Arsenal's formula for success this season is clear. The Gunners must emulate Real Madrid's counter-attacking style.
Just like like Los Blancos, Arsenal have the pace and movement in attack to to terrorise defences on the break. But manager Arsene Wenger's team will have to play in a quicker, more direct manner to make the most of their attacking talents.
Chief among those talents is electric roving forward Alexis Sanchez. The Chilean is fast becoming a steal at around £35 million.
The ex-FC Barcelona attacker has already netted eight goals in 15 appearances in all competitions this season, per Arsenal.com. He's also provided three assists in Premier League and UEFA Champions League action, according to WhoScored.com.
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Sanchez is the key to a new-look Arsenal.
Sanchez's form is earning praise from all quarters, including ex-Manchester United striker, and now Sky Sports pundit, Dwight Yorke, who told Match Choice:
Arsenal and everyone who has watched world football saw what he was doing at Barcelona before he joined the club.
He had a terrific World Cup and he's come to Arsenal with a lot of expectation, a lot of money has been paid for him and he's delivering.
He's delivering week in week out. He's really risen [to] the occasion and he's come in to a new environment and he’s quickly adapted to being an Arsenal player.
Sanchez offers the field-stretching pace every defender fears. He's also a finisher of the highest order, exuding confidence and class every time he bears down on goal.
But it's the pace that sets him apart. It's also a quality he shares with many other members of Arsenal's forward-line rotation.
In particular, Sanchez can match winger Theo Walcott lightning-fast stride for lightning-fast stride. That pairing, so far denied an outing by Walcott's familiar injury woes, can give Arsenal width, movement and enough speed to expose any opposition.
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Wenger must build his team around the pace of Walcott and Sanchez.
Wenger is already relishing the prospect of putting that theory into practice, per Arsenal.com reporter Max Jones:
His runs off the ball are fantastic and it always gives you hope that you can score goals. The pace we have in the side when he’s back is very impressive because Welbeck, Alexis and Oxlade-Chamberlain are also very quick.
Could the attacking pace frighten defences? Let’s see. My imagination works like yours but I have to prove that they can work together on the pitch and that’s what I’ll try to do when everybody’s back.
That the Frenchman also made reference to the speed and skills of winger Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and striker Danny Welbeck is very encouraging. They certainly have the pace to frighten defenders out of their wits.
In fact, you can add Joel Campbell and Serge Gnabry to the list of fleet-footed attackers the Gunners can unleash this season. Even Lukas Podolski, he of the expert finishing but work-shy tendencies, operates best as a counter-attacking threat.
Wenger has all the weapons he needs to make Arsenal quicker and more efficient going forward this season. As he noted, the next step is making it work.
The first part of that process should involve Wenger casting a close eye over how Madrid do things. Obviously, Los Merengues manager Carlo Ancelotti has the luxury of Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale and Karim Benzema in attack.
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Arsenal certainly aren't quite on a par with those resources. However, it would be churlish to deny the awesome potential of a forward line comprised of Walcott, Welbeck and Sanchez.
But it's the way Ancelotti's team plays to support its star-studded attacking trio that should appeal to Wenger. Ancelotti has designed his team's style solely on the ability to launch breaks whenever they steal possession.
The key to that has been to reject the idea of a brutish, holding midfielder in front of the back four. Instead, Ancelotti trusts lightweight pass-masters Luka Modric and and Toni Kroos to forage for the ball and quickly and accurately find the players who will make a difference in the attacking third.
Both Kroos and Modric often stay deep, with the latter the most withdrawn. Because they lack the sacred "steel" in the middle, Los Blancos invite teams onto them.
They absorb possession and pressure rather than seeking to destroy it. Once an opposition move breaks down, Madrid strike, most often via a quick pass out wide to set three- and four-man relay teams on their way.
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Ancelotti has found the perfect counter-attacking formula with Real Madrid.
Ancelotti's team has no need for a ball-winning destroyer. They didn't need one to beat Liverpool 3-0 at Anfield in the UEFA Champions League, usually a hostile environment demanding players get stuck in.
Madrid also didn't need a holding player to thrash Barca 3-1 in the recent Clasico. Even against quick-witted playmakers Xavi Hernandez, Andres Iniesta and Ivan Rakitic, Ancelotti didn't focus on breaking up play. Instead, he knows it suits his own team's attack best to react to it.
But replacing defensive midfielders with deep-lying playmakers isn't the only smart ploy Ancelotti uses. He also trusts a pacy schemer in advanced areas to supply his runners with through passes.
Last season that player was Angel Di Maria. This year it's Colombian sensation James Rodriguez.
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This floating No. 10 player simply drifts and hovers in the grey areas behind the forward line. He often breaks with Ronaldo, Benzema and Bale, always ready to provide the decisive assist.
Di Maria thrived in this role during the last campaign. He tallied 22 assists in La Liga and Champions League competition, per WhoScored.com. The same site already credits Rodriguez with five assists this season.
So how can all of this work for Arsenal? The answer should be simple, injuries permitting. That's because Wenger already has players in place to replicate this formula.
For his deep-lying pairing, Aaron Ramsey and Mikel Arteta represent the best partnership. Both are more adept on the ball than Mathieu Flamini, as well as quicker at exchanging passes than Jack Wilshere.
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Arteta and Ramsey's partnership can be the key to a game designed to flourish on the break.
Further forward, Mesut Ozil is made for the the type of role that helped Di Maria and Rodriguez thrive. His speed of thought and ability to split defensive gaps are lethal qualities whenever he has pacy runners ahead of him.
