Arsenal vs Leicester City Tactical Analysis

[StriderHiryu]

 

^ Here's the latest video in my post match analysis from our return to the Premier League season.

 

 

^ The game was tied at 2-2 up to the 93rd minute. However, despite this, the underlying stats show we got absolutely battered. We scored 2 goals despite having a really small xG. Arsenal had 37 (!) shots, 17 corners and 10 big chances, and forced Mads Hermansen into 13 saves in one game. Without those saves, the game would have been over long before it actually was.

 

 

 

^ I'm going to get right to the core issue of Leicester City's season thus far. Our system is not working! Last year we played Ricardo and Harry Winks next to one another, and we used both of them to build our from the back with. This season, we tend to use Harry Winks primarily as the builder, and whilst Skipp does get onto the ball, he's not getting onto the ball enough. In the passing network above, I would draw your attention to ZERO passes going from Caleb Okoli to either Harry Winks or Oliver Skipp. Compare that to last season when Vestergaard made countless passes to Winks and Ricardo. The reason why Arsenal ruthlessly dominated this game is because they stopped us getting going. We've gone backwards this season in our ability to play out from the back!

 

 

^ Ironically, in the first 5 minutes we DID play out from the back and did it pretty well. When you are up against a press as intense as Arsenal's, it's often the best way to cause them problems and take their star players out of the game. It is dangerous, but sometimes the rewards outweight the risks.

 

 

^ Here we play out from the back and advance into a good position with the entire team structurally getting decently high up the pitch. However, the ball does get turned over and Arsenal are able to switch the ball out to Saka. Okoli deals with him well, but the sequence shows both the good and the bad of passing out. Despite this, the good teams in World Football these days are able to pass out of a press.

 

 

^ Another example of playing out from the back and under pressure. Mads keeps his composure and finds Skipp. In these examples we see the rare times we were able to drag Arsenal around and advance up the field whilst retaining a good shape.

 

 

^ Here was the overall Match Momentum. It's pretty grim. Not only were Arsenal on top, but they were on top and threatening pretty much for the enitre match, in what was an impressive performance by them. The few times we did manage to keep the ball and build we kept their threat low and in fact scored our goals.

 

 

^ Why did our passing out from the back get disrupted? There were two issues. First was that Okoli today was sloppy with his passing. I don't want to get on his back, because overall he's growing a lot on me and I think he has a lot of potential. But compared to Vestergaard's passing, it lacks a lot. Vestergaard wasn't just good at passing, but knowing when to pass and when to entice players to try and press him to play it around them.

 

 

^ He tries to make a pass to Ndidi...

 

 

^ But he overhits it and it's cleaned up by Ndidi.

 

 

^ For me the tactical adjustment that Arteta made that swung the game was two-fold. First up was Leandro Trossard. He was *everywhere*! At times he was the central striker, sometimes he was a box crasher, sometimes he dropped deep. His positions were hard to track and he got into the dangerous positions that brought Arsenal a ton of joy.

 

 

^ The second player that caused issues was Ricardo Calafiori. He inverted as a fullback, but he pushed so high at times, he was almost like another number 8. Given he only signed for Arsenal in the summer, he has fitted into their system like a glove.

 

 

^ In reality this meant Arsenal were playing something like this. Trossard was joining up with Havertz, Timber played in the space Trossard vacated, and Calafiori joined up in midfield to give Arsenal total dominance.

 

 

^ Here's Arsenal's passing network. They basically played in our half the entire game. Look how high Calafiori (33) and Timber (12) were. They were brave enough to push up so far that only two players ever really stayed back in Gabriel and Saliba. By pushing up so many players they were able to generate superiorities all over the pitch and were always able to find the spare man.

 

 

^ Compare this to last season. This was against Bournemouth in the cup. You can see that our double pivot is much closer together and recieving much more passes from the central CB than today. Our striker also dropped back to create an extra man to give us even more chances to find a ball out, with our wingers carrying the major threat. Our CAMs are also deeper so they get more involved.

 

 

^ I called out Saka as being a real danger man for Arsenal. He absolutely was, but actually it was his combinations with Timer that caused the real issues.

