Arsenal Tactics

Tactics for next season????? firstly i think wenger needs to decide what HIS BEST TEAM IS and cultivate it in pre season. Never really thought weve known what our best line up is this season which isnt really a platform for stability. Guess its because key players returning from injuries, key players dipping in form, settling into new league, making wrong people captains ect..

-------------------new goalkeeper
pls stay sagna---mertesacker---kos--------monreal/gibbs
-------------DM(YEEEEEES)----arteta/ramsey
-------------------wilshere-----------cazorla
walcott----------NEW STRIKER

OR play wilshere alongside new dm and play cazorla central????

Starting from the back, I still believe Szczesny has the potential to grow into a very good keeper so I wouldn't too bothered if he were no. 1 next season. Equally, if we sign as established keeper like Caballero or Adler, I wouldn't complain.

In the back four, provided Sagna stays, I'd like him, Koscielny, Mertesacker and Gibbs. Vermaelen, as has been well documented, is a bit too hit and miss to be a starter. In an ideal world, I'd like us to buy a real top class centre half to play alongside Koscielny, but the chances of that happening are pretty slim, so Mertesacker would have to do. At left back, I prefer Gibbs, as he's better at supporting the attacking and making overlapping runs than Monreal, who, so far, seems a bit reluctant to move into advanced areas down the flank. Gibbs has proved to be a danger this season with his runs in behind defences, though his final product needs work.

I'm not fussed if Cazorla plays central or not next season, as I think we play well regardless. We keep possession better when we play with an extra midfielder and Cazorla on the left, but we look more dangerous and more likely to create chances when he's in the middle and Podolski is on the left, albeit we're not in control of the ball as much.

Regardless, Wilshere has to play in an advanced role. I know he played the majority of his games as a CM alongside a supposed DM (Song, Arteta) behind an AM (Cesc), but as I've said before, I don't think Wilshere's at his best when he has to defend. I believe he's more effective when given the freedom to go forward.

For the sake of balance, then, he needs a solid platform behind him. At the moment, that platform seems to be Arteta and Ramsey, but I kind of see those two together as being somewhat redundant in that Ramsey seems to be developing into a player who plays deeper in midfield like Arteta is doing for us right now. Between Arteta's intelligence and Ramsey work ethic, they offer decent defensive protection and they're obviously excellent passers of the ball, but ultimately I feel they're a bit too similar. We'd have a better balanced midfield with a strong player alongside one of them; someone who's good on the ball but has the ability to hassle opponents and win the ball back.

Up front, I'm happy with Walcott on the right and Podolski or Cazorla on the left. The real question is which type of striker we should be looking at to the lead the line. A clinical striker would be great since we have a lot of creativity in the side already, but at the same time, Walcott, Cazorla and Podolski are capable of 15+ goals a season, so we may not need a 25+ goals per season striker. Ideally, our striker needs to be able to move well and create space and chances for the wide forwards and midfielders. Giroud can do this but isn't clinical enough in front of goal (though 17 goals is a decent return for his debut season). I think I'd be happy whichever way we go.

So something like this would be the way I'd go:

new striker is an absolute must imo. Giroud is not good enough at link up, he is too slow and gives the ball away too much, added to that he isnt clinical and that hurts us a lot against top teams where you cant afford to be wasteful, also the top teams nullify his link up by closing his space.

inb4someonementionsthattapinagainstbayern

Bench: Szczesny, Mertesacker, Monreal, Ramsey/Arteta, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Podolski, Giroud

Is what I hope to see next season... if we don't sign a GK I won't mind Szczesny but a CB, DM, CF absolute must for me.

i thoroughly believe Giroud has it to play as the lone CF at Arsenal.. his physical holdup and interlink play offers us a unique style which we never had.. we just need another option, ie a different type of striker, a more technical one with good finishing.. which neednt be a 30 million striker to replace him.. we can alternate between them according to the opponents and their form.. the team looks better this season when everyone contributes to scoring than having one prolific goal scorer..

urbaNRoots wrote:

GK
Sagna CB Koscielny Gibbs
DM Arteta/Ramsey
Walcott Wilshere Cazorla
CF

Bench: Szczesny, Mertesacker, Monreal, Ramsey/Arteta, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Podolski, Giroud

Is what I hope to see next season... if we don't sign a GK I won't mind Szczesny but a CB, DM, CF absolute must for me.

