Arsenal at Wigan: 5 Positives from the Gunners' Impressive Win

Arsenal outclassed Wigan Athletic to take all three points in their Premier League Round 14 match at the DW Stadium. The result takes them to a provisional fifth position on the table—a win for Liverpool at Fulham on Monday with more than two goals could lift them above Arsenal. Still, sixth position would be one position better than last week's.

If any doubt remained, after some impressive victories—notably over Chelsea and Borussia Dortmund—about Arsenal having turned the figurative corner, the team's performance against Wigan should have done enough to convince even the most subjective skeptic.

A careful look at each of Arsenal's last three matches reveals the emergence of positive qualities that not only accentuate the team's growth, but also highlight the difference between it and last season's. As a result, one is almost tempted to conclude that the current team is better than its predecessor.

A good indicator of this is how the names Fabregas and Nasri feature less and less in conversations about the team and the quality of its players. Indeed, the nostalgia has subsided to a considerable degree.

In the following slides, I highlight five positive signs from the Wigan match that underscore the continuing improvement of the team. 

FIRST POSITIVE: Wojciech Szczęsny Grows Calmer 1: The Backpass 1

Major English dailies published articles pre and post the last international friendliest, the customary previews and reviews. One of such was an article in the Guardian that analyzed the ratio of backpasses per the national teams it surveyed. England's ratio was rather high.

Here's an extended quote from the article.

"

After England's 1-0 win over Sweden Fabio Capello seemed happy with his team's display with one exception: their tendency to pass the ball back to the goalkeepers, Joe Hart in the first half and Scott Carson in the second.

This is part of a wider trend for England and the other home nations. In the Euro 2012 qualifiers, 3.04% of England's passes went back to the keeper, the second-highest percentage of all 51 countries. Only Liechtenstein had a higher proportion. The Republic of Ireland, Wales and Northern Ireland were all in the top seven.

This suggest an inability to retain possession under pressure in midfield and defence, with British players taking the easier option of passing backwards for the keeper to kick long rather than shield the ball or pass to a team-mate who is marked.

"

The author, as you can see, concludes rather that England's backpassing is a bad thing. I couldn't help disagreeing when I read the article for the precise reason that backpassing can be a ball-retention strategy.

True, it's a panic button for most teams, or an indication of weakness in the midfield as the author points out; it doesn't, however, have to be so.

Barcelona FC, the team that came to my mind as read I the article, make strategic use of the back-pass to great effect, as the following slide demonstrates.

Wojciech Szczęsny Grows Calmer 2: Strategic Use of the Backpass

Victor Valdes, as we see here, is quite adept with his feet. Those who watch Barcelona matches would note that he rarely gets flustered by a backpass. On the contrary, he constantly seeks to present himself as a passing option in tight defensive situations.

Barcelona are, of course, economical with their possession and use it both as a tactical and psychological weapon. While Barcelona are by no means the measure of perfection in football, it has to be conceded, at least by the objective person, that they are excellent when it comes to ball possession.

This clip demonstrates how important Victor Valdes is to this strategy. He rarely, if ever, balloons the ball aimlessly upfield. If anything,  when he's cornered in a backpass situation, he normally opts for diagonal punts into touch.  This simple strategy allows the team to reorganize. They usually win back the ball rather quickly from the resultant throw-in.

The next slide discusses Sczcesny and the backpass.

(Many thanks to allasFCB2 for posting this clip on YouTube.)

Wojciech Szczęsny Grows Calmer 3: Aimless Punts

Aimlessly punting the ball upfield has been a major weakness of Szczęsny. Liverpool's last minute equalizer at the Emirates last season resulted from such a mindless punt upfield in the final minute of the game when it would have been better to pass to a defender or kick ball into touch.

See here for my previous discussion of this issue. Since that article in October, Szczęsny has shown better judgment in this particular aspect of his game. A relapse occurs once in a while, but by and large his distribution is better and he seems to realize the importance of strategically keeping the ball in the dying minutes to protect a lead.

This was particularly evident in the Wigan match. See the next slide.

Wojciech Szczęsny Grows Calmer 4: The Backpass 2

The scene in this picture is the first backpass of the match. It is also the first attack on goal, which fell to Wigan. Starting brightly, the Wigan midfield and attack put the Arsenal defense under immediate pressure.

Here, Victor Moses forces Laurent Koscielny to play a backpass to his goalkeeper. Wojciech Szczęsny tears out of his goal area to punt a diagonal ball upfield. What happened afterward is not really my concern here.

