Arsenal v Manchester Metropolis 2.0 – a world of set items, powerful tackles and dogged defence

It was a profitable purpose hardly befitting the significance of this encounter, however one that completely encapsulated the type of the sport.

With 4 minutes remaining in a conflict between final season’s high two, an extended diagonal ball was launched for an enormous strapping defender to nod the ball down. Then there was a lay-off, a shot, a deflection, and in the end probably the most important purpose of the Premier League season thus far.

{That a} sequence like that summarised a recreation like this — in 2023, between Arsenal and Manchester Metropolis, two proficient technical sides coached by former cultured midfielders who converse in regards to the significance of dominating possession.

When Pep Guardiola first took cost of Barcelona, he was famed as a lot for his footballing ideology as a lot as his success — and it is a coach who gained the Treble in his first season as a supervisor. Mikel Arteta, his former assistant, has inevitably taken many cues from Guardiola. And but the 2 appeared content material to play out a match like this — solely cautious, the most important incidents centring on midfield tackles, the half-chances coming solely from set items.

It brings to thoughts a dig that Arsenal’s Cesc Fabregas had at Mark Hughes, whose Blackburn facet performed out a boring 0-0 to power an FA Cup replay right here in 2007. “Are you positive you performed for Barcelona?” Fabregas shouted at him. “As a result of that wasn’t Barcelona soccer.”

Properly, it wasn’t fairly that dangerous. However there was a notable shift away from purely technical soccer from each managers lately. It’s extra noticeable from Guardiola, who as soon as disliked pure centre-backs a lot that he left his squad understaffed in an effort to flip passing midfielders into defenders. In 2023 he has recurrently fielded 4 centre-backs collectively — and, when mixed with defensive midfielder Rodri, suspended right here, he has used 5 gamers who performed at centre-back eventually 12 months’s World Cup.

This conflict between Mikel Arteta and Pep Guardiola changed into a slugfest (Lexy Ilsley – Manchester Metropolis/Manchester Metropolis FC through Getty Photographs)

Arteta has, extra subtly, achieved one thing related with Ben White, beforehand a centre-back and now a right-back. And it was as soon as assumed that Declan Rice’s inevitable transfer to a Champions League challenger would go hand in hand with him changing into a everlasting defender — it’s definitely the function Frank Lampard had deliberate for him had Chelsea been capable of lure him again just a few years in the past. However no. A participant with the profile to play centre-back just a few years in the past is now a participant with the profile to play in midfield. Contemplating their transient summer season curiosity in Rice after the departure of Ilkay Gundogan, it appeared Guardiola and Arteta agree.

And in a match the place either side had been with out their key attacking participant — Bukayo Saka and Kevin De Bruyne — each Arteta and Guardiola had been risk-averse with their picks. Arteta introduced in Jorginho to play alongside Rice whereas Guardiola, having witnessed Mateo Kovacic being overrun in opposition to Wolves final week, used Rico Lewis (someplace between a midfielder and a full-back) alongside him and Bernardo Silva behind.

And whereas it may appear curious to think about using a superb playmaker like Bernardo deep in midfield a defensive transfer, he was clearly instructed to place his foot on the ball, sluggish the tempo and play brief passes, reasonably than provide any inventive pondering. Apart from, the necessity to beef up the centre with three midfielders meant Julian Alvarez, Metropolis’s brightest attacker this season in one thing of a second-striker function, was compelled out broad. His most notable contribution was shutting down David Raya and practically tackling the ball into the purpose, which was telling in itself.

Julian Alvarez virtually forces David Raya into an error (Ryan Pierse/Getty Photographs)

Even the scenario up entrance was attention-grabbing. Whereas as soon as each these managers might need began this recreation with a false 9 who might come brief, hyperlink play and create, right here it was two old school nines, Eddie Nketiah and Erling Haaland, each thought of penalty field strikers who provide little in deeper positions.

Each had been fully disconnected from their teammates — considered one of many conclusions you possibly can take from the passing networks, none of them notably optimistic.

Arsenal’s passing community

Manchester Metropolis’s passing community

There have been, in fact, some attention-grabbing tactical conditions and a few glorious examples of enjoying out from the again and into midfield. Either side’ bravery in deep positions speaks of their managers’ perception in good passing. However the moments that obtained the gang off their ft had been a Jorginho tactical foul, after which a Kovacic lunge, after which one other Kovacic lunge, after which tackles from Nketiah and Martin Odegaard which they adopted by turning to the gang and celebrating like they’d scored.

And honest sufficient, as a result of for lengthy intervals it felt like we wouldn’t have any precise scoring. Metropolis created simply two possibilities — each for defenders, Nathan Ake and Josko Gvardiol, at early corners. Arsenal’s two quarter-chances from respectable positions had been additionally from corners, each for Nketiah.

It’s not like both supervisor used substitutes to attempt to win the sport, both. The adjustments had been both like-for-like, or defensive. Guardiola launched one more centre-back, John Stones, instead of Lewis. Arteta changed a inventive roaming full-back, Oleksandr Zinchenko, with a primarily defensive full-back, Takehiro Tomiyasu. He, in fact, ended up making the essential knock-down within the opposition field, which Arteta jokingly acknowledged afterwards was hardly a part of the plan.

All this stated, this wasn’t a really horrible recreation of soccer. It was tense and aggressive. The technical high quality was excellent. There have been numerous crunching tackles, which English crowds at all times take pleasure in. And that is hardly the primary conflict between title contenders that was just a little cagey.

However in the end it was a recreation filled with defenders and bodily gamers, with minimal creativeness or invention in open play, with either side seemingly content material with a 0-0. This wasn’t what we as soon as anticipated of a conflict between Guardiola and his protegee.

“We didn’t create a lot, and so they didn’t create a lot,” conceded Guardiola afterwards. It was powerful to argue with that.

(High picture:  Ryan Pierse/Getty Photographs)