Film Focus: How Manchester United's Defense Shackled Arsenal in 1-0 Victory

Manchester United's 1-0 victory over Arsenal at Old Trafford this weekend wasn't exactly what you'd call an instant Premier League classic or truly memorable victory.

There wasn't an abundance of goals from the Red Devils; there wasn't the full brilliance of Aaron Ramsey or Mesut Ozil that has hallmarked the Premier League season so far. Granted there were glimpses of both of them, but neither defined the final outcome of the match.

Surprisingly, the difference between the two teams was ultimately the defensive fortitude of United, who have been much maligned for their supposed weaknesses at the back this season.

After Robin van Persie's header after 27 minutes of play gave them the lead, the defending league champions successfully managed to hold off the midfield brilliance of the Gunners and walked away seemingly in the running for the Premier League title once more.

But how did United's defense—thought to be one of the more vulnerable in the league at times—stop Arsenal's all-conquering, free-flowing, attacking brilliance?

Let's break down the film and find out.

Doing a Job on Olivier Giroud

Arsenal's success this season has seemingly been defined by the likes of Ramsey and Ozil, but it's also important to note how central Giroud has been also.

The French striker has become an integral part of their attacking setup, dropping back to receive a pass from midfield before releasing a teammate with a well-timed pass or flick. His runs to the near post have caused havoc for even the best defenses in Europe, and thus he came into this one with a deceptive amount of influence on the Gunners' hopes of success.

What United did was eliminate him from coming back to the midfield.

Having dropped Rio Ferdinand from their starting lineup for Jonny Evans, Manchester United had a much faster and physically tougher setup than in previous weeks. That allowed them to remain very tight to Giroud and cover him whenever he looked to play with his back to goal. 

The image below shows how Jones tracks Giroud perfectly when he looks to come back and receive a pass—forcing a turnover from the Gunners forward.

The same goes for Evans when the ball was played in aerially to Giroud.

Statistics from Squawka show just how ineffective the French international was at winning duels on the night, and the biggest reason behind that was the constant pressure that United applied on him—even when he wasn't sitting on their last man in defense and trying to get in behind the lines.

They understood the need to eliminate Giroud from getting his back to goal and linking up with the likes of Ozil and Santi Cazorla, and in eliminating him, they did a great job of getting through the first 25 minutes of the match unscathed. And as fate would have it, it was a turnover by Giroud (courtesy of great pressure) that eventually won the decisive corner for Manchester United.

It was a fantastic example of how to play against a big, ball-playing forward like Giroud, and what's more, it was an immaculate display of how to do it without playing a ridiculously high line. For with the Frenchman dropping back all the time, that's exactly what could have happened.

Instead, United allowed one of their central defenders to follow Giroud, while the other sat a little deeper and waited for the ball to fall in behind.

In the images above, this is highlighted through the blue circles.

Manchester United didn't allow Giroud to drag their line out of shape, employing the same tactics used in a midfield double-pivot to their two central defenders.

In the end, it worked wonders.

How to Defend Against the Gunners' Wide Midfielders

It goes without saying that Arsenal—at the moment—have one of the best attacking midfields not only in the Premier League but also right across Europe.

Ramsey is on fire; Ozil is world-class; Santi Cazorla is a constant threat.

Well-served in terms of possession from Mikel Arteta and Mathieu Flamini, shutting down this trio was always going to be the biggest ask for United, and it was one that they responded to in fine style. It wasn't always glamorous, but importantly, it was effective.

What Manchester United did was use their wingers very narrow in defense.

Shinji Kagawa isn't the greatest one-on-one defender by a long way in United's squad, so what David Moyes tried to do was use him in a more central role defensively that allowed him to pick up the runs of Ramsey and Cazorla when they came in from the flanks. The same happened for Antonio Valencia, who operated in a similar way to the Japanese international out on the right flank.

They tucked themselves inside the full-backs and defended that area rather than chasing the likes of Ozil and Ramsey out to the wide areas that they love to operate in.

We could see this clearly from very early on in the game.

The image below highlights the manner in which Valencia is defending on Ozil. He knows that the German loves to roam from the wing and cut inside, so he anticipates the movement by positioning himself inside right-back Chris Smalling (who will pick up the overlapping Kieran Gibbs).

The ramifications of this position for Valencia (and Kagawa) are numerous, but the most important was that it kept United's central pairing on the right track.

Michael Carrick remained central, and Jones didn't get pulled off his man.

When Manchester United played Real Madrid last year, Jones was deployed in a somewhat strange defensive midfield position by Sir Alex Ferguson designed to shut down the central runs of Cristiano Ronaldo. And for the most part, it was a move that worked a treat.

However, when it didn't work was when Jones was faced with multiple No. 10s, which was when Angel di Maria came across from the right wing to the left-hand side.

Jones didn't know who to pick up all the time—di Maria or Ronaldo.

The one time when he did pick up Di Maria, Ronaldo was essentially unmarked in the middle to power a glorious header into the net, which ultimately cost the Red Devils.

Moyes was keen to ensure that such a move didn't happen again here, which, given how free-flowing Arsenal's attacking trio have become, seemed pertinent to United's cause in defense.

