Premier League 2019/20: Arsenal vs Manchester United – Tactical Analysis

It hadn’t been a great start to the Premier League season for Arsenal under the management of Unai Emery as they registered too many draws which hindered their progress during the first stage. The last few days of 2019, the club announced the appointment of their former player Mikel Arteta to the managerial spot and since then, he brought a fresh style of play and amid the slow start, results started to come for the Spaniard and his side.

In his fourth match with Arsenal, the London-based side welcomed fifth-placed Manchester United to their home stadium as they looked for their second win in December across all competitions. For the away side, they started to find the rhythm again with six wins and two draws in all competitions in their last ten matches. As they focused on maintaining a high rate of possession to get the results that they aimed for, they travelled to the Emirates Stadium with high confidence among the squad.

But at the end of the day, Man United were seen out on the opposite side as two goals from Nicolás Pépé and Sokratis Papastathopoulos inside the first half secured the first three points for Arteta at Arsenal. This tactical analysis will provide an analysis of Arsenal’s 2-0 win over Man United. Meanwhile, using statistics, we will point out the noticeable tactical points in Mikel Arteta’s tactics and Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s tactics.

Lineups

Before the match, Arsenal had seen one of their key players in Calum Chambers hobbled off the field in their game against Chelsea. Another full-back who also missed out from the squad list was Kieran Tierney as he remained on the treatment list. In contrast, they welcomed back two crucial defenders in Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Sead Kolašinac and with them completed the back-four that already consisted of centre-back David Luiz and right-back Ainsley Maitland-Niles.

While Granit Xhaka missed out on the Chelsea match as he was recovering from illness, he had returned to training just a few days prior to the Man United game and was included in the starting lineup alongside Lucas Torreira at the heart of the midfield. Up front, Nicolás Pépé and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang occupied the wide spaces instead of the youngster duo in Reiss Nelson and Gabriel Martinelli.

On the opposite side, Man United still didn’t have the service of Paul Pogba after he made a substitute appearance against Watford with Nemanja Matić and Fred paired up with each other as central midfielders in Solskjær’s 4-2-3-1 system. Two academy products in Axel Tuanzebe and Scott McTominay, though, missed out from the match through different injuries problems.

At the back, Eric Bailly and Timothy Fosu-Mensah were still recovering from their injuries and they were far from returning to the squad. Against Burnley, youngster Brandon Williams and Ashley Young were chosen to occupy the full-backs spot, but Luke Shaw and Aaron Wan-Bissaka returned to the lineup and provided width in the team’s attack. Jesse Lingard also replaced Andreas Pereira as the team’s attacking midfielder as he formed the attacking midfielders line with Marcus Rashford and Daniel James.

Arsenals style of play

It is evident that there are major changes being implemented when Arteta arrived at Arsenal as a manager. One of the adjustments that can be seen from this match is how confident the players were when they held the ball. They had the tendency of playing out from the back with the involvement of both Luiz and Sokratis. The two centre-backs also formed a passing block along with the two central midfielders as they aimed to progress the ball up the pitch.

Another player