LONDON — For the first time this season, Arsenal came careening into their kryptonite: a well-organized mid to low block. And if that was a challenge for those who know what it is like to come to Craven Cottage and see their title hopes take a right hook to the nose. For at least one, perhaps two, of Mikel Arteta’s front four, this was the sort of challenge they have rarely run into during their playing career.
It is worth bearing that in mind when assessing the somewhat frustrating performances of Eberechi Eze and Viktor Gyokeres in this 1-0 win at a ground where Arsenal had taken just one point from their previous two visits. The latter might have run into plenty of teams who just wanted to hold out as long as they could when he was in Portugal, but the talent disparity between Sporting and all bar two of their domestic rivals is a chasm compared to that between a Premier League title contender and midtable side.
Eze too will not have played many Premier League games as a Crystal Palace player, where 11 players were stood between him and the goal. That much was clear in the 62 minutes before Arteta felt compelled to make a decision. Too often, his No. 10 would find a pocket of space for a moment, only to find a white shirt soon sliding between him and the ball. Eze needed to be more mobile, to drift out of one danger area and into another where he might create an overload. There is nothing about the way he played in his past life at Palace that suggests this is beyond him. It is simply not a mode of playing that most professionals find themselves in.
Certainly, they don’t run into teams who can carry out their plan as effectively as Fulham did today. Marco Silva’s side began with a snapping intensity, dialling up their press to force two “very unusual giveaways”, as Arteta put them, from Gabriel Magalhaes, both of which resulted in shots that rolled agonisingly past the far post. From then on, Arsenal seemed a little skittish in build-up, taking their time rather than unleashing the more direct approach they have used on several occasions this season to beat the formation of the low block.
Slow ball against a set defense is not a circumstance in which a player like Eze thrives, as Arteta himself acknowledged. “He’s more used to probably attacking open spaces and breaks and facing and carrying the ball with the space in front of him. He’s so good and comfortable doing that.
“I think he had his moments today. He played Viktor through one or twice in really good spaces and maybe if that would have finished in a goal, it would have looked a little bit different. But I’m very happy with what he’s doing, and we can use him in different positions and today we used him on that one and we carry on training him too.”
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Arteta was right, the chances did come, not just for Gyokeres to wiggle around the penalty area but also for Leandro Trossard, who drove wide at the near post when well placed early in the second half. He would make amends before too long. That Gyokeres did not join him on the scoresheet will bring questions; it is three Premier League goals scored against Leeds and Nottingham Forest. No one seems to want a goal more than him; if he keeps backing up defenders and rolling them as effectively as he did Jorge Cuenca then they will come.
For both, this was a testing introduction to the sort of game that they will have to get used to, one where Arsenal don’t get that early goal that opens the game up. In the meantime, it helps no end when they have the Premier League’s ultimate cheat code. Declan Rice or in this case Bukayo Saka puts the ball on the head of Gabriel Magalhaes from a corner, goal soon follows. Since Nicolas Jover’s appointment as set-piece coach at the start of the 2021-22 season, they have scored 63 times from corners, 16 more than any other team.
The rest of the league seems intent on aping it. Best of luck, but if they don’t have anyone like Gabriel attacking them, they will get a robust reminder of how low value most headed chances are. Not when it’s the guy with more Premier League goal involvements from corners since he arrived in England than Leicester City. Marco Silva put it best: he only needed to get one run on the two defenders tasked with slowing him. Once he was in the air, there was no stopping him.
That is Arsenal’s great route to beating low blocks. If the other teams want to concede play in the final third, then the team with the ball are naturally going to create scoring opportunities (that is why the teams ranked second and third for corner goals scored are Liverpool and Manchester City). All Arsenal have done is get better at exploiting them. “We generate so many,” said Arteta, “we have to understand them, and against these low blocks when they don’t really want to drop and commit that many players there, we’ll have another opportunity to put the players that we want in the position that we want, with the role that we want.”
And so when the new guys struggle to navigate a low block like they did today, at least Arsenal can rest assured that they have another option that can’t be neutered.
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