- 4 hours ago
Arsenal's hopes of a first Premier League title in 22 years have taken an enormous blow, falling to a 2-1 defeat away to Manchester City. But despite Pep Guardiola looking to have got one over on his former assistant, Adam Clery think Mikel Arteta might actually have been incredibly unlucky.
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00:00Right, hello everybody, welcome to the Adam Cleary Football Channel and what was being talked about legitimately as the final
00:08of the Premier League wound up being absolutely, completely fascinating.
00:15So, buckle up. It's what they say, isn't it?
00:20And I'm not messing about here, right, this is from the very opening few minutes of the game, right?
00:24And it won't have been in any of the highlights, you probably don't even remember it happening.
00:29But if you look at this part of it here and this part of it here, later on in this
00:35match, that is exactly what costs Arsenal the game and maybe, maybe even the Premier League title.
00:45So, yeah.
00:50Now, you're a reminder at the start that ACFC is proudly brought to you by our investment pals at Trading212,
00:55hence Thierry Henry here.
00:59No, that doesn't really work, so we'll hear more from them in a little bit.
01:02But for now, that image from the start, I need you to lock that in because it's going to be
01:06very important later on.
01:08Now, Man City went with the exact same team and, in fairness, the exact same approach as the one that
01:13won the Carabao Cup final for them.
01:15But Arsenal made some pretty significant and actually pretty effective changes.
01:20Specifically, what they did with the four players at the very top of the pitch.
01:24He changed three of them and the only one who retains his place, Kai Havertz, gets moved up to centre
01:30-forward.
01:30And straight away, literally from the kick-off, you can see exactly why they wanted to do that.
01:35Arsenal start this game and, indeed, continue it so, so aggressively.
01:41They go really high. They go man for man, which is obviously a brave way to play, especially away in
01:46Man City.
01:47But it absolutely worked for them.
01:51The main idea was that Declan Rice and Martin Erdegaard were going to stop them playing through the centre of
01:55the pitch.
01:56But, crucially, when they would then go and jump onto the centre-backs, they got backed up by the entire
02:02rest of the team.
02:04Like, pressing is brilliant, isn't it? Everybody loves it.
02:07It's like having two Christmases or something.
02:10But it is a complete liability in big games like this if it is not correctly coordinated across the entire
02:18team.
02:18And, yes, I am going to need you to remember me saying that as well later on.
02:24And the thing is, Arsenal were so brave with this that they even had Gabriel just follow Ryan Shirky around
02:30the entire pitch, which is really risky.
02:33That takes proper balls to play it in a game of this magnitude.
02:37But it forced loads and loads of high turnovers in the opening part of the match.
02:43City couldn't really live with it.
02:44Like, this is another brilliant graphic from the always brilliant Mark Stats.
02:49Man City lost the ball in the Kenny Loggins area, the danger zone, 30 times in this game, which is
02:57twice as many as Arsenal did.
03:00And then you add on to that the fact they forced four high turnovers in just the opening 20 minutes.
03:06They were so, so uncomfortable with the ball in their own third.
03:10And the way it worked was, as we just showed you before, Rice and Erdogan would shut off the centre
03:14of the pitch.
03:15But then you would have Havertz and Madweke jump from the outside of the pitch, inside, to squeeze the ball
03:22and cut off the passes back out there.
03:24And you can see how it all works in this example here.
03:26Right, they're set up quite nicely.
03:28But when Erdogan then jumps onto Margei, you can see the rest of the team all react quickly and accordingly.
03:36Mosquera moves infield to mark Doku.
03:38Zubamendi goes across to cover.
03:40Silva, it looks really basic.
03:42But when City try and play out from here, because all of the Arsenal team have already been proactive,
03:48there's very few options for them.
03:50And Mosquera is close enough to Doku to immediately pinch it off him.
03:54And if they just had a slightly better ball here from Martin Odegaard into Kai Havertz,
04:00they would have been in.
04:02They would have had a really, really good chance.
