31and they may come in
17:32for some unnecessary scrutiny or pressure.
17:34So if you're a manager,
17:35straight out of the Mourinho playbook,
17:37you say a mad thing,
17:38you say an insane thing
17:40and all the focus then goes on to you.
17:44Nobody is talking about
17:45the underperformances now.
17:46Everybody's talking about the ball.
17:48It's good management.
17:49But as ever,
17:50I'm sure the response to this
17:51will be very reasonable
17:52and balanced and sane.
17:53Please let me know what you made of the game
17:54and your thoughts on the second leg
17:56because nobody's won anything yet.
17:59I'm certainly not booking
18:01any hotels for Wembley,
18:03mostly because I live in London
18:04and wouldn't have to.
18:05But let me know what you think
18:06is going to happen in the second leg
18:07in the comments down below.
18:08And of course,
18:09don't forget to like the video,
18:10share it with your pals.
18:11That's nice.
18:12And subscribe to us here on 442
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18:15in my opinion.
18:16And get me across all the social medias
18:18at Adam Cleary, C-L-E-R-Y,
18:19where you can possibly even read a thing
18:21I wrote about why Alexander Isak
18:23never scores with his left foot,
18:25which I published precisely one day
18:27before it scored with his left foot.
18:29So for more searing insight like that,
18:32that's Adam Cleary, C-L-E-R-Y,
18:34Twitter, Instagram,
18:36I forget what they're all called.
18:37I'm there, I'm everywhere.
18:38Until next time though,
18:39thank you very much for joining us.
18:40That was an immensely enjoyable game
18:41for me, a Newcastle fan, to watch.
18:43But hopefully,
18:44you found the analysis
18:46fair and impartial
18:48and level-headed
18:49and not getting carried away
18:50with anything.
18:51We're going to win the club!
18:53Bye.
18:54Bye.
18:55Bye.
18:56Bye-bye.