Think Walcott needs some competition preferably someone who can dribble and create and is not a headless chicken with the first touch of Snorlax from Pokemon.

That aside i agree with your overall thinking.

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This team would be good enough.++++ are new signings. Rest Squad should stay same.

GoonerJay29 wrote:Arsenal aren't best suited to play a man marking system with their current players because it requires players to match up based on their size and physicality and that means there's a high chance of mis-matches. For example, our tallest defender, Mertesacker, would have to mark a taller player on the other team, but he can be bullied very easily by strong players. Then imagine the likes of Gibbs, Arteta, Wilshere and Cazorla having to man mark players who are bigger and stronger than them. It's just not viable.

Zonal has similar problems in that a player can run into the zone of a player he feels he'd have a definite advantage of, but you can mitigate that problem by marking closer to the edge of the penalty area instead of across the six yard box. The deeper you are, the more susceptible you are to a player "getting a run" on your defenders. Equally, the higher up you are, the more space there is for the ball to be played into, so defenders need to be aware of runners. Our defenders are better equipped to do the latter than the former, hence we use a zonal marking system.

This is all before you even consider the role of the goalkeeper; how assertive he is when coming out to claim to balls into the box and how well he can organise the players.

Top quality post, as ever, from Jay - in the Rumours thread. It definitely should be here with the tactics discussion too, imo.

Background: AW is set in his ways to stick with Zonal marking, despite how many goals we concede in set pieces.

Also, is it just me or have we been better this season with set pieces than in previous seasons? Any statistics?

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:

urbaNRoots wrote:

GK
Sagna CB Koscielny Gibbs
DM Arteta/Ramsey
Walcott Wilshere Cazorla
CF

Bench: Szczesny, Mertesacker, Monreal, Ramsey/Arteta, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Podolski, Giroud

Is what I hope to see next season... if we don't sign a GK I won't mind Szczesny but a CB, DM, CF absolute must for me.

Think Walcott needs some competition preferably someone who can dribble and create and is not a headless chicken with the first touch of Snorlax from Pokemon.

That aside i agree with your overall thinking.

We have him already his name is Chamberlain, he's versatile enough to play either flank and will continue to improve

Btw urban you want to sell rosicky and verm then? Think they'd both be useful bench players but I guess if we buy a CB verm has to go or suffer not even being a squad player

Gonalons would provide us a good tactical variation I guess. Atm we are basically pinned to playing the arteta Ramsey pivot as its the only option that enables a solid defensive balance. It would be good to have gonalons to free up the other mids and if he doesn't play for some reason it's good to be able to revert to another system that works quite well (arteta Ramsey pivot)

Looks like we are trying to sign jovetic, would be excellent. Mobile, good technically, link up excellent, these players would improve us so much as a whole (my opinion)

Experienced keeper too on the cards to just ease szczesney responsibility

Let's hope we are not being deceived again....

Would just like to keep sagna another season, make bellerin back up and hope he's ready for the season after to be our Phillip Lahm


--------------Adler
Sagna----CB---kos---monreal
-----------gonalons--------
------Ramsey-------wilshere
Theo-------jovetic---cazorla

Some debatable choices I know

Bench: szczesney, Gibbs, mertesacker, arteta, podolski, Chamberlain .....(rosicky or giroud)

Diego Armando Maradona wrote:Btw urban you want to sell rosicky and verm then? Think they'd both be useful bench players but I guess if we buy a CB verm has to go or suffer not even being a squad player

Rosicky no, Vermaelen yes. Rosicky can still be an awesome squad player then we'll have three very good AM's in our squad in Rosicky, Cazorla and Wilshere.

I could do with Vermaelen but I doubt he'll want to be 4th choice, so would rather sell him and use the money to sign a better CB.