What is important is that he plays the ball into a space that favors Arsenal. His kick seemed intended to put the ball into touch near the halfway line. This would, of course, allow Arsenal to regroup and defend away from their goal area in an area of less pressure.

Although a Wigan player was able to prevent the ball from going into touch, Arsenal players were able to narrow the spaces around the player, forcing him to bass the ball backward toward his own goal.

Now, although this particular clearance could be dismissed as mere happenstance, Szczęsny's reactions and decisions in similar situations throughout the match indicate otherwise.

In this match, he picked out passes to his players where in the past he would have mindless ballooned the ball upfield and needlessly squandered possession. This is what less intelligent teams and goalkeepers do. 

It never ceases to annoy me when a team, which is playing second fiddle to its opponent in terms of possession, surrenders possession as soon as they win it through long and useless hopeful balls.

What's astounding is that they persist with the strategy despite its impotence. But it's never more annoying than when the ball is played to a goalkeeper who then—under no apparent pressure—simply launches it forward and gives it back to the opponent.

If this seems to you like quibbling over a minor detail, that's because you don't have a grasp of how important keeping possession is tactically.

It gave Spain her first World Cup title, Barcelona her current UEFA Champions League title at the expense of Manchester United. It allowed Borussia Mönchengladbach to make a meal out of  FC Köln in their Bundesliga Round 14 match last week.

Possession is the best form of defense (beside attack, of course). This is the current consensus among progressive tacticians.

Therefore, when Szczęsny passed the ball from backpass situations rather than simply kicking it upfield in hope that his players win it, he displayed a new dimension to his game.

This is a positive that contributes to Arsenal's new-found defensive calmness and deliberateness.

Let's hope he continues to develop this and make it part of his game as it is part of Victor Valdes'.

SECOND POSITIVE: Rectangles or Double Triangles 1

Arsenal and Barcelona are arguably the two most successful clubs in terms of keeping possession of the ball. Although every card-carrying analysts and most armchair pundits know that triangles have something to do with it, particularly when they talk about Barcelona, what many of them including coaches appear to miss is how exactly Barcelona make the triangles work.

There must be a trick to it, since many an imitator has failed to emulate Barcelona. In my analysis of the Arsenal-Dortmund Champions League match, I made passing reference to this trick. Find the article here.

In reference to Alex Song in that article I had said:

"

Noteworthy, though, is what Song does off the ball: He collapses Arsenal’s triangle to receive the ball (the arrow indicates the direction of his movement). This is noteworthy because many teams expand (rather than collapse) their spaces, which is why these teams are unable to replicate Barcelona’s ball retention.

Barcelona—to continue the example—incessantly collapse their triangles to receive the ball from the possessing player instead of making premature movement away from the triangle. The effect of collapsing the triangle is reassuring to the holding player, which is why Barcelona players are seldom ruffled under pressure.

"

It is a simple but profound fact. I'll urge you to watch Barcelona vis-à-vis less successive teams in possession to test the soundness of my analysis.

Any team that possesses the ball well displays excellent movement off the ball. This has a lot to do with moving towards rather than away from the possessing player. Why Barcelona are more successful than other team owes to their adroitness at this, beside their shrewd use of modulating formation.

Arsenal do the same but in a different way. I will not talk about the difference here, since this is not my purpose. What I will show in the following slides is how Arsenal's improved fluidity and calmness has come about. This positive quality, which has always been a hallmark of all Arsenal teams of the Wenger era, was prominently evident in the Wigan match. 

Rectangles or Double Triangles 2

A lot of Wigan's success in the first 15 minutes of the game had to do with the fact that they tried to out-Arsenal Arsenal by moving the ball quickly and by precise movement off the ball.

This troubled Arsenal, until like Floyd Mayweather—pardon my reference to boxing—they figured out their opponent. The details of how they did this I will not discuss.

Suffice to say that Arsenal's movement off the ball in those first 15 minutes was a shard out of rhythm. But once they found a comfortable rhythm, they appeared transformed.

The big positive in this game was how they employed what I consider rectangles rather prosaically, but which I'd rather call double triangles.

See the next slide.

Rectangles or Double Triangles 3

What you see here are five players, using strategic positioning to form either four abstractive triangles or three rectangles. The positioning itself is quite ordinary. You can abstract this from any team. The difference lies in the movement a team makes, which is why Arsenal tend to dominate possession.

Please, refer to the replay of the match if you have access to one. What you'll find is an incessant rhythmic movement off the ball from Arsenal players, whereby they collapse these triangles (or rectangles) to offer options for the possessing player. The arrows in the picture illustrate this.