With a deep-lying, two-man barrier behind him, Ozil needn't worry too much about tracking back. After all, Arsenal's game should be about inviting teams on, rather than committing heavy numbers in forward areas.
Wenger wouldn't need to rely on such a gung-ho approach with Sanchez, Walcott, Welbeck and Ozil as his front four. That's a quartet capable of occupying any defence.
Even with reduced numbers in forward areas, Arsenal can still produce the quick combinations in attack Wenger loves. But those combinations won't be worked slowly through midfield. Instead, they'll be executed at pace in the attacking third.
Take Ronaldo's first goal at Anfield as a prime example of the kind of slick and creative passing football Madrid produce without dominating possession:
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It's not as if this formula is anything new to Wenger. His best Arsenal teams were deadly on the break, often producing their best moves once they countered.
Consider the 2-2 away draw against Tottenham Hotpsur that clinched the league title for The Invincibles in the 2003/04 campaign. The first goal was sheer counter-attacking brilliance, borne from pace and intricacy.
It was a three-touch exchange between Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp and Patrick Vieira. The move had started when the Gunners repelled a Tottenham corner.
In fact, you could consult any number of goals from that glorious season and witness Arsenal breaking at speed with quickness and invention to score in four passes or less.
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Wenger's 'Invincibles' were masters of the counter-attacking game.
Last week, I described how abandoning what worked in the past has cost Wenger and Arsenal in recent seasons. Now is the ideal time to revive the old, successful formula.
One great reason is how much the game has changed since Arsenal clinched the Premier League crown at White Hart Lane just over a decade ago. For instance, the Gunners don't even need a physical mauler like Vieira or a defence-first linchpin like Gilberto Silva to rediscover their counter-attacking chops.
Modric and Kroos prove that. But Arsenal also needn't fear another team's so-called "physical presence."
The idea of a player tasked with just breaking up play in front of a back four is fast becoming an archaic one. A great example was how Sergio Busquets, Barcelona's long-time defensive shield, was rendered useless in the Clasico. Busquets was a virtual non-entity because of the way Los Blancos simply bypassed him at pace.
Consider also how easily Germany broke at speed past midfield destroyers Luiz Gustavo and Fernandinho in their 7-1 annihilation of Brazil at the 2014 FIFA World Cup:
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Arsenal can do the same. They can easily bypass a holding player down the flanks or simply play around him at speed. Since they don't have a rugged ball-winner of their own, the Gunners shouldn't play with that position.
This speaks to how Wenger can put a new style into a tactical structure that works. He could opt for the fluid 4-3-3 that Ancelotti has chosen to make his Madrid kings of Europe.
Alternatively, Wenger could really go back to basics and indulge his fondness for versions of the 4-4-2. He offered a hint of this in the recent 2-0 away win over Sunderland.
Both goals came courtesy of Sanchez after defensive mistakes he helped force. The performance itself was a commendable example of playing cagey to absorb pressure and strike on the break.
Had Arsenal been more clinical on the counter, they would have left Sunderland with a more comprehensive victory. Afterwards, Arteta explained how Sanchez was given more freedom thanks to a subtle structural shift, per Arsenal.com reporter Rob Kelly:
I felt really comfortable with [Flamini]. Last year we played some important games together and I think we understand each other well.
We wanted to give a bit more freedom to Alexis, playing a bit behind Danny [Welbeck], more like a 4-4-2, which we haven't played for a while. It worked - I think Alexis did very well today so we're happy for him.
A return to a lopsided 4-4-2 would be excellent for this Arsenal squad. Sanchez could play behind Welbeck, while Walcott replaces the still-too-raw Chamberlain on the wing.
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A change in shape helped Arsenal break superbly at Sunderland and still keep a clean sheet.
Whatever the formation, Wenger's tactics needn't be rigid. Ramsey can still be allowed to push forward on occasion, a strength of his game. Kroos has similar license to support attacks for Madrid, particularly during home games at the Santiago Bernabeu.
But rather than formation concerns, this is more about a stylistic shift. Take the inconsistent performance against Sunderland as the prime example.
While it had its rough edges, this is how a team can look when it sits deeper to invite pressure, rather than rushing frantically to dominate possession.
The latter is something Arsenal do too often. The problem is the Gunners are no longer good enough to impose their passing game on the best teams.
Selling wantaway playmakers such as Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri has seen to that. So has a lack of dynamic athletes able to press and harry at both ends of the pitch for 90 minutes.
Arsenal's current patient-approach play wastes this team's pace, particularly through the middle.
The death-by-1,000-passes approach works best when target man Olivier Giroud is the centre-forward. His size offers an outlet for the Gunner's diminutive schemers to build toward and play off and around.
But with Welbeck's pace through the centre, the Gunners need a quicker game. That's not always possible when players like Wilshere, in particular, are too often guilty of slowing the game down.
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The Gunners need a quicker game to suit their pace in attack.
A methodical, probing style leaves pacy runners like Welbeck, Walcott and Sanchez static, utterly wasting their threat.
This squad demands Wenger moves away from a steady, possession-based game to one based on quick exchanges and countering at speed. The Gunners need a willingness to sit deeper and invite teams onto them away from home. They also need to be a little more cagey about how they approach games at the Emirates Stadium.
Arsenal can be more structurally sound defensively the more they sit deep and keep a solid shape to spring a counter trap. Once they become more proficient on the break, the Gunners will also make more of their scoring chances.
Wenger has spent years crafting a playing style akin to the methodical pass-and-move approach favoured by Barcelona. But emulating Barca's great rival from the Spanish capital can get Arsenal back on track quicker than a Walcott-Sanchez-led counter-attack.
source Bleacher Report
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