 

 

 

 

^ Arsenal's superb first goal. Timber makes the overlapping run past Saka and puts in a great cross. Disapointing to concede given how many people we had in the box compared to Arsenal though.

 

 

^ Arsenal remained on top, but got a second just before half time. Trossard drifts between the lines and Arsenal find him to put it away. It's disapointing that for both goals, we had many more defensive players in the box that Arsenal had attackers, but their superb movement and patterns still got us undone.

 

 

^ Onto the second half, and somehow we bring it back to 2-2! How? For me there were a few reasons, one of which was one of the few highlights from our game, Facundo Buonanotte.

 

 

 

^ The above chart is depressing, but it shows that the ONE player we have that is able to recieve the ball and drag us up the pitch consistently is the diminutive Argentinian.

 

 

 

^ Over a 15 minute period, Facundo started to really work us back into the game. Here is a piece of great skill to get a shot away. We only had 3 men attacking here, so though the shot could be considered rash, he doesn't have too many options on. He's doing the right thing, but our system isn't supporting him. Arsenal attack with 5, and that's what we used to do under Maresca last season too.

 

 

^ One of the stories of the second half was James Justin.

 

 

^ First he scores a goal early in the second half after a great set piece delivery from Facundo.

 

 

^  Here's his second goal and easily our best move of the match. THIS is the Leicester from last season that won the Championship. Playing out from the back, controlling the ball via the double pivot, having a winger and CAM combine, and after a brilliant left footed cross from Ndidi, finding a spare man on the other side of the pitch. The finish was sublime!

 

 

^ So somehow it's 2-2, but the reason it stayed at that score for so long was our brilliant Dane, Mads Hermansen.

 

 

^ He got a 9.7 rating on Sofa Score. I can't remember any Leicester player scoring this high for many years.

 

 

^ Mads made THIRTEEN saves in this game. He was a one man army and will be the next big sale from the club. What a fantastic player he is.

 

 

^ A recurring theme from Cooper are his poor subs. He takes too long to make them, and when he makes them, he makes the wrong ones. It's ALWAYS Jordan Ayew it seems...

 

 

^ Late on the game, we have an opportunity to go on the attack. Ndidi plays a great ball into space.

 

 

^ It's played into Ayew, with Vardy up supporting him. Ayew could either try to play Vardy in, or even just run to the corner flag and win a free kick. 

 

 

^ But he has an awful touch and the chance disapears. No excuse for this, he's been on the pitch a few mintues and is fresh with energy.

 

 

^ This looks like Vardy is face palming, but he's actually applauding the move. However, this was a good opportunity to do something. In this game and against Palace, when under the kosh, we haven't carried enough of a threat or outlet at the other end of the pitch. That means teams don't need to worry about keeping men back.

 

 

^ And that inability to pack a counter threat, plus some more questionable subs in Reid and El Khanouss leads to inevitable. Trossard gets the winner from a corner. Again he picks up spaces where is totally unmarked and free. I don't think we are too badly setup at this corner, and the strike is a bit lucky to go in, but it was coming. Arsenal had 17 corners in this game, so in this one putting on Coady for a back 5 at 90 minutes would have been a good move, but Cooper used that against Palace and did it too early in that game.

 

 

 

 

^ These are my closing thoughts. On paper the result might seem unlucky, but Arsenal throughly deserved to win. We had a fightback, but I feel this was more fortunate rather than a stroke of genius by the manager. He didn't change anything at halftime, expect maybe telling Buonanotte to get more involved. For me the issue throughout the season is a poor system, not using our best players, and using players in positions that aren't great for them. Justin scored twice yes, but Martinelli had hm on toast for most of the game.

 

This game won't define our season, and to be honest went better than I thought it would go. But I see the same problems in every game, and I don't feel like the manager is learning fast enough, if anything at all.

 

Edited 29 September 2024 by StriderHiryu

[DesertFox]

Great stuff Anil, thank you 😎

[Paul_lcfc_1988]

Thanks Anil excellent analysis keep up the good work 

[CPepFox]

Another great breakdown... thank you

[Supergray22]

Really enjoyed this analysis Anil. Succinctly ties together what we saw with our own eyes. Great summary. Keep up the good work. 

