Arsenal vs. Stoke City: Tactical Review of Premier League Game

Arsenal destroyed Stoke City 3-0 on Sunday, moving temporarily level with Southampton in fourth place and gaining revenge after December's debacle at the Britannia Stadium.

Alexis Sanchez scored twice after Laurent Koscielny opened the scoring early on. Let's take a tactical look at how this game played out.

Formations and XIs

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Arsenal began in a flat 4-3-3, with Santi Cazorla in central midfield alongside Tomas Rosicky and ahead of Francis Coquelin. Alexis Sanchez played from the left with Olivier Giroud up front.

Stoke City played their typical 4-2-3-1, with Marko Arnautovic left, Bojan behind the striker and Jonathan Walters on the right. Philipp Wollscheid made his debut in the heart of the defence.

1. Cazorla in the No. 10 Space

A key failure of many teams running the 4-3-3 is their inability to occupy or blasphemous ignorance of the No. 10 space. That's the area of the pitch you'd expect a classic No. 10—think Juan Roman Riquelme—to utilise.

A flat 4-3-3 can have serious issues breaking teams with two holding midfielders down if they fail to penetrate that area, and a disconnect between the lone striker and the midfield can appear.

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Arsenal have been hugely guilty of this at times this season, but Cazorla was instrumental in pushing forward, troubling Steven N'Zonzi's area and linking all of the lines together on Sunday.

He played LCM in the three and often moved forward with the ball at his feet, thus attracting markers and freeing up other areas of the pitch. Tomas Rosicky was a big beneficiary of this; his powerful run and strike in the first half from RCM illustrated this.

Arsenal ticked over nicely from the start, and the entire formation looked fluid. Cazorla was the key cog.

2. Alexis Surges

The other major first-half weapon Arsenal boasted was Alexis Sanchez and his daring runs. Operating from the left-hand side but cutting in, the Chilean picked up the ball deep and dribbled vertically early and often, flummoxing Stoke's defence.

The Potters were all over the place attempting to keep a lid on Cazorla, and Alexis simply added to their woes. His ability to break between the lines and make tacklers miss opens up so much for the rest of the midfield.

It's the exact dynamic Real Madrid have lost post-Angel Di Maria, and it's the exact dynamic Real Madrid require to get anywhere against bitter rivals Atletico Madrid. A player who can cause chaos with some positivity and mazy dribbling is worth his weight in gold.

3. Stoke's Plethora of Issues

Stoke's game plan was terrible. It didn't help that Arsenal started fast and carried on that way, but systematically the Potters struggled to string anything together.

Where the Gunners' fluency linked the lines via Cazorla, the polar opposite could be seen from the away side. Crouch was utterly isolated, and Walters for some reason kept creeping into his area to distort the formation and crowd the duel for the first header from the long ball.

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It gave Stoke very little in terms of a support net to catch the knockdown from Crouch and often skewed the system so it looked more 4-3-1-2, with Bojan too deep and 50 yards between defence and attack.

Furthermore, the team managed just 20 crosses, per WhoScored.com, with many coming in the second half after Marc Muniesa had been substituted on. Stoke's obvious advantage against Arsenal, their aerial threat, was criminally underused.

4. Counters between the CBs and FBs

The game stretched late with Stoke 3-0 down, and Wenger switched his side to take advantage of it. Giroud came off, and Alexis took the central striker's role, with Theo Walcott replacing the excellent Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain on the right.

As soon as the ball was won in the defensive third, Alexis became the quick ball forward to get Arsenal two vs. three or two vs. two. Cazorla began picking beautiful, cutting through balls in between the centre-backs and in the spaces between the centre-backs and full-backs.

Alexis set Walcott through on goal in unselfish fashion, but the winger missed badly to make it four and crown his return. It was one of two or three clear chances created in a stretched final 15 minutes in a deadly counter-attacking setup.

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