That Arsenal team defended superbly well; restricting undoubtedly the world’s best team in their element to one goal with Laurent Koscielny, Johan Djourou, Gael Clichy and Emmanuel Eboue in front of Wojciech Szczesny. Last night Arsenal endured their worst European defeat, 4-0 at AC Milan. In place of Djourou was Thomas Vermaelen – and few can doubt the Belgian’s superiority. The same goes for Sagna for Eboue, whilst there is not much to choose between Gibbs and Clichy for any Arsenal fan who witnessed the Frenchman’s awful performances last season.
The fact is, for Milan’s first goal, Szczesny’s error with a weak goal kick was to blame. For the second, Koscielny’s suspect positioning. For the third, a slip by Thomas Vermaelen. Szczesny, Koscielny and Vermaelen have been three of Arsenal’s best defenders this season. In fact, Koscielny has been among the best defenders in the league. What last night showed was how much Arsene Wenger’s tactical deficiencies have been papered over by his players. These three, among others, have kept Arsenal in games in the past despite a completely incoherent defensive organisation. Last night, they all made bad mistakes – which is unfortunate – but if Wenger organised his team defensively, then that wouldn’t have necessarily been such a problem.
Similarly, question marks have been raised about Aaron Ramsey, Mikel Arteta and Tomas Rosicky’s performances. In defence of all of them, they had no options when with the ball. Robin van Persie, isolated as there was no width from Arsenal, was therefore difficult to find as he was crowded by Milan’s underworked defence. It is no surprise they kept playing sideways passes – there was no one in front of them they could find.
Theo Walcott is another who will be derided but what could he have done differently? Walcott is a player who thrives on space, and football is a sport in which individuals can’t make space unless they have a trick like Leo Messi. And even Messi is limited with space playing for Argentina, who aren’t as adept at Barcelona at creating space. Unlike Messi, Walcott doesn’t have tricks, and never has – that’s not his game. He therefore relies on the team, through movement, interchanging of positions and quick passing to stretch the opposition. With none of those on offer from Arsenal, Milan were able to defend deep and Walcott could have done no more than he did.
Where criticism is merited is in the team’s complete inability to press coherently. Suggestions that Arsenal lack character or aggression are wide of the mark. They lack tactical discipline. During the Milan defeat, often the Rossoneri’s players found themselves being closed down quickly by their opponents. The problem was that they were closed down by one opponent at a time. A proper pressing system requires more than one player to press at once. At times Walcott, Rosicky and van Persie all pressed Milan’s defenders, only for Ramsey, Song and Arteta to be dropping off and doing nothing. Pressing requires the whole team to be involved, which each player blocking off the angles through which the opposition can pass the ball to a team mate. Arsenal have for years been completely unable to do this, and last night that was exposed. Usually the individual qualities of Koscielny, Vermaelen and Szczesny can get them out of trouble when exposed – but last night, they all had an off night. The result was disastrous.