[CPepFox]

Have you any idea why Cooper holds most of his subs until last 5 mins of match? And then his changes are ludicrous at best. 

[Vazman]

A great breakdown as always, put across in a way I can understand, as you say the issues are now a common theme throughout thanks again.

[Vazman]

2 hours ago, CPepFox said:

Have you any idea why Cooper holds most of his subs until last 5 mins of match? And then his changes are ludicrous at best. 

Yes because like the OP has suggested, he doesn't learn from the previous matches, which is why it's the same old every match

[Richmondfox]

2 hours ago, CPepFox said:

Have you any idea why Cooper holds most of his subs until last 5 mins of match? And then his changes are ludicrous at best. 

I feel he doesn’t know how to set up and win the game to start with, the subs always feel like empty gestures. 

[Pliskin]

Another good piece! Agree whole heartedly agree with your closing thoughts. I fear this result will paper over a few cracks, which seems odd when you’ve lost. But the reality of the situation is, Arsenal could have left the pitch with 10 goals if it wasn’t for Mads. It was generally awful, but for him. Arsenal are just an exceptional team, and we’re always going to win with the amount of chances they were creating, and the longer the game went on the more inevitable it was.

 

This performance doesn’t change anything for me, Cooper is still a bad fit. 

Edited 29 September 2024 by Pliskin

[SK3Blue]

Nicely done, good work.

[StriderHiryu]

7 hours ago, CPepFox said:

Have you any idea why Cooper holds most of his subs until last 5 mins of match? And then his changes are ludicrous at best. 

 

4 hours ago, Vazman said:

Yes because like the OP has suggested, he doesn't learn from the previous matches, which is why it's the same old every match

 

This one baffles me to be honest. To be fair, Cooper isn't the only manager that does it, Arsenal themselves didn't make that many subs yesterday and left them late, but the difference is they were playing great. It'a a real weakness from Cooper because the only game I can think of where a sub had a meaningful change was against Everton when Buonanotte came on. But even in that game, he made the change at 55 minutes instead of half time, and then killed our momentum at the end by taking off Mavididi and leaving Vardy on for too long. Sadly I think his subs so far have const us points, not won more for us.

 

4 hours ago, Richmondfox said:

I feel he doesn’t know how to set up and win the game to start with, the subs always feel like empty gestures. 

Look at the players that came on in the 97th minute yesterday! What was the point!?

[FrankieADZ]

10 hours ago, StriderHiryu said:

 

^ Here's the latest video in my post match analysis from our return to the Premier League season.

 

 

^ The game was tied at 2-2 up to the 93rd minute. However, despite this, the underlying stats show we got absolutely battered. We scored 2 goals despite having a really small xG. Arsenal had 37 (!) shots, 17 corners and 10 big chances, and forced Mads Hermansen into 13 saves in one game. Without those saves, the game would have been over long before it actually was.

 

 

 

^ I'm going to get right to the core issue of Leicester City's season thus far. Our system is not working! Last year we played Ricardo and Harry Winks next to one another, and we used both of them to build our from the back with. This season, we tend to use Harry Winks primarily as the builder, and whilst Skipp does get onto the ball, he's not getting onto the ball enough. In the passing network above, I would draw your attention to ZERO passes going from Caleb Okoli to either Harry Winks or Oliver Skipp. Compare that to last season when Vestergaard made countless passes to Winks and Ricardo. The reason why Arsenal ruthlessly dominated this game is because they stopped us getting going. We've gone backwards this season in our ability to play out from the back!

 

 

^ Ironically, in the first 5 minutes we DID play out from the back and did it pretty well. When you are up against a press as intense as Arsenal's, it's often the best way to cause them problems and take their star players out of the game. It is dangerous, but sometimes the rewards outweight the risks.

 

 

^ Here we play out from the back and advance into a good position with the entire team structurally getting decently high up the pitch. However, the ball does get turned over and Arsenal are able to switch the ball out to Saka. Okoli deals with him well, but the sequence shows both the good and the bad of passing out. Despite this, the good teams in World Football these days are able to pass out of a press.