As for your suggestions... not debatable at all for me, that's exactly what I want to see for the next season.

Many of our first choice signings depend if we get CL football so we better make sure we finish 3rd preferably and sign them as early as possible.

Rosicky will retire with us. He said that in an interview. Think next season will be his last

Michael Cox examines the Arteta/Ramsey partnership in midfield:

http://www.arsenal.com/news/features/ramsey-s-resurgence

RealGunner wrote:Rosicky will retire with us. He said that in an interview. Think next season will be his last

srigooner wrote:

RealGunner wrote:Rosicky will retire with us. He said that in an interview. Think next season will be his last

he can play a few more..

After rewatching home games of west ham and Liverpool (free on arsenalplayer) I would not mind wilshere and Ramsey next to each other

Diego Armando Maradona wrote:After rewatching home games of west ham and Liverpool (free on arsenalplayer) I would not mind wilshere and Ramsey next to each other

I wonder how you came to this conclusion, especially the Liverpool match - I remember that game very well, defensively they offered absolutely no protection in that game. For next season they can play together but only in a 3-man midfield in my opinion.

We also dominated Liverpool and passed the ball much better and much quicker than we do with arteta or diaby. Both Wilshere and Ramsey are when fit very energetic, quick, and aggressive, and allow us to play higher up the pitch and stamp are authority on our opponents.

I know it's not defensively tight with wilshere making runs forward, but is caution really necessary? Against most teams do we need to be scared? Or can we actually just take the game to them. I want the latter.

I remember the games when Ramsey was playing the Arteta role. We moved the ball around better than we were before that. Ramsey has the physique and technical ability to play that role, even better than Arteta dare i say. But he doesn't have that mentality (yet). Arteta is a genius, he makes up for his lack of technical ability with his excellent positioning and intelligence.

Ramsey can be groomed to be that.

i think it wont be good to restrict Ramsey into the deep playmaker role.. he has so much to offer in the attacking end too.. he has looked very good making those runs into the box and his distribution to the flanks is very good.. so i would prefer Arteta continuing the deeper role.. and adding to him, buying a dm/b2b or Fellaini and restricting him to a deep defensive role.. Ramsey can play a CM role and Wilshere as CAM..

Diego Armando Maradona wrote:After rewatching home games of west ham and Liverpool (free on arsenalplayer) I would not mind wilshere and Ramsey next to each other

Diego also try to watch the liverpool match away and watch how diaby absolutely bossed the midfield with arteta! Diaby plays that role ten times better than ramsey, there's no comparison tbh. If diaby stayed fit he would be our best midfielder easily, he still needs to work on his passing but his ability to move the ball from midfield or take on players in middle of park is insane

Wilson37 wrote:i think it wont be good to restrict Ramsey into the deep playmaker role.. he has so much to offer in the attacking end too.. he has looked very good making those runs into the box and his distribution to the flanks is very good.. so i would prefer Arteta continuing the deeper role.. and adding to him, buying a dm/b2b or Fellaini and restricting him to a deep defensive role.. Ramsey can play a CM role and Wilshere as CAM..

Interesting thing there but I'm guessing when pirlo was moved to DM some might have thought that...If ramsey can develop into a boss in DM, i think it could revolutionize his game overall. I'm excited for next season!

How Arsenal Expose Defensive Problems of Manchester United
http://www.coachingsoccertactics.com/arsenal

Bonus
im no expert but how about sharing some coaching Notes/files etc
principal stuff for the starter

Spoiler:

Sina wrote:How Arsenal Expose Defensive Problems of Manchester United
http://www.coachingsoccertactics.com/arsenal

I stopped reading at the point where Persie's misplaced pass went to Arsenal LB Gael Clichy.

I hoped we would have signed players before now and see what sort of shape we will play in pre season. If Gustavo signs I hope

--------------Gustavo
-------wilshere---------ramsey
Walcott-------------cazorla


Or if staying with a two in midfield I'd like

------Gustavo----wilshere
Walcott-----rosicky---cazorla