Man City 3-0 Arsenal - master vs apprentice. The return of the Premier League Panel tactical analysis threads. Enjoy:

Playing high defensive lines,looking for forwards to press intelligently,then keeping spaces between defence & forwards compact

Then in possession,encouraging their teams to play out from back,there are clear similarities between Pep & Arteta- only natural as master & apprentice

But they're at completely different stages of development

Build-up play
•A key difference is Arsenal's lack of a ball carrier from CB- when Mustafi/Luiz receive the ball, they rarely carry it. This means it's easy for the deepest midfielder (Guendouzi) to be marked out the game

•If you compare this with Laporte who often looks to carry the ball on the left side of the pitch
1. Opens up passing lanes for City's advanced players to receive ball
2.Draws Gundogan's marker away- he then has time & space to receive the ball from Silva

•William Saliba will arrive at Arsenal in the summer and he will partially fill this deficiency, as he's not afraid to carry the ball and draw markers away from his teammates

Midfielder's receiving

• Returning to the last clip-look how Silva initially moves forwards but then quickly retreats to provide an option for Laporte & receives the ball. This simple move manipulates space for others (Gundogan in this case) to create

•Compare to Arsenal's midfielders who too often do not want to receive the ball on the half-turn from their CBs - Ceballos here keeps backing away from the play into two City markersLuiz has no passing optionInvites City's press Forced into bad pass

• At some points, Aubameyang moved off his wing to intervene and provide a passing option himself for the CBs, as the midfielders were not doing so
- Ceballos received just 3 passes off Mustafi/Luiz
- Willock only received 1
- Compare to Laporte who passed to KDB/Silva 17 times!

Defensive organisation under Arteta

•Before the Man City game, they had conceded 9 goals in 10 games - 0.9 goals per game. Whereas before Arteta took over, they had conceded 27 goals in 18 games - 1.5 goals/game

Again, until the Luiz error,Arsenal looked much better organised:

1.Nketiah work rate
-Nketiah started the last 4 PL games instead of Lacazette despite only scoring once
-Much of the reason for this is work rate
a) Constantly looking to press opposition CBs
b) Has speed to track across from one CB to the other & close down their passing options

2. Wide forwards
- Whilst he likes his striker to be very energetic & close down defenderns intensely, Arteta wants his wide players to be in a position where they directly block passing lanes into midfield but also can apply pressure to the full-back if it goes out to them

3. Arteta improved Arsenal compactness between the lines significantly
-when forwards push up to press,midfielders are in-sync & push up behind them to deny passing options into midfield
-KDB free-kick & Sterling beating Bellerin 1v1 were City's only half-chances until Luiz error

KDB deserves his own section

•Allowed City to counter with excellent passing from his own half
•Plus dribbling out of pressure
•Walker sat in inverted position to stop counters, so KDB provided dangerous underlaps for Mahrez to find, inside of Tierney

The inverted full-back helping deal with Arsenal counters

•We're used to Walker taking up deeper tucked-in positions,instead of overlapping
•But we also saw Mendy take up this role when Walker wanted to overlap- this was key to stopping Arsenal counters

Man City's calculated 'scissor press'

In their game vs Real Madrid,we talked about the City attackers' pressing triggers becoming more calculated. This continued
-often if an Arsenal CB was looking to pass out from the back they'd hold their position & block passes into midfield

-But then as Mustafi passes to Luiz,this is a trigger for Mahrez to suddenly launch into the press whilst still blocking a pass to Tierney
-Jesus then moves up to close the return pass to Mustafi, again whilst still blocking a pass to Guendouzi & Arsenal have to go long thru Leno

•A clear strength of Arsenal's attacking play were the runs that Nketiah+Auba made in transition
-many times in which they'd exploited City's high line
-but the timing of the pass was often poor
-players need to identify & supply these runs more adeptly after recovering the ball

Summary

•Arsenal midfielders have much to do in terms of receiving passes in positions like City's
•Saliba's role as a ball-carrier will be vital
•Compact off-ball structure is good,but pressing is not as sophisticated as City's
•Play more direct passes in transition
•KDB