 

 

^ Another example of playing out from the back and under pressure. Mads keeps his composure and finds Skipp. In these examples we see the rare times we were able to drag Arsenal around and advance up the field whilst retaining a good shape.

 

 

^ Here was the overall Match Momentum. It's pretty grim. Not only were Arsenal on top, but they were on top and threatening pretty much for the enitre match, in what was an impressive performance by them. The few times we did manage to keep the ball and build we kept their threat low and in fact scored our goals.

 

 

^ Why did our passing out from the back get disrupted? There were two issues. First was that Okoli today was sloppy with his passing. I don't want to get on his back, because overall he's growing a lot on me and I think he has a lot of potential. But compared to Vestergaard's passing, it lacks a lot. Vestergaard wasn't just good at passing, but knowing when to pass and when to entice players to try and press him to play it around them.

 

 

^ He tries to make a pass to Ndidi...

 

 

^ But he overhits it and it's cleaned up by Ndidi.

 

 

^ For me the tactical adjustment that Arteta made that swung the game was two-fold. First up was Leandro Trossard. He was *everywhere*! At times he was the central striker, sometimes he was a box crasher, sometimes he dropped deep. His positions were hard to track and he got into the dangerous positions that brought Arsenal a ton of joy.

 

 

^ The second player that caused issues was Ricardo Calafiori. He inverted as a fullback, but he pushed so high at times, he was almost like another number 8. Given he only signed for Arsenal in the summer, he has fitted into their system like a glove.

 

 

^ In reality this meant Arsenal were playing something like this. Trossard was joining up with Havertz, Timber played in the space Trossard vacated, and Calafiori joined up in midfield to give Arsenal total dominance.

 

 

^ Here's Arsenal's passing network. They basically played in our half the entire game. Look how high Calafiori (33) and Timber (12) were. They were brave enough to push up so far that only two players ever really stayed back in Gabriel and Saliba. By pushing up so many players they were able to generate superiorities all over the pitch and were always able to find the spare man.

 

 

^ Compare this to last season. This was against Bournemouth in the cup. You can see that our double pivot is much closer together and recieving much more passes from the central CB than today. Our striker also dropped back to create an extra man to give us even more chances to find a ball out, with our wingers carrying the major threat. Our CAMs are also deeper so they get more involved.

 

 

^ I called out Saka as being a real danger man for Arsenal. He absolutely was, but actually it was his combinations with Timer that caused the real issues.

 

 

 

 

^ Arsenal's superb first goal. Timber makes the overlapping run past Saka and puts in a great cross. Disapointing to concede given how many people we had in the box compared to Arsenal though.

 

 

^ Arsenal remained on top, but got a second just before half time. Trossard drifts between the lines and Arsenal find him to put it away. It's disapointing that for both goals, we had many more defensive players in the box that Arsenal had attackers, but their superb movement and patterns still got us undone.

 

 

^ Onto the second half, and somehow we bring it back to 2-2! How? For me there were a few reasons, one of which was one of the few highlights from our game, Facundo Buonanotte.

 

 

 

^ The above chart is depressing, but it shows that the ONE player we have that is able to recieve the ball and drag us up the pitch consistently is the diminutive Argentinian.

 

 

 

^ Over a 15 minute period, Facundo started to really work us back into the game. Here is a piece of great skill to get a shot away. We only had 3 men attacking here, so though the shot could be considered rash, he doesn't have too many options on. He's doing the right thing, but our system isn't supporting him. Arsenal attack with 5, and that's what we used to do under Maresca last season too.

 

 

^ One of the stories of the second half was James Justin.

 

 

^ First he scores a goal early in the second half after a great set piece delivery from Facundo.

 

 

^  Here's his second goal and easily our best move of the match. THIS is the Leicester from last season that won the Championship. Playing out from the back, controlling the ball via the double pivot, having a winger and CAM combine, and after a brilliant left footed cross from Ndidi, finding a spare man on the other side of the pitch. The finish was sublime!

