Adam Clery breaks down how Mikel Arteta's Arsenal just demolished Pep Guardiola's Man City 5-1.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Right, hello there my estranged football friends, Adam Clear here for 442, yes hello, I'm back.
00:09These are nice new title cards and graphics, aren't they?
00:11And according to the internet, which I have read, Arsenal did not just beat Manchester
00:16City yesterday, they humbled them.
00:20And I know that I normally do an intro that's far longer and more entertaining than this,
00:24but there is a lot to cover in this game and I've got no idea if I can remember how to
00:29use Adobe Premiere Pro, so yeah.
00:36Okay so as has already been slightly teased, this was your Arsenal line-up, no real surprises
00:40there and this was your Manchester City line-up, no surprises there except Mamoosh and Foden
00:45were not really where we thought they would be and it didn't really matter because it
00:48didn't really get anything going.
00:50Now before we start, the H-bomb, the humbling word that's doing the rounds of people already
00:55getting printed on the back of shirts, that is low-hanging fruit.
00:59But I do think when you tell one team to be humble and then the reverse fixture, they
01:05don't just beat you but they bend you all the way over, I think you can actually get
01:09away with that, so sorry Manchester City fans, this is quite funny.
01:14And also more importantly, according to Harvey Downs at Opta, that is the first time Man
01:18City have conceded five goals from open play in a single game since 2008.
01:26For context, this is what I looked like in 2008, that was time ago.
01:33Now the key to this, in my opinion, is that Arsenal used this sort of quite innovative,
01:38new, I certainly haven't seen it before, like X-shaped scissor 3-2 pressing structure and
01:45Man City did not really know what to do with that.
01:48But before we get into the specifics of it all, you have to look at Chelsea.
01:55Now you'll no doubt remember the Manchester City vs Chelsea game the other week because
01:58Man City won it and everyone was like, oh look, they're back, but what jumped out at
02:04me about it was just how sort of like passive Chelsea were.
02:07Like you saw in the first couple of minutes, City were there for the taking but they just
02:10sort of sat off them, they kept the high line that they like to have to squeeze the pitch
02:15but then they had no real intensity in the final third and they just kind of allowed
02:19Man City to play through them.
02:21Which is an absolutely baffling decision to make, I think, because Man City have proved
02:25time and again this season how vulnerable they are in all the various transitions you
02:30get in a football match, which if you don't understand that term we will explain later.
02:34Anyway, Arsenal in this game were both the moral and sexual opposites to that.
02:40They just f***ed them up.
02:43Now the goals do very conveniently illustrate this a lot better than any stats, numbers
02:48or just other nerd stuff that I could come out with.
02:51But before we get a look at those, I want you to get a look at this.
02:54This right here, and I'll just get all the players so you can see it better, is every
02:59high turnover Arsenal did in that game every time they won a tackle, an interception or
03:04otherwise took the ball off Man City in what I would deem to be a dangerous area.
03:10And I know what you're thinking, oh is that a lot?
03:12I haven't really got much basis for comparison.
03:15Well these are all the times Man City did the exact same thing.
03:19So yes, it was a lot.
03:21That is absolutely night and day in regards to sort of like aggression mindset and where
03:26you're trying to put the pressure on the opposition.
03:28And as a result, a number of Arsenal's goals and other chances, sorry Kai Havertz, came
03:37directly from this.
03:38So allow me to attempt to explain, the objective for Arsenal off the ball was this quite novel,
03:43by which I mean I haven't seen it before, it doesn't mean it's actually you, 5-3-2 shape.
03:50This X thing going on, whoops.
03:52And it sounds quite negative, doesn't it?
03:54Like Man United are getting pelted at the minute for defending with five players.
03:58It's no good for an ambitious team in the Premier League, too many bodies here, not
04:02enough bodies there.
04:03But the way it works is very clever.
04:05And that's because of the way it like morphs and shifts around depending on what they're
04:09doing with the press.
04:10And the reason you've got five is because most teams end up with five attackers.
04:15And these aren't like set in a line, they move with these players.
04:19Like if anybody tries to drop short to get on the ball, you just go with them.
04:23This player in the central here, that's one of the midfielders.
04:25He can follow that central player around as much as they like.
04:28It's quite, it's the word I want, malleable.
04:31But the important part was these five players here, right, because it's their job to block
04:35off this entire central area of the pitch.
04:38Like it's quite narrow.
04:39These are your two wide players who should be out there, but they've sort of tucked in.
