At the start of the year, it felt like a matter of time before Arsenal lifted the Premier League title.
It feels like the one the Gunners really want, having come within a whisker on two occasions.
However, in this season, when it’s really difficult to know how good any Premier League team is, it’s proving harder to figure out how good the league leaders are.
Their fans hate the term ‘bottling it’, but the pressure they find themselves under in the league has been self-inflicted.
Manchester City have some baffling, risky ideas out of possession that frankly leave them vulnerable.
Still, Pep Guardiola‘s in-possession work is always capable of scoring goals.
Bar set-pieces, it doesn’t feel like that’s always the case for Arteta‘s men.
With each passing game that is important, bar the Emirates Stadium roaring them on (whilst still groaning in frustration), Arsenal have looked unconvincing since the start of the year, and the loss to Manchester United seems to have hindered them.
Having said that, their defence is so water-tight that they don’t lose many games.
That is why it’s so odd to judge them; they tend to play matches by bringing themselves down to their opponents’ level and eke out a result.
Nothing should be taken lightly in the Round of 16 of the Champions League, as former Denmark manager Kasper Hjulmand has picked up the pieces from Erik ten Hag‘s departure from the German club in the summer.
The affair was a typical European first leg, with both teams afraid to take risks and ensure they still have a chance in the second match.
This tactical analysis focuses on Arsenal’s shortcomings in possession and why they looked a little jagged, as well as Leverkusen’s setup compared to Arsenal’s.
Bayer Leverkusen Vs Arsenal Lineups & Formations
Mikel Arteta started in a 4-3-3 with Jurriën Timber at right full-back and Piero Hincapié on the other side as the left-back.
The centre-back pairing of Gabriel Magalhães and William Saliba made up the rest of the defence.
In midfield, Declan Rice was the central midfielder with Eberechi Eze and Martin Zubimendi on either side of him.
The Gunners’ summer signing, Viktor Gyökeres, spearheaded the attack with Gabriel Martinelli and Bukayo Saka playing as wingers.
In response, the German side played a 5-3-2 system with the three centre-backs being Jarrel Quansah, Robert Andrich, and Edmond Tapsoba.
Alex Grimaldo played as the left wing-back with Dutchman Ernest Poku on the other side as the right wing-back.
Spaniard Aleix García was paired in the middle with Ezequiel Palacios, whilst Martin Terrier, Ibrahim Maza and Christian Kofane made up the front three.
Arsenal’s Timidness
It was actually a tad difficult to figure out what the plan was in possession with Arsenal.
Eze was often picking the ball up too deep. You need a player like him closer to the goal, and Gyökeres’ runs were not dynamic enough, nor did he drop deep.
What Arsenal lacked, I felt, was a false nine.
Mikel Merino, Kai Havertz (who is finally getting more minutes), and Gabriel Jesus are the players to do this.
Arteta could also try Eze there, but it feels like when Arsenal play with a false nine, the rest of their attack becomes much better because it complements their profiles, and they create space for each other.
In this match, Gyökeres shuffled around on two occasions to lay the ball off from up front and kicked the ball out.
Moments like that swing games, especially away from home.
I’m not putting all the blame on him; it’s more of an indication of Arsenal’s lack of ideas up front, and when this happens, teams start to feel it more in the game.
Where does the static attack come from?
Well, it begins because they had two players in midfield marked off in the centre of the pitch, who they would like to get closer to goal.
Eze, Rice, and Zubimendi were picked up and marked out of the game 3v3 in the middle.
With Zubimendi-Eze-Rice marked up, the inclination and corridors of space in the middle were blocked off.
Leverkusen played a five at the back, the prime formation to nullify teams.
As above, they are set in a back four, with their full-back pushed up to cut off the passing angle to Timber.
It was odd to see so little movement in Arsenal’s midfield, and whenever they did perhaps find space in the middle, the notion tended to be calmer on the ball and more pragmatic.
But then again, this is something that we’ve seen since last season, and it’s apparent that Arteta doesn’t have a solution yet.
In the above image, Eze finally has space early on, but because of the mentality and frankly risk-averse approach that I felt Arsenal had throughout the game until they conceded, it was clear that they had come to take a result that was suitable to finish the game in London back at home.
They are now a team that doesn’t attack to win games but relies on defensive security and makes ‘grinding out’ wins a habit.
Of course, this is a skill in itself, but with some of the attacking verve Arsenal played with when Arteta first arrived and the money they’ve spent, it feels a bit like a waste.
The former Palace attacker didn’t run at the defence with pace, and when he passed the ball to Martinelli, Andrich jumped out of the back five to tackle him.
When the Brazilian picked the ball up, there was only Gyokeres and Saka pinning the defence anyway, with a lack of bodies up the pitch.
Arsenal’s attacking plan was also characterised by poor decision-making and loose touches up front, which allowed Leverkusen’s defenders to lunge in and intercept, and the lack of intensity and pace in their passing helped them.
There was one move, where Eze found himself in the centre again, picked out by Gabriel, but as he looked for a give-and-go with Gyokeres, the Swedish striker’s return ball was well off.
The lack of inventiveness and walking-pace football was summed up by the sequence above.
What is the solution to this, then?
Well, in the past, I’ve seen Arteta utilise an inverted full-back, with Riccardo Calafiori pushing up into the gaps left by defenders in a back five.
Timber was doing this, but not making purposeful runs.
It also didn’t help that the distances between Arsenal’s attack and midfield were large, and there were no players behind Leverkusen’s midfield to receive.
Timber above should be dragging the right-sided centre-back with him to open up a gap, but Arsenal had the problem that they did this too few times, and Leverkusen would surround him with a centre-back or midfielder.
They have the benefit of the second leg being at the Emirates, but it felt like this factor was almost always at the back of their minds.
It wasn’t the first time Arteta and his Arsenal team had lacked inventiveness in attack, and it could eventually catch up with them this season.
Bayer Leverkusen’s Low Block
It was obvious that at every opportunity the Bundesliga side got, they took the sting out of the game.
As Arsenal pushed on in search of an equaliser, most of the second 45 minutes looked like this.
A lot of Arsenal matches looked like this last season, with most of the football played around the box but no penetration inside it.
Most of the threat was from crosses as Arsenal resorted to chucking the ball in the box, but Leverkusen had three tall defenders to clear it each time.
It’s problematic because Leverkusen’s tight out-of-possession shape didn’t allow any space in the centre, and Arsenal’s midfield three was too close together.
The option from Arteta could’ve been to push one up and have one dropping single pivot as far back into deep build-up, so he could at least get on the ball.
Conclusion
There was no option but for the English side to go wide and hope a cross would work.
Of course, the game state is huge, and it speaks volumes that Leverkusen, at home, resorted to a low block for most of the second half, but the worrying thing for Arsenal is that it largely worked, as they needed a penalty to salvage a draw.
Leverkusen bypassed Arsenal’s press by going long to the striker, but away to Arsenal, if they are likely to resort to the shape they did in the second half, you get the feeling that, with intensity levels raised, Arsenal will be able to make it through to the quarter-finals.
The more worrying aspect, however, is that as we reach the business end of the season, with each passing game, Arsenal don’t attack like a team in their seventh year with a manager.
The ‘dark arts’ embracement, elongating of time, and ‘grinding out’ results is great and may be enough for the Premier League, but perhaps not the Champions League.