 

 

^ So somehow it's 2-2, but the reason it stayed at that score for so long was our brilliant Dane, Mads Hermansen.

 

 

^ He got a 9.7 rating on Sofa Score. I can't remember any Leicester player scoring this high for many years.

 

 

^ Mads made THIRTEEN saves in this game. He was a one man army and will be the next big sale from the club. What a fantastic player he is.

 

 

^ A recurring theme from Cooper are his poor subs. He takes too long to make them, and when he makes them, he makes the wrong ones. It's ALWAYS Jordan Ayew it seems...

 

 

^ Late on the game, we have an opportunity to go on the attack. Ndidi plays a great ball into space.

 

 

^ It's played into Ayew, with Vardy up supporting him. Ayew could either try to play Vardy in, or even just run to the corner flag and win a free kick. 

 

 

^ But he has an awful touch and the chance disapears. No excuse for this, he's been on the pitch a few mintues and is fresh with energy.

 

 

^ This looks like Vardy is face palming, but he's actually applauding the move. However, this was a good opportunity to do something. In this game and against Palace, when under the kosh, we haven't carried enough of a threat or outlet at the other end of the pitch. That means teams don't need to worry about keeping men back.

 

 

^ And that inability to pack a counter threat, plus some more questionable subs in Reid and El Khanouss leads to inevitable. Trossard gets the winner from a corner. Again he picks up spaces where is totally unmarked and free. I don't think we are too badly setup at this corner, and the strike is a bit lucky to go in, but it was coming. Arsenal had 17 corners in this game, so in this one putting on Coady for a back 5 at 90 minutes would have been a good move, but Cooper used that against Palace and did it too early in that game.

 

 

 

 

^ These are my closing thoughts. On paper the result might seem unlucky, but Arsenal throughly deserved to win. We had a fightback, but I feel this was more fortunate rather than a stroke of genius by the manager. He didn't change anything at halftime, expect maybe telling Buonanotte to get more involved. For me the issue throughout the season is a poor system, not using our best players, and using players in positions that aren't great for them. Justin scored twice yes, but Martinelli had hm on toast for most of the game.

 

This game won't define our season, and to be honest went better than I thought it would go. But I see the same problems in every game, and I don't feel like the manager is learning fast enough, if anything at all.

 

another good breakdown, shame Cooper isnt learning one little bit from the same mistakes hes making every single game, whether its the team hes picked, formation and tactics,

 

hes clearly not watched our games from last season and hasnt learnt anything in his time off

[Richmondfox]

18 minutes ago, StriderHiryu said:

 

 

This one baffles me to be honest. To be fair, Cooper isn't the only manager that does it, Arsenal themselves didn't make that many subs yesterday and left them late, but the difference is they were playing great. It'a a real weakness from Cooper because the only game I can think of where a sub had a meaningful change was against Everton when Buonanotte came on. But even in that game, he made the change at 55 minutes instead of half time, and then killed our momentum at the end by taking off Mavididi and leaving Vardy on for too long. Sadly I think his subs so far have const us points, not won more for us.

 

Look at the players that came on in the 97th minute yesterday! What was the point!?

The passing from Okoli was disgraceful for a player at any level, that stifled any chance of breaking.  No wonder we couldn’t get going.  As you highlighted the number of players Arsenal had high up meant a press was always on and Mavadidi couldn’t break. The ball was never played further up into space for him to run but short passes in congested areas. 

The time we broke free and Vardy crossed to JJ but he dithered, the same with his goal. 

 

Every game the CDM’s are too deep and Ndidi is either floating around high up or back with them, teams walk through the midfield with ease.  It seems like the tactic is to let the CBs/CDMs clear up the mess in the box rather than try and stop it earlier. 
 

I don’t know anything about his team but I’m guessing they are a bunch of yes men or just as clueless as Cooper. Surely there must have been a conversation or comment asking why he isn’t playing Mav & Fats in the same team or about bringing on subs earlier to change the flow of the game. 

[Iwebema]

Thanks @StriderHiryu as always it's a great piece of work.