04:42This was Declan Rice, who was sort of going in between, but sort of staying back there.
04:46And this was Havard, who do normally leave the press.
04:49And it looks quite staggered and spaced out, doesn't it?
04:51But if you think about it from this perspective, right, there's no way through that as a pass
04:57in this zone.
04:58But what it also does, and this is really clever, and my favourite part of it, right,
05:03is it creates traps, like it makes these little pockets in like the elbow joint of the shape
05:09that feel like they're quite safe and that playing into them feels like incisive and
05:15good for you.
05:16But the thing is, they are quite literally a trap and Man City kept falling into it.
05:22So the first example is quite predictably the first goal, because it happened within
05:25like 90 seconds.
05:27Man City had a back three because Nunez would either invert into the middle or push into
05:31the last line.
05:32So when they drop back all the way, they want to bring Stefan here in to keep it as a back
05:36full.
05:37And this is what's really good about Kai Havert, right, because he from here wants to go and
05:41press the goalkeeper, which is the sensible thing to do.
05:44But instead of doing it this way, he does it this way, removing the pass out to a Kanji,
05:50so it goes to stones.
05:51But Yu-Gi-Oh, my friends, have Man City activated Arsenal's trap card.
05:57Now this five that Arsenal are pressing with this X shape has shut down all the central
06:01options, right?
06:02You cannot go in this direction.
06:04But like I said, in the elbow of the shape, there is a gap and a Kanji wanders into that.
06:11There is a mark, he's free, absolutely the right pass for John Stones in this situation.
06:16But look at Leandro Trossard's body shape.
06:20He's already on his way to close the Kanji down before Stones is committed with the pass.
06:27In fact, he times it so well that he isn't going when Stones looks at a Kanji.
06:31But as soon as he looks down at the ball and he loses the ability to see, that's when he
06:35goes.
06:36That is something you'll spend so much time on the training ground working on.
06:39It must be mad seeing it work that effectively so early in a big game.
06:43Like a Kanji gets the ball here, he needs to open up his body and pass it forward because
06:47of the timing and the intensity of Trossard's movements.
06:51He can't.
06:52He can't turn around.
06:53You just got to face the way he came and all of a sudden with this shape here, all of his
06:58options are a bag of sh**.
07:01In the quite understandable, in my opinion, panic that ensues, he ends up giving the ball
07:06away.
07:07He gives it to Havertz, he gives it to Odegaard and that's 4-0.
07:10And Arsenal just kept doing this to them like throughout the game, seeing if they could
07:13bait them in to either going into the middle here where all the players were or getting
07:18into one of these traps so they could then shut it down and force you backwards.
07:21And if you look at all of Manchester City's failed passes in this game, like, yes, they're
07:27everywhere across the course of the 90 minutes, but look at the concentration of them.
07:33The start or end in this exact area of the pitch, that is staggering.
07:38And again, just for context, these are Arsenal's failed passes.
07:41And yes, again, they are everywhere.
07:43Most of them are Rea trying to get in behind Vardial, which I didn't actually know was
07:47happening during the game, but they keep the ball far more consistently in these areas.
07:52They haven't got this insane buildup of turnovers.
07:55I don't know, you intelligent person, you're already thinking here, well, then just City
07:59surely should go long in that situation.
08:01You've got Erling Haaland up front, he's a big, goofy boy.
08:04But that's what's clever about this sort of like change of the shape, because you remember
08:08Arsenal normally press fully, don't they, in a 4-4-2, right?
08:14They like doing that.
08:15But the reason they sort of shifted it to have these two narrower than one going forward,
08:18then one behind was so, and this was usually Thomas Partey, you could screen that ball
08:24into Haaland.
08:25If it goes really long, the centre backs can sort of move over and challenge.
08:29But if they try and go over this and into his feet, he would step in front and cut that
08:35ball out.
08:36And City just had zero answer to this for really large chunks of the game.
08:40Like here, they managed to bait Kovacic into getting on it in this area.
08:44Erdogan nearly nicks it off him right in front of the goal.
08:46And for that Kai Havertz chance, which he's never, ever going to want to see again, look
08:51where that's come from.
08:52It's that little X again, except this time, yes, it is also a terrible, terrible decision
08:58from Ortega.
08:59Like what do you want Kovacic to do with the ball in this situation?
09:04This modern obsession with getting this little bounce pass off to relieve the pressure, like
09:10just, just go direct with it, man.
09:13Grow up.
09:14Now, I may be making this game sound very exciting, right?
09:17And if you watched it, for a large part, it also wasn't.
