Arsenal vs. Dortmund: Chances and Positioning Show a Maturing Arsenal

In Borussia Dortmund, Arsenal met a sharp and well-organized side.

From the opening whistle of their UEFA Champions League Round Five encounter, Dortmund's game plan became immediately clear—disrupt Arsenal's midfield and thus prevent the team's accustomed passing game.

They did this by pressing very quickly, allowing little breathing room for players possessing the ball. This worked very well in the first half, especially in the first 15 minutes, with Alex Song dispossessed a few times, Aaron Ramsey finding a number of his passes intercepted and Mikel Arteta placed under constant pressure and unable to exert his authority.

Although this game plan disrupted Arsenal's normal cohesiveness and gave Dortmund most of the control of the first quarter of the game, Arsenal—contrary to their past reaction to similar situations where they would fall apart—did not lose their composure, but slowly worked themselves into the match.

The players seldom looked ruffled—if at all—even when they lost possession of the ball. Song slowly found a foothold as the game progressed. Ramsey began picking out passes, and Arteta began dictating the pace of the game from the midfield.

The following slides expand on the foregoing through an analysis of Arsenal's positioning leading to two of their non-scoring chances.

Arsenal's First Chance

A cross-field clearance from the Dortmund defense, tending diagonally to the rightward side of Arsenal’s area, descended towards Marcel Schmelzer and Laurent Koscielny. With both players rising to head it, Schmelzer beat Koscielny to the ball and redirected it upfield, towards the Arsenal goal.

Per Metersacker’s defensive header looped over a trio of Dortmund players and found Alex Song, who was a few yards from both he and Koscielny. (See the next slide.) Song controlled the ball and was immediately pressed by the Dortmund trio—Schmelzer, Mats Hummels and Shinji Kagawa.

Song, who faced towards Koscielny and appeared intent on making a pass to the latter, turned swiftly—doubling back on his tracks—and momentarily lost his markers.

Solid red arrows indicate direction of Song's movement. 

Solid yellow arrows show the movement of Dortmund players.

Broken arrows indicate the movement of the ball: yellow for Dortmund and red for Arsenal.

How Arsenal Coped with Dortmund's Pressing

What is interesting here is the position of each team’s players. Two of Dortmund’s player pressed Metersacker and Thomas Vermaelen, with two keeping tabs on Koscielny.

In the opening 15 minutes of the game, Arsenal’s midfield was unable to settle. Dortmund pressed very quickly for the ball and frequently broke up passes.

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 many 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 for the holding player, which is why Barcelona players are seldom ruffled under pressure (they posses technically skill as well, of course).

Notice here how the trio of Metersacker, Koscielny and Song form a nice triangle around Dortmund players.

Ramsey in Turn Collapses the Next Triangle

The press on Song continued.

Note how Ramsey collapsed the space between the two (unbroken arrow indicates the direction of Ramsey's movement). He was thus in position to retain possession. A movement away from the ball, with the kind of pressing that Dortmund employed would cut the chances of ball retention drastically. Notice how Dortmund marshaled the spaces around Song and Ramsey.

Ramsey's Decision Indicates Team Understanding

Ramsey, like Song had done earlier, changed direction after receiving the ball. Dortmund players closed him down immediately; he doesn’t, however, dwell on the ball, but with a good display of vision and apparently working on default knowledge of team movement off the ball (from practice), launched an incisive pass across Dortmund's defense line to release Theo Walcott.

Walcott beats the offside trap and runs into space to meet the looped pass.

Notice Arsenal's two triangles of Song, Ramsey, Robin van Persie and Walcott. Also, notice how Dortmund pressed Ramsey with their own triangle, an exemplar of their pressing strategy in the game. Note also how Ramsey's pass nullified Dortmund's defense line.

The German Defense Is Breached

Walcott was face-to-face with Roman Weidenfeller, and only the Dortmund keeper's alertness saved the German side from conceding on the 20th minute of the match.

I should note here that although van Persie was a passing option for Ramsey, the latter, in passing to Walcott instead, made the right choice in this circumstance.

Arsenal's Second Chance, the Build-Up

After a Dortmund scoring chance was averted—a well-worked and dangerous one at that—Wojciech Szczesny threw the ball to Andre Santos. Dortmund had the spaces in front of them covered, as can be seen from the picture.

What is noteworthy here, though, is how amidst Dortmund’s unrelenting pressing strategy, Arsenal displayed intelligent use of personnel.  The trio of Santos (on the ball), Arteta (at the lower right corner of the picture) and Vermaelen (No. 5), all have a man on them. Song, however, played the role of the extra person in a defensive situation, thus being free to cover the possessing player.

It Begins at the Back

Prevented from moving forward, Santos passed the ball across Vermaelen and behind Song to Metersacker. The latter then passed to Laurent Koscielny.

By skipping Vermaelen, Santos sent the ball to an area of less pressure, an intelligent decision. Notice how Koscielny both made himself available to receive the ball while scanning his options as well.

Neat Triangles with the Ball

Koscielny launched a scything  ball to Walcott, who redirected it with a deft touch to Ramsey, cutting out the two-man cover on him with the touch. He used his pace to advance beyond the nearest man on him to receive the ball. It was the classic doppelpass, and Ramsey read Walcott’s intention perfectly.

A Game of Curve Balls

Walcott loses his man, advances a few yards and then releases a deliciously weighted ball into space. It was reminiscent of Ju-Young Park’s goal against Bolton Wanderers in the Carling Cup and the best of Arsenal’s striking heroes of yesteryear.  

It was an attempt to take out both the nearside defender and the goalkeeper by the deceptively curving ball. In this, Walcott showed sign of greatness.

Weidenfeller to the Rescue

Weidenfeller was again alert to the danger and saved from van Persie, who was set to smash home.

Conclusion

Other chances fell to both sides. Gervinho's one-on-one with Weidenfeller was just one ready example. In point of fact, Dortmund got the first chance of the game when Robert Lewandowski was put through by Kagawa in the very first minute of the game. The first chance of the second half would fall to Dortmund as well, with Kagawa forcing a save from Szczesny.

This, then, was not a one-sided affair. The point of this article is to demonstrate how Arsenal were able to carve out chances from a side that pressed well and played crisply and sharply. Arsenal's ability to do so, to me, represents a sign of growth. Their impalpability in the face of a difficult start to their midfield and in tight defensive situations is another.

This, hopefully, is a sign that finally the ragged team of two months ago has turned the corner and should inspire them to cover more ground in the premiership.