04:03But, here's something else for you to remember.
04:06They let them get away with it.
04:08But the thing is, right, this is clearly Arsenal learning their lesson from the Carabao Cup Final
04:13about what to do off the ball.
04:16But more important than this was that they clearly learned their lesson from the Carabao Cup Final
04:21over what to do on the ball.
04:24Like, Man City, for their part, were content to stick with the system that had caused them so many problems
04:29in that game.
04:30This 4-2-4, no pressure on the ball at the back, making it really easy for them to have
04:36it here,
04:36but incredibly hard for them to have it anywhere else.
04:40And Arsenal, as you will either remember or have worked hard to suppress in your own head,
04:45really struggled with this.
04:47They couldn't play through the centre of the pitch here.
04:49And, because Kepa is not David Raya, really struggled to play over it as well.
04:54But, my dear friends, if we go and look at David Raya's pass map from the entire 90 minutes here,
05:00you will see that not only was he joyful in his heart to kick it long rather than going sideways,
05:07but there is clearly this huge bias, this preference,
05:11for dropping the ball into this left-hand channel as opposed to the right-hand one.
05:16Hmm. And if you go back and you watch it, you can see the reason for this was they were
05:21attempting to target Kushinov,
05:23whose, what more page will tell you, has an astonishingly low win percentage for aerial balls this season.
05:30That is, like, the bottom 2.2% of players in the Premier League and on a per-90 basis.
05:37Now, yes, no, you're right, the caveat for that is that he plays for Manchester City,
05:41so he doesn't face anywhere near as many aerial balls as defenders at other teams.
05:46But in terms of purely the percentage he wins, that is really low.
05:50It's a very obvious, very exploitable weakness in that back line.
05:55So then, you take David Raya's pass map from this game and you overlay Kai Havert's heat map from the
06:01game,
06:01Arsenal's best winner of the ball in the air,
06:03and bingo, you have a workable solution to an established problem.
06:09Good work.
06:10Now, you probably, and to be fair, correctly,
06:14think that Arsenal's equaliser comes as a result of their aggressive high pressing, doesn't it?
06:19Like, here's Kai Havertz again, he's going from outside of the pitch to in,
06:22just like we discussed, and he pretty much runs it into the back of the net.
06:27But as dearest editor Archie has pointed out, presumably as he was watching the game through his hands,
06:33if you actually wind that sequence back, which the Sky cameras missed because they were showing you a replay,
06:38the entire scenario actually comes about because they go back to Raya and he launches it into that exact space
06:46trying to target Kuchinov.
06:48Which means, in a roundabout way, that Arsenal's goal comes as a combination of their two main tactical ploys,
06:56which is obviously very satisfying.
07:00It's not as satisfying as if they'd, you know, won the game of football, obviously, but nevertheless.
07:06Now, the Shirky goal, of course, is the flip side to all of this.
07:09Like, Arsenal going man for man high up is great, but when they drop back into their own box,
07:14they now have to defend the shape and the space as well.
07:18And transitioning from one to the other, you can see that nobody's, like, immediately sure
07:23who should be picking up Shirky as he floats into the pockets.
07:28Like, Gabriel can't go charging out. He's got to stay in the back line.
07:31Rice can't leave Silva here because then he'd be open.
07:34And Capier's doing the right thing marking Semenyo and trying to get across.
07:38He just can't do it quick enough.
07:40And Eze ends up losing him when he challenges for the header, which he, of course, has to do.
07:44And just if you're wondering why it feels like I'm just skipping past what was the best moment of the
07:51whole game,
07:51it's because it's not really got anything to do with the tactics of the match.
07:57Like, getting the ball here and beating three players to open the scoring is individual brilliance
08:03somehow still thriving within an otherwise very robust defensive structure.
08:09And that is what players like Ryan Shirky give you.
08:13That's the whole point in buying them.
08:15Like, in games that are this tight, in games that are this tactical,
08:19they can then supersede all of that.
08:22They can give you the moments that win you these games.