Tucking his wingers in allowed this to happen.

Instead of having Ozil and/or Ramsey linking up with Cazorla centrally and leaving Jones with a nightmare situation, Valencia and Kagawa picked up the wide men for just a few seconds longer—allowing Jones to establish a good position on Cazorla's movement.

It was also very effective in ensuring that the man whose job it was to hold Manchester United's shape together—Michael Carrick—didn't get pulled out of position.

In the image above, he's perfectly ahead of the centre-backs and not being pulled out to the flanks in cover for an Arsenal attacker who's broken through the line. 

That was key for United in keeping Arsenal at bay early in this one and allowed the Red Devils to grab the all-important opening goal after 27 minutes.

Scoring first meant that Manchester United could play rather conservative in defense and not press as far up the field as they had earlier. In turn, that would take away the biggest threat that Arsenal had coming into this game: their ability to get in between the lines of the Red Devils.

Because United's midfield was dropping deeper, there simply wasn't as much space for Arsenal to effectively execute their previously deadly passing game.

Again, much of that was set up by the tucking in of United's wingers.

It's important to note, also, that by tucking in, United's wingers were by no means not actually wingers. They were played closer to the middle of the field in defense than perhaps a regular winger would defend, but they were also good at not getting pulled too central.

Bacary Sagna started to expose this a little on Ryan Giggs late in the piece, but for the most part United's wide men balanced the need to both tuck in and stay wide all at the same time. The series of images below on Valencia and Ozil shows this well.

Ozil is being marked by the winger, but he'll quickly move into the space that's about to be vacated by the run of Ramsey. Valencia seems the most likely option to mark him on this run, but that would take the defender away from his wing, which isn't what the plan is.

Valencia—being the winger—still needs to remain wide on Gibbs.

Look here as he passes Ozil on to Evans to pick up, freeing Valencia to track the run of Gibbs and shut down the cross-field ball to him.

He drifts wide to track Gibbs, and the play develops down the other wing.

Seconds later, though, Gibbs has remained wide while Ozil has dropped off Evans to a similar line as he did when Valencia was first making him. Instead of staying wide, Valencia again tracks back in to the middle of the field and is therefore ready to pick up the run of Ozil.

In turn, that allows both Jones and Carrick to remain central and not leave the dangerous Cazorla open for a shot at the top of the 18-yard box.

United's double-pivots in midfield were largely credited for shutting down the likes of Ozil and Ramsey on the night, but while they played a large role, they were by no means the deciding factor. That should be reserved for both Valencia and Kagawa, who were particularly instrumental in cutting off the passing angles for Arsenal and not allowing their midfield trio the freedom to roam that they would have desired.

Without Theo Walcott, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain or Lukas Podolski in the starting lineup, Moyes knew that Arsenal weren't going to have much direct running ability down the flanks and that he could afford to take a risk with his wide men.

And even without being the greatest defenders, this allowed both Valencia and Kagawa to essentially shut down the most in-form duo in the league.

An Everton-esque tactic if ever there was one from Moyes.

A Final Note on Zonal Marking

Completely aside from Manchester United's defense for a moment, I wanted to finish this article with a quick reference to Arsenal's zonal marking.

Again, it proved to be the difference in this one.

Defending the space inside the box instead of the man, the Gunners were again caught out by a well-timed run, and, for many, this has again raised the question of whether zonal marking or man to man is the better tactic. And in the light of this game, it's important to note that they both have advantages and disadvantages.

Giroud is seemingly the man at fault for not picking up van Persie's run and allowing him to essentially get a free header (or close enough to it) inside the six-yard box.

But the truth is that this isn't Giroud's fault.

In a zonal-marking scheme, Giroud's role at the front post is to watch the ball. He isn't tasked with blocking the run of the man—that's for Ramsey ahead of him.

Thomas Vermaelen (who was only playing in Per Mertesacker's absence) gets in the way of the Frenchman slightly, which delays him getting right in front of the near post, but even then, it's hard to knock the positioning from Giroud. He's done exactly what he should do, and he has eyes only for the ball.

Ramsey needs to get in the way of van Persie and not allow him what was essentially a 10-yard run-up. For me, this is more on Ramsey than it is Giroud.

But it does raise an interesting question surrounding corners. At this point, Arsenal have dropped everyone into the box, yet their main aerial man in Giroud is beaten in the air—showing the all-important truth that there is more skill involved in defending the front post than it seems.

When Fernando Torres was going through a slump last year, then-manager Rafa Benitez remarked that El Nino was still playing a very important role in the team.

"It's not just scoring goals," Benitez said in his defense, as reported by BBC Sport. "If you analyse the [defending at] corners in games he was amazing. He was two or three times clearing the ball and afterwards doing man-to-man marking. It's what he had to do."

Perhaps now we're seeing just how big of a compliment that was and just how difficult it is to effectively defend the front post. Strikers in particular don't possess the same defensive awareness that a centre-back does, and as this game showed, teams are seemingly taking a risk if they want their forwards to try and play the role of a central defender on corners.

Certainly some food for thought for the weeks ahead.

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