Football has never been as peculiar, elusive, and scattergun as it has been throughout the last pandemic-ridden year, and yet Covid-19 has upended everything so fully, and for so long, its suffocating grip on the sport has been normalised.
If you find yourselves unusually bored by domestic football, if you find your passion ebbing away, don’t fret: it’s easy to forget just how downright weird the 2020/21 Premier League season has been.
From soulless matches drifting in empty stadiums to clubs lurching wildly between crisis and renewal, this is a campaign like no other. Things will get better.
Nobody captures the emotional paradox of the pandemic – chaotic but boring; unprecedentedly newsworthy but utterly uneventful – quite like Arsenal.
Mikel Arteta’s side have been volatile both in strategy and results, and yet their oscillations – their sloppy defensive mistakes, their once-in-a-generation academy graduates – have all been contained within the obscurity of mid-table. Everything Arsenal do seems loaded with meaning, but none of it matters.
But look beneath the surface and there is a pattern emerging through Arteta’s transitional year.
The results are still erratic, but the manager’s tactical shift from Guardiola-inspired patient possession to a more urgent and vertical approach has seen their performances improve.
A 10-game rolling expected goal (xG) plot of their season is proof that Arteta is making progress:
What is expected goals (xG)?
- Expected goals (xG) is a metric that measures the quality of any given scoring opportunity
- Expected goals for (xGF) is the xG created by a team
- Expected goals against (xGA) is xG conceded by a team
- xG process is the rate at which a teams create and concede chances
Arsenal are improving
The main reason for this is an abandonment of his mentor’s tactical aesthetic for a system that more adequately fits the players at Arteta’s disposal, with the focus increasingly on sharp vertical passes through the lines to get Arsenal’s talented playmakers in possession on the half-turn.
The change has proved two things. First, that Guardiola’s idealism really does require elite players in order to succeed (Arsenal just couldn’t turn the slow, perfectionist, neat-triangle rhythms into goalmouth action), and second - though this might be hard to swallow – it shows that Unai Emery had the right idea.
There is a lot of similarity between Emery’s tactics and Arteta’s, albeit the former failed in his implementation where the latter is increasingly finding a balance.
Emery’s original plan was to build patiently out from the back no matter the risks, with the resulting unforced defensive errors absorbed as collateral in the wider scheme of drawing the opposition out.
From here, the idea was to burst quickly beyond the advancing opponent via a sudden tempo change, creating a counter-attacking-like scenario for pacey forwards to get in behind. His Sevilla team did it brilliantly. His Arsenal team did not.
Arsenal v Liverpool
Kick-off time: 20:00 GMT, Saturday
TV channel: Sky Sports Premier League
Arteta follows this blueprint pretty closely these days. In the early months of his tenure it was all about perfected positioning and strictly demarcated zones, the choreography following Guardiola’s principles as Arsenal shuttled up and down the pitch in unison.
And although it was initially successful at a club that craved structure following the broad-stroke approach of Arteta’s predecessor, Man City-lite was ultimately ineffective.
So Arteta switched things up, a trial-and-error approach following their disastrous autumn of 20/21 eventually landing on the verticality we now see, which is far better suited to space-invading dribblers like Thomas Partey and Bukayo Saka or intelligent between-the-lines drivers like Emile Smith Rowe and Martin Odegaard.
Arteta, like a student sent out on placement, was discovering that his textbook learning was too idealistic for the real world - and needed tweaking; as we approach the final weeks of the campaign Arsenal are beginning to merge a Guardiola-inspired foundation with the sharper edges Arteta developed out in the field.
The fruits of their labour probably won’t show until 2021/22, when some defensive reinforcements and a non-Covid summer can solidify the structure.
Not that their 20/21 season is over. In fact, Arsenal are now just four points behind Liverpool in seventh. If they beat Jurgen Klopp’s side on Saturday they will, against all odds, enter the race for Europe. It would certainly be a fitting way for their bizarre and unpredictable domestic campaign to end.
Are Liverpool on their way back?
Liverpool, however, are more difficult opponents than it might appear.
Jurgen Klopp has finally settled on a centre-back partnership of Nat Phillips and Ozan Kabak, which in turn has allowed Fabinho to move into central midfield.
Back-to-back clean sheets have followed, and with the international break offering the team a psychological reset, Arsenal may be facing something approaching the real Liverpool.
That presents a tactical problem for Arteta, who has so far been unable to rid Arsenal of needless defensive errors when attempting to play out from the back.
The manner of their 3-3 draw with West Ham was just the latest example of Arsenal’s ability to shoot themselves in the foot, and since Liverpool ought to be back to their high-pressing best, it seems likely the visitor will find success. Back OVER 3.5 GOALS at 7/4.
This is particularly true down Arsenal’s right-hand side, a problem area throughout the season that is yet to be solved.
Last time out, West Ham were dominant down that side as Callum Chambers became overwhelmed – something likely to be repeated as Andrew Robertson looks to overlap Sadio Mane.
Roberto Firmino’s return from injury also means all four of Klopp’s attackers are available for the first time since December; Arsenal’s hesitant, backpedaling defence will be under pressure for long periods of the game.
However, Liverpool are vulnerable in midfield even with Fabinho at the base. Klopp’s side are unreliable when facing number tens capable of dropping into spaces behind the free eights Georginio Wijnaldum and Curtis Jones, which gives Smith Rowe and Odegaard a potential advantage.
Side with goals in this fixture
In other words, there will be goals: the hosts’ quick vertical passing through the lines should be successful in the transition while Liverpool, when dominating possession, have the forwards to force defensive errors. Back Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (17/10) and Sadio Mane (21/10) to score any time.
Fortunately for Arteta, the result isn’t of much significance for Arsenal. They are simply preparing for a more successful 2021/22, and the underlying numbers would suggest they can expect results to improve next year.
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