Sadly, Arsenal hasn’t managed to fully turn their season around. The away draw with Chelsea was damage control, but the most important outcome is – the power balance between the two teams hasn’t shifted.
After a pretty cautious first half, Chelsea seemed ready to settle on a home draw. They only dominated for a short period in the second half when they were behind. As soon as they equalised, our team again and again recycled the ball and tried to create a dangerous chance. And the current attacking flow of Arsenal doesn’t have enough spice to score more goals.
It was encouraging to see that we didn’t get sucked into a game of fast-paced attacks, as Chelsea’s main strength this season is their lightning-fast transitions. Arsenal were quite quick to regroup after losing the ball.
Neutralising Chelsea
Maresca tried to outsmart Arteta by shifting Palmer on the unusual right side. Clever as this was, I think it backfired to the Italian. Arsenal’s left eight is constantly moving up and down the pitch, while Partey stays deep in the midfield. This made it easy for Thomas to track Palmer. Poor Cole got forced out wide to get the ball.
While we handled Palmer brilliantly, we lacked in-game intelligence to identify other threats. It’s crucial for both players and managers to recognise who’s having a standout game. Neto was electric: he got booked for shouting at the referee, he got Ben White booked with an Oscar-worthy performance, and he constantly tracked back to close down Saka. The coaching staff had the break to realise that Neto should be marked at the expense of other Chelsea players. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen. Rice got out of position, and although it looked like the team had enough time to get back into position, Neto moved into the centre and was given the opportunity to equalise, which he grabbed with both hands. It’s funny the psychological phenomenon where players often have their best games against clubs that are interested in them.
Attacking Issues Remain?
Captain Odegaard was back in the starting line-up – surely a sign that the crisis was over, right? He looked quite fit in the first half, leading our press, identifying spaces, and giving instructions to teammates. He also pulled off a lovely assist in the second half. However, as brilliant as he is, he started to tire after the 70th minute. We could have used 10-15 minutes of Nwaneri. I understand it’s hard to take off Odegaard when you’re chasing a winner, but Jesus and Trossard were passengers in this game, which wasn’t a surprise given their previous performances.
We need to have an honest discussion about Martinelli. He scored a goal, showing decisiveness and confidence, but the bigger picture is that he has no support on the left side.
His best matches by xG output (highlighted in red) were exactly the ones where he had Calafiori’s support on the left. Arteta’s attacking setup doubles down on the right side, where Saka has the support of creative Odegaard and overlapping wing-backs. Meanwhile, the left side is almost abandoned. Timber is drifting into the middle and Rice or Merino aren’t exactly creative types for Martinelli to combine with. This makes it easier for opponents to defend against us. They double up on Saka on the right, nullifying most of the threat. Martinelli still puts in crosses, but his potential targets, Havertz and Saka, rarely win their duels.
Martinelli’s only option is to dribble past opponents into the box and hope to find a teammate with a cut back. I think we sacrifice too much defensive stability by leaving out a wing-back who can combine with Martinelli.
So, What Now?
We’re 9 points behind Liverpool and 4 points behind City. While the gap with City seems manageable, Liverpool are already too far ahead. The main reason for Liverpool’s shining is that teams are well prepared to nullify Arsenal’s strengths after seasons of studying us. This isn’t the case for Slot’s Liverpool.
Their setup is quite common: they sit deep in a 4-2-4 (or even 4-3-3 towards the end), inviting the opponent to have possession of the ball. Then they explode on the counter-attack, sending three players forward and creating 2-on-1 situations near the opponent’s goal. We saw four similar episodes against Villa. Decent teams like Brighton and Villa are falling for this. Only old fox Nuno has set up his Nottingham Forest properly, inviting Liverpool to attack instead. The league will adjust at some point, but by then, we might be too far behind.
The difference between two pictures is 4 seconds
Arsenal, on the other hand, sets up in a 4-4-2 with only two players ready to counter, one of whom is a playmaker who drops back instead of running behind the defenders. Our wingers, Saka and Martinelli, start so deep that they don’t have enough time to get into dangerous positions.
We can only wait and see how this develops, but unless we can pull out 7 straight victories by Christmas, we might be too far from the leaders to win the league.