The rightward Arsenal players have each two options for their movement, which is either to move inward or outward. This depends on what happens with the ball. Notice that in the present position, they seem inclined to move inward.

I have culled several more examples to buttress this point and to banish any sense of arbitrariness. Since you can read the pictures yourself, I only give scathing comments to accompany them.

Rectangles or Double Triangles 4

Triangles or rectangles in attack.

Rectangles or Double Triangles 5

Triangles and rectangles under attack.

Rectangles or Double Triangles 6

Keeping possession.

THIRD POSITIVE: Rotating Apex and Fulcrum 1

Since Alex Song's jaw-dropping heroics against Borrusia Dortmund in their Champions League match, he has found new licence to more and more maraud forward.

This means he is no longer merely the holding midfielder. It also means that Arteta is called upon to drop deeper more and more to provide the needed cover when Song moves forward. But as Arteta's movement before his goal against Wigan shows, he is not, by any means, restricted, either.

The larger implication is that the midfield three are now playing a modulating triangle in their formation rather than a strict and fixed one.

The default formation in the midfield is a triangle of 2-1, where Aaron Ramsey occupies the tip, with Song on the lower left and Arteta on the lower right. At this default position, Arteta plays the box-to-box role while Song holds.

The midfield's new periodic modulation means that the default position is often changing to 1-2 and back, with either Song or Arteta joining Ramsey on the inverted tips of the triangle. The positive here is that it poses marking problems for the opposition while contributing to both attack and defense in accordance to the demand of the changing situation of the match.

Rotating Apex and Fulcrum 2

Whereas normally and traditionally it is the wingers that periodically change position during a match, the new dimension to Arsenal at Wigan was the rotation of all three attackers of the team.

You'd recall that at some point Robin Van Persie moved to the right wing while Gervinho moved to the central striking position. And although this switch in central positioning did not involve Theo Walcott in a substantial way, he has in past matches briefly exchanged positions with Van Persie.

What was noteworthy was the fact that in brief moments throughout the match, Van Persie would drop deep as though playing in the supporting striking role. The effect of this must be unsettling for the opposing defense. It also affords different attacking options to the team as the match progresses.

This fluidity in attack is a big positive. Barcelona are successful with the approach, which is why they don't have an out-and-out striker. The present point may have contributed to the diversity in scoring in this particular match, even if albeit the first two may not be a direct result of it.

FOURTH POSITIVE: New Dynamism in Finishing

Four of Arsenal's goals from their last three matches have resulted from set pieces or set-piece-like situations. Recall Alex Song's lofted ball in the Dortmund game which Robin Van Persie headed home. Thomas Vermaelen's equalizer against Fulham came from a similar ball, this time floated into the area by Theo Walcott.

The other two of the four came from set pieces—the Vermaelen touch off of an Arteta corner in the Dortmund game, which enabled Van Persie to blast home, and Van Persie's floated ball to the back post, which Vermaelen headed home in the Wigan game.

The positive here is that Arsenal are no longer dependent on their trademark way of scoring which involves walking the ball into the net. They're demonstrating instead that they can now score through different means, such as shots at goals (think the Chelsea game and Arteta's three goals).

The other aspect of this very point is demonstrated in Vermaelen, who represent a genuine threat in front of the opposition goal. Walcott began the season scoring. Gervinho rediscovered the art at Wigan. This further highlights the stupidity of the oxymoron still making the rounds, namely, that Arsenal is a one man team. Nonsense!

FIFTH POSITIVE: Collective Defending

When Theo Walcott ran for about a 100 yards last week to make a defensive tackle in midfield, he was not only demonstrating a new dimension to his game but of the team as a whole.

Andre Arshavin of all people was at one point in the Wigan match the last line of defense. He made a last ditch tackle to stop a Wigan attacker from breaching Arsenal's defense. Granted, the linesman's flag would have saved Arsenal had the Wigan player succeeded in breaching the said defense, but that's beside the point. 

If there's one thing that makes this Arsenal team different from its immediate predecessor, it is its collective defending. While this quality is not as yet perfect, it does represents a step forward for the team. And it may be the difference between the team falling apart in the coming month or pushing ahead grittily for the top-four finish.

Conclusion

These are only five of the positive things clearly discernible in this current Arsenal team. The team hasn't arrived yet, but it shows signs that it's on its way. These five positive are only a few of those.

The reader is welcome to contribute his or her own observations. It is proper though to salute Wenger for his good work.