By Allan Riley
Arsene Wenger is a man of many catchphrases.
One of his favourites as Arsenal manager was his metaphorical handbrake. By the end of his time as manager, any poor result was explained as his team simply playing with the “handbrake on”. Broadly: playing with the handbrake off means to take games to the opposition and dominating in an attacking sense.
Fast forward six years after Wenger’s departure, and Mikel Arteta's Arsenal side seem to have engaged their own handbrake. Whilst Arteta’s side dominate teams in terms of ball possession and field tilt, their open play expected goals totals in recent games against Manchester United, Fulham and Everton have been 0.56, 0.29 and 1.05, respectively, and similar numbers have occurred in games against Brighton and Ipswich. It’s a worrying trend for a side that scored 91 league goals last season.
While this decline in attacking impetus has coincided with the rise of Europe’s best defences, the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction. Arsenal rely too heavily on set pieces and Bukayo Saka to win football games. Arteta said he wants Arsenal to “be the best at everything”, but this negative attacking trend isn't sustainable for a team that wants to win major honours.
What’s more annoying is that this is a problem largely of Arteta’s own creation, through both squad composition and tactics. On an individual level, Arteta has prioritised system players: jacks-of-all-trades who thrive in the hyper-specific roles the coaching staff gives them.
On a tactical level, Arsenal have struggled to adapt to low blocks this season, often struggling to use close rotations and tight spaces to play through teams vertically. Instead, everything happens around packed defences, with the wingers trying to win corners as often as they try to go inside.
Despite racking up the most open play xG of this dry spell, the Everton game was particularly worrying. Too often, players looked lost without specific instructions, which Arteta refuses to adapt.
It led to 90 minutes of genuinely talented players smashing their heads against a wall with no results. When the sub-principles of one or two players fail to work, macro tactical principles fall apart. Crucially, Martin Odegaard and Saka's sub-principles, as well as Declan Rice, Mikel Merino and Kai Havertz's failed to work against Everton. The rest of the dominoes then fell accordingly.
This is the problem with over-coaching.
Arteta’s obsession with control and micromanagement has meant that his players aren’t able to come up with solutions when things go wrong. Arsenal are approaching the point where they can’t play any other way, with Arteta hamstringing his own team in the name of solidity and risk aversion.
After the Everton game, Arteta said that he didn’t want his players to speed things up because they could make “mistakes”. The result is a team conditioned to play slow and safe, one that’s too scared to take risks and more points dropped against inferior opposition.
Everton made no attempt to get on the front foot and yet Arsenal remained lethargic and inert in possession. It’s the latest in a worrying trend; a trend that has already had serious impacts on the title push.
Crucially, however, there is a relatively straightforward fix. As cliched as the idea of letting players ‘express themselves’ is, Arteta allowing his players to instinctively think through problems could be the solution to Arsenal’s attacking problems. Rethinking things wouldn’t require a complete squad overhaul.
The majority of Arsenal’s squad is good enough and – crucially – smart enough to effectively pull off a more dynamic style of play. After all, could you imagine how good players like Saka and Odegaard could be if they had the scope to think through in-game situations themselves instead of repeating risk-free actions?
There are clear lessons from this dry run. A change in tactical approach is desperately needed. With more teams sitting deep against Arsenal, this team needs the scope to be able to take more risks, to play in tight areas and to play through teams instead of around them. Essentially, if Arsenal want to get back to being one of the most dangerous teams in Europe, the handbrake needs to come off. The question is whether or not Arteta will (or even can) take it off at this point of the process.
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