Premier League 2021/22: How Viera’s Palace handled Arsenal’s efforts in possession – tactical analysis

Crystal Palace’s improved performance under Patrick Vieira was underlined by their well-thought out display against Arsenal. The team achieved a surprising 3-0 win over Mikel Arteta’s side and managed to handle their dominance and control the game with a smart movement.

Palace didn’t allow them to get an advantage in the top-four battle and put Arsenal’s consistency under question as the team failed to respond to Vieira’s tactics. The Londoners’ inefficient attacking movement and broken defence resulted in their defeat at a critical point of the season.

The Eagles’ patience paid off and managed to take advantage of their chances. While they would give away the possession and have fewer opportunities in front of the goal, they were efficient enough and 100% of their efforts were on target, resulting in three goals out of five shots.

Arsenal were unusually disorganised both in and out of possession resulting in inaccurate passing and wrongly timed interventions. Arteta attempted to change his tactics in-game with a few positional changes and while it increased the dynamics in possession the accuracy of their actions still wasn’t enough to fight back.

In this tactical analysis, we examine how Crystal Palace managed to limit their opponents’ movement and what didn’t work out in Arsenal’s tactics.

Lineups, formations and in-game changes

Patrick Vieira set the team up in a 4-2-3-1 with Vicente Guaita on the goal and Tyrick Mitchell, Marc Guéhi, Joachim Andersen and Nathaniel Clyne in defence. Jeffrey Schlupp and Cheikhou Kouyaté were employed in central midfield, although they contributed actively in the wide areas. Wilfried Zaha and Jordan Ayew flanged Jean-Philippe Mateta, who had the support of Conor Gallagher from behind.

With the two goals advantage from the first half, the manager decided to focus on the team’s defensive actions and replaced Mateta with the defender James McArthur in the 69^th minute as Arsenal became more active on the ball after Arteta making a couple of changes.

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