08:26And Arsenal just don't have that.
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10:22Class dismissed.
10:24But anyway, yes, the score is 1-1.
10:27It's all incredibly even.
10:28Despite the fact Man City come out and look the better side in the second half,
10:33it is still Arsenal that have the better chances.
10:35This structure, this high press, what they're doing is working really well for them.
10:40Like, they're a little bit deeper this time,
10:42but Martinelli does well to cut off Gay's wide options with his curved run
10:46and then get back to nick the ball off him as he's forced to dribble through.
10:50And that gets them a 4 versus 2.
10:53Like, I cannot stress enough to you what an enormous opportunity
10:57this situation is in a game that is this tight.
11:01And I actually think Eze does his part absolutely perfectly in creating the chance,
11:05but the pass from Erdogan and the shot from Havertz just aren't ruthless enough.
11:11Like, the real, real top players, they will punish you in this situation.
11:16But just exactly like we said with the clip before, right?
11:20Havertz and Erdogan, they let Man City off in this situation
11:24when they should make them pay for that mistake.
11:27But then, of course, it happens, doesn't it?
11:30And if you cast your mind back to the very start of the video,
11:33I said remember this moment here, because this is exactly what wins the game.
11:38In this example, Nico O'Reilly sees Doku is getting doubled up on
11:43and he makes this underlapping run that forces Mosquera to leave him alone.
11:48He isolates the man for him and then Doku puts him on his arse
11:52while O'Reilly keeps the run going into the box.
11:56And, of course, Jeremy Doku, having zero interest in the mouths of gift horses or whatever
12:00that expression is, he slips him in.
12:04O'Reilly then cuts it back.
12:05And this was probably Man City's best chance of the entire game.
12:09And almost that exact same thing happens again for the winning goal.
12:14O'Reilly this time almost physically drags Zubamendi away from Doku
12:18to let him isolate the fullback.
12:20And when he beats him, he has again kept that run going.
12:25He gets in behind and he rolls it across for the goal.
12:28But if, chums, we wind that entire sequence back,
12:32it is actually the coordination in Arsenal's press that births the whole situation.
12:39Gabriel Martinelli technically, I think, does the right thing here.
12:43And again, curves his run onto Marguerite just like how he won the ball back a few minutes ago.
12:48But the problem is, this time, Arsenal, as a team, are not set to press.
12:54If you look at it, on a wider shot, right, the play has all come down the left-hand side
13:00of the pitch.
13:01So the front four are all here.
13:03But the midfield backing them up are both, understandably, on the wrong side.
13:08So O'Reilly is able to just slightly reposition himself off the back of Martinelli's run
13:14to get out of his shadow and receive it inside the pitch.
13:18Because Zubamendi, who should be coming across to jump onto him, just isn't there yet.
13:23And as well as that, Mosquera, who could just as easily jump up to stop him doing that,
13:28can't leave Jeremy Doku.
13:29And I don't think either of those two could do anything different in that situation.
13:34They can't be in two places at once.
13:36And I don't think Martinelli even makes a mistake in choosing to press.
13:39Because you can see Erdegaard and Havertz are telling the whole team to do it.
13:44It's just a small breakdown in communication from front to back
13:49that allows Man City to take the ball here and run it all the way to here, completely unchallenged.
13:55And that is the difference here.
13:57Like, Arsenal somehow let Man City get away with this error here.
14:02But Man City punish Arsenal for this one here.
14:07And yeah, there's a bit of luck with how the ball breaks to Haaland.
14:09But it's a bit of luck born out of a mistake by one team.
14:13And as you saw from the start of the game, the deliberate game plan of the other.
14:18And just the brutal reality of this is that if you reverse those two situations,
14:23I would still fancy Erling Haaland to take this chance.
14:27Whereas I wouldn't think anyone in the Arsenal team would physically get in front of the defender
14:31to put this chance away.
14:33Man City had a lot of moments in this game of individual excellence working beyond the system.
14:39Like, O'Reilly gets out of this really tricky spot.
14:42Shirky weaves through three challenges.
14:44Bernardo Silva, who was unbelievable in this game to the point I might do a video
14:49just about the season he's having.
14:52He somehow makes this recovery run that he's got absolutely no right whatsoever to make.
14:58Whereas Arsenal, who are probably, don't get me wrong,
15:01the best system team in all of Europe.
15:05Like, this does work for them.
15:06It's gotten to the top of the Premier League.
15:08But they do lack those individual moments, certainly in games like this, by comparison.
15:15And I know this might feel like a bit of a weird video, given I'm heaping praise on a team
15:19who have ultimately lost the biggest game of the season.
15:22But it's a good example of how in football we quite often let the results dictate the narrative of the
15:29match,
15:29when they can be two very separate things.
15:32Because I think Arsenal got it about as close to spot on as they possibly could have done in this
15:38match.
15:39It's just that it doesn't feel like it when you lose.
15:42Like, they were brave on the ball, which they're always accused of not being.
15:45They were really aggressive, which you're also told that they're not.
15:49And they created much the better chances, which is not, I think, what people would have expected.
15:54And just as a final point, right, a draw is as good as a win for them in this game.
15:58And in the very dying embers, the vinegar strokes of this match, right, they're presented with this.
16:05But again, here, just like with that 4v2, just like Eza hitting the inside of the post,
16:10just like Erdogan not quite finding that pass, they let Man City get away with it.
16:16And they definitely did enough in this game to get that point, probably even all three.
16:22But because they didn't, it sort of looks like they did something wrong, when they also didn't.
16:28And that is also just football, isn't it?
16:33If it makes you feel any better, though, which I suspect it won't, I do still think this team wins
16:41the league.
16:41And don't get me wrong, there is stuff you can criticise Ortega for.
16:45I thought Jokere should have been on the pitch a lot sooner than he was.
16:49The game appeared quite stretched.
16:51He would have suited it a lot more than have it.
16:53I don't think Bernardo Silva gets back and stops this, if that's who he was up against in that situation.
16:58And if you want to bring Trossard on, fine.
17:02But it would not have been for Eze.
17:05I would have just, I would have hooked Martinelli again.
17:08There's no, there's no law stopping you from doing that.
17:11Eze is your moments player.
17:13He's the one that can make magic things happen.
17:16And instead of relying on that, you went more into the system, which, not for me.
17:22Anyway, yes, that's that.
17:23But before we go, all the housekeeping.
17:25Thank you to Trading212.
17:26Sponsor the channel there.
17:28Link is in the description.
17:29And thank you also to Fotmob, whose graphics have been used throughout.
17:32It is an app on your phone.
17:33It has, like, heat maps, pass maps, stats, fixtures, results, everything you want from a football app.
17:39We loved them before they ever even emailed us.
17:42You can download them down below as well.
17:44And I'm going to start banging the drum now, every single video, because we're 27 days away.
17:47I'm doing the Hackney Half Marathon for Calm, the campaign against Living Males for Believe.
17:52They are a mental health charity here in the UK.
17:55We do absolutely vital work in bridging the gap between what people need and what this country currently offers them.
18:03They're an amazing charity.
18:04If you want to donate anything, a five or a tenner, it all goes to a really, really awesome place.
18:08It's a cause that is very dear to my heart.
18:11The link for that is also in the description.
18:12And, of course, you're an Arsenal fan.
18:15There is a comment section there.
18:17And it would be very nice to know how you're feeling.
18:21Are you okay?
18:22Do you still think you can win the league?
18:24Do you believe me anymore, even though I've been saying it since August?
18:28All thoughts, feelings, verse, poems, whatever you've got down below.
18:31And if you haven't already, please do subscribe to the Adam Cleary Football Channel,
18:33because that makes the world go round, or something like that.
18:37Right, I've been Adam Cleary.
18:38That's been The Game.
18:39I'll see you later.
18:40Love you.
18:41Bye.
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