 

I hope people who are staunchly give him time based on basically nothing take the time to read this and previous breakdowns, and realise in order for this to work he needs to make some quite fundamental changes, we aren't just randomly going to start getting wins carrying on the way we are. It's just foolish to believe what he is doing is just a small tweak away from working.

 

However, I continue to hope hope he randomly realises this next week and starts to make the changes...I won't hold my breath though!

[Paninistickers]

Great stuff.

 

My tuppence worth. 

 

The xG can be a bit misleading as any elite at home will push harder and harder for the winner, meaning the xG is disproportionately high. Had arsenal scored and made it 3-1, they may well have backed off. 

 

Unlike Palace, I agree that this type of hanging on probably justified  Coady on in that mini injury break at 88mins. We weren't inviting pressure this time, it was unavoidable 

 

Playing Vardy is a disaster. I think Cooper considers Vards a sacred cow. Even the crowd don't. And I don't think Vards dies either. He's clever enough to know that being benched doesn't affect his legacy,.impact or importance. I'd actually go with a false 9 and play Buonnotte in that role, and Fatawu wide 

[Supergray22]

8 hours ago, CPepFox said:

Have you any idea why Cooper holds most of his subs until last 5 mins of match? And then his changes are ludicrous at best. 

I think cooper doesn’t yet know the players well enough to understand their capabilities and errs on the conservative side which turns out to be the opposite. Everyone reacts differently under pressure and the mind could be cluttered. His assistants need to stand up too. 

[Parker Pen]

Great piece as always. One thing I disagree with though is that we did deserve to be back in the game at 2-2 as the players dug in second half.

The balls into space behind their full backs were where we could and should have exploited them more with willing runners.

It almost worked late on as you described as Ayew blew a great opportunity late on with a dreadful first touch. At best we score or get a corner but to give them a tame goal kick allowed them to build the pressure which saw them score from the corner was criminal.

 

I felt the substitutions were again wrong and feel like keeping Wilf further up the pitch late in the game means we can keep their midfield and back line under pressure.  When he dropped alongside Winks with Skipp going off  I feel we drop even deeper and Wilf gets in the way.

 

its the hope that kills you though. 

 

[LFox99]

Think I'm going mental but when was the last time we had a coach who made effective subs?

Think by now we all know Cooper's probably able to see the bottom of his can of paint thinner with how he's gone about subs this season. They're always late, they're always the wrong ones. What exactly does BDR or Ayew bring that Fatawu doesn't? We've all seen last season how hard Abdul works in defense and I'm starting to get really upset about how little gametime he's getting. And when he does its 5-10 minutes on the wrong side of the pitch. 

Nevermind Ricardo who I think would be a brilliant sub to make either for Skipp yesterday or for Buonanotte. Someone with ability on the ball but also capable of defending. 

[StriderHiryu]

3 hours ago, Iwebema said:

Thanks @StriderHiryu as always it's a great piece of work.

 

I hope people who are staunchly give him time based on basically nothing take the time to read this and previous breakdowns, and realise in order for this to work he needs to make some quite fundamental changes, we aren't just randomly going to start getting wins carrying on the way we are. It's just foolish to believe what he is doing is just a small tweak away from working.

 

However, I continue to hope hope he randomly realises this next week and starts to make the changes...I won't hold my breath though!

 

This is a really great comment, and thanks for the kind words. The bit in bold I think is bang on, and for the reason why he's ultimately doomed.

 

2 hours ago, Paninistickers said:

Great stuff.

 

My tuppence worth. 

 

The xG can be a bit misleading as any elite at home will push harder and harder for the winner, meaning the xG is disproportionately high. Had arsenal scored and made it 3-1, they may well have backed off. 

 

Unlike Palace, I agree that this type of hanging on probably justified  Coady on in that mini injury break at 88mins. We weren't inviting pressure this time, it was unavoidable 

 

Playing Vardy is a disaster. I think Cooper considers Vards a sacred cow. Even the crowd don't. And I don't think Vards dies either. He's clever enough to know that being benched doesn't affect his legacy,.impact or importance. I'd actually go with a false 9 and play Buonnotte in that role, and Fatawu wide 

You've probably noticed this @Paninistickers but I will admