How Arsenal went long and direct to beat Tottenham
By James Dudko
How Arsenal went long and direct to beat Tottenham 2-0 in the north London derby.
Arsenal pass, pass, pass and pass some more. Since Arsene Wenger assumed control in late-1996, his teams have all kept the ball on the deck and recycled possession in intricate, short-range combinations.
Ever heard the phrase “trying to walk it into the net”? Sure you have. You probably heard it listening to commentary for a match featuring Wenger’s shot-shy Gunners.
One of the last true paragons of attacking soccer, Wenger is a purist whose aesthetic sensibilities preclude hoofing it long.
But the popular narrative overlooks how often Wenger is willing to riff on the formula. He’s not above having his team go direct, as Arsenal’s north London rivals Tottenham discovered on Saturday.
The Gunners beat Spurs 2-0 in the Premier League thanks to their willingness to go long. Wenger’s tactical blueprint was a throwback to a simpler time.
Arsenal’s straightforward plan involved isolating the pace of Alexis Sanchez and Alexandre Lacazette against the edges of Tottenham’s back three.
Both strikers were given free rein to play on the shoulders of their respective markers. They were also tasked with spinning in behind and exploiting space in the channels.
By drifting into wide areas, Sanchez and Lacazette dragged a Tottenham center-back out of the middle. Sanchez did it when he isolated namesake Davinson Sanchez in the inside left channel.
His pace forced a collision resulting in a free-kick that wasn’t a free-kick when referee Mike Dean thought he saw a shirt pull that never happened. Arsenal opened the scoring when Mesut Ozil put the resulting set-piece onto the head of defender Shkodran Mustafi.
The Gunners’ second goal also owed a lot to their penchant for stretching space in the channels. This time it was Lacazette who peeled wide and sprinted behind Jan Vertonghen, a center-back uncomfortable in space.
Lacazette’s pull back found Sanchez, who finished emphatically for the game’s decisive goal.
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Both goals showed how effectively Arsenal’s forwards used movement and pace to pull Tottenham’s back three apart and isolate Sanchez and Vertonghen in wide areas.
The central theme of the Gunners’ approach was their willingness to play long balls over the top. It was a ploy used all game to bypass the high defensive line employed by Tottenham.
Arsenal went long right from the start, with Mustafi launching a terrific ball into the inside left for Sanchez. The contentious free-kick leading to the first goal was also created by a long ball into the same channel, this one punted forward by Aaron Ramsey.
It’s not usual to see Wenger’s men go long as often as they did, but it had two advantages. First, it let the Gunners avoid a midfield battle, where Tottenham held a numbers advantage. Moussa Sissoko, Mousa Dembele, Christian Eriksen and Dele Alli outnumbered Ramsey and Granit Xhaka in central areas.
Arsenal avoided the congestion by playing over and beyond midfield. Those long passes also took advantage of the pace and high starting positions of Sanchez, Lacazette and Ozil.
Wenger had the Gunners’ star-studded front three press high up the pitch from the start. They harassed the Tottenham back three and rushed them into poor passes.
Preventing Spurs from playing out from the back meant the visitors were unable to thread passes into Eriksen, the man who makes them tick creatively.
The Guardian‘s Barney Ronay described how effectively Arsenal’s forward-thinking trio pressed from the front:
"At times in the first half Lacazette, Sánchez and Özil lined up flat, roped close together, pressurising Davinson Sánchez, who is a fine one-on-one defender but who has a slight air of panic on the ball that was also isolated by José Mourinho in the Europa League final. As Arsenal began to push Spurs back the interplay between the three was zippy and fun, intricate triangles picked out at high speed."
Ironically, the press forced Tottenham to adopt the same long and direct passing Arsenal employed. Unfortunately, Spurs didn’t have the pace to exploit such a strategy with Kane hobbled and Alli out of sorts.
A direct game suited the Gunners perfectly, though. It suited them because Sanchez and Lacazette can stretch any defense. It suited them because Wenger’s squad is no longer littered with the pass-masters to make his possession-based stylistics work every week, not with Santi Cazorla still a long way from a comeback.
Instead, Arsenal have found a different way to play. It’s not as pure as the death by 100 thoughtful passes approach. But it is ruthlessly effective in its simplicity.
Being able to go long when they need to can keep the more versatile Gunners in the hunt for trophies on all fronts this season.