09:21So everything I've said so far, basically, right, that's the first 25 minutes.
09:26Because after that, not a lot happened.
09:29So you're probably thinking, well, you're going to skip through all that.
09:32You're not going to talk about why nothing happened.
09:34That would be a really, really dull video.
09:36And no, actually, if I could just shock you for a second, I am because it's weird.
09:41So bear with me.
09:42Between the kickoff and that Kai Havertz chance, right, this is every single successful Manchester
09:48City pass.
09:49Now just take a second, have a proper look at it.
09:51Where do you see the highest concentration, right?
09:54It's here, isn't it?
09:55It's this sort of like goalkeeper centre back area.
09:58It's playing out from the back.
10:00It's exactly how Manchester City play.
10:02And it's exactly what these five Arsenal players were targeting.
10:06So this is about like 27, 28 minutes or whatever, right?
10:10And then it would be from there, another 27 or 28 minutes until the Haaland equaliser.
10:15So this is the same amount of time, right?
10:18This is every Manchester City pass after that Kai Havertz chance.
10:24Do you see a difference?
10:26There's now hardly any in this part of the pitch.
10:29And those that are, are now either sideways or backwards.
10:32They're never trying to play it through this central area of the pitch.
10:35They're just going around Arsenal, which is giving them this sort of like horseshoe effect
10:40because Arsenal now, because it takes longer to go that way, they can get back, they can
10:43set.
10:45Nothing happened because Arsenal completely broke Manchester City.
10:50And weirdly, if you actually look at Manchester City's equaliser, you can see several times
10:54in that move, they should probably try and play it through the centre, but instead they
10:58go wide, they switch it to try and keep it out in these wide areas.
11:01And it's three moments of such superb individual quality that get them a goal.
11:06They don't really sort of open Arsenal up with this, but thing is, right?
11:12Individual quality is not Manchester City's problem.
11:14They've probably still got more individual quality than any other team in the league
11:19just about.
11:20Their problem is how they react when they lose the ball, regardless of where that is
11:26on the pitch.
11:27And having just got themselves back level, it's that kind of reaction that just throws
11:32the entire game away.
11:33Because Phil Foden should not give this ball away.
11:35Too good a player to make this pass, but that can happen.
11:39Everyone will do that in a game of football.
11:41What matters is how you react.
11:42And there are two things to note here.
11:44A, the amount of space around Thomas Pardy when he intercepts that pass and B, the position
11:51of Man City's screen.
11:53Like Silva and Kovacic with the pivot, they are the ones supposed to be screening the
11:56defence.
11:57This is where they are.
11:58If you imagine that line between them is the screen.
12:01And then you jump that forward to right before he takes the shot.
12:04Seconds pass, enough time to do something and this is the space around Thomas Pardy
12:10and this is the position of your screen.
12:15That's not how you react to this at any level.
12:19And I don't know how many times I'm going to end up saying it this season, right?
12:22But against any kind of team with a bit of athleticism, aggression, just running around
12:27a bit, right?
12:28Kovacic, Gundogan and Bernardo Silva do not cover enough ground to defend against that.
12:33Like all you have to do is run at Manchester City and you'll get a chance.
12:38The fourth goal is actually exactly the same as the second one.
12:42It's just the other kind of transition.
12:44Instead of giving it away near their own goal, they give it away near Arsenal's goal.
12:48And from here, where the ball is turned over to here, when the shot is taken, there is
12:54not one ounce of pressure.
12:55There is not one physical, as I live and breathe, attempt at a tackle.
13:00They just run.
13:01And then even if you look at the fifth goal, which Opta have done a really nice illustration
13:05of here, I should point out, there's not one attempt at a challenge in 36 passes by a single
13:12Manchester City player.
13:13This is the longest passing sequence for a goal we've seen in the Premier League for
13:17like two or three years or something like that.
13:20Every single Arsenal player gets a touch of the ball and it's just, it's just like they're
13:25just playing against a blue fog.
13:27Now, as I hope this video has thus far illustrated, that is how Arsenal beat Manchester City.
13:33But that wasn't what was on the sign above the door, was it?
13:36We were here to talk about humbling.
13:39And in order to understand how they did that, I have 2.5 words for you, my friends.
13:46Miles Lewis Skelly.
13:49And yes, that's why I've said 0.5.
13:51I've got zero idea for hyphenated words is one or two.
13:55So first up, I'll bring up both his heat map and his pass map.
13:58And for a midfielder who was deputising at left back and is, I think, like nine years
14:02old, that is an extraordinary amount of contribution and pitch coverage.
14:07But it's not just that he sees an awful lot of the ball, but contained within this image
14:10is the suggestion that something massive, huge, enormous is happening for Arsenal.
14:17So it's been discussed by me and absolutely everybody else on the planet that Arsenal
14:22do not get enough goal threat from this area.
14:25Martin Odegaard plays here, he makes pretty much everything happen.
14:28He links up, he goes for goal, he does all this.
14:30But Declan Rice, who's normally the one who's here, does not add enough.
14:34Obviously, he's a very different player.
14:35That's not his game.
14:36But at times, the fact that all the threat comes from this side, not this side, can make
14:41Arsenal look a bit predictable, a bit unincisive, a bit risk averse.
14:46But you put Lewis Skelly in at left back and all of a sudden, two things start to happen
14:51when Arsenal have the ball.
14:53First off, he's very comfortable inverting into this part of the pitch here, which means
14:57Arsenal are very stable and secure on the ball.
15:00I did note, weirdly, Haaland bouncing off him like two or three times, which is funny.
15:05Now maybe this is just a coincidence, but when compared to City's problems, it does
15:09feel like it might be a real thing.
15:12Because Miles Lewis Skelly is there and he can cover this ground and he can make those
15:15recovery runs and he has got more mobility in this part of the pitch if Arsenal lose
15:20the ball, all of a sudden, Declan Rice looked a lot more comfortable being ambitious with
15:25his movement.
15:26He kept making these little runs into this space in behind from the midfield.
15:32Arsenal almost never found him in any of them and he started getting quite frustrated and
15:36throwing his arms around at it.
15:37But that's a level of ambition I can't remember seeing that frequently in a single game from
15:44him.
15:45He does do it, but he doesn't do it that much.
15:47But for the third goal, something different happened entirely because instead of him inverting
15:51into the base of the midfield and being this sort of secure thing, he actually did what
15:55Mark Kukerea does at Chelsea and inverted all the way into this sort of left-sided ten
16:01position, which then Declan Rice then dropped back.
16:03You got the same shape and the exact same effect, but now he's come all the way in here,
16:08almost entirely untracked.
16:10And now if you look here, he's part of that top line of five attackers.
16:14Declan Rice has dropped a little bit deeper and does not make a hypocrite of himself and
16:18actually finds him with the pass.
16:19And because you've got Lewis Skelly there, a very different play at Declan Rice, he straight
16:23away gets that, turns, faces up the defender, jumps onto his other foot and scores a quite
16:28brilliant goal.
16:29If you go all the way back to his passes in his heat map, you can see that this was clearly
16:33like a rotating part of the plan.
16:35Like 50% of his game is being steady and secure in this part of the pitch, getting into the
16:39pivot.
16:40But the other half of it is getting to the final third, actually.
16:43Get all the way down the left when you can, but also invert yourself into this area.
16:48And I cannot think of many players who are capable of doing that, let alone capable of
16:54doing that and doing it well, let alone capable of doing that and doing it well before they've
16:59even done their A-levels.
17:00So yeah, that's how Arsenal humbled Manchester City.
17:03Identify weakness, exploit weakness, dance around in the rain of blood that spurts forward
17:08from said weakness, then do their celebrations and play Kendrick Lamar.
17:11And if you have enjoyed watching this video, and I really hope you did, because I've not
17:15done one in like, what, two weeks or something?
17:18Felt really nervous before I filmed it.
17:20You can subscribe to us here on 442 and watch those nerves disappear like, what's the
17:26Blade Runner one?
17:27Tears, tears in the bath.
17:30As most of you well know by now, nothing sustains my very life force quite like reading all
17:34your comments and thoughts on the matter.
17:36So Arsenal fans, how did that feel?
17:39Nice, tasty, delicious, possibly too sweet, think you might win the league, too far gone?
17:43Let me know in the comments below, and if for some reason any Man City fans have sat
17:47all the way through this, genuine question, would you sack Pep?
17:54This is not the play of a manager who's doing well.
17:57You can get me across all the socials at Adam Cleary, C-L-E-R-Y, and I'll probably start
18:01using them again now that I'm back at work.
18:03The 442 socials are in the corner of the video.
18:05The latest issue of the magazine, My Word, that's available now from all good retailers
18:09and the bad ones as well.
18:11Before you ask, yes, yes it is nice to be back.
18:15I'm having a nice time, and I hope you did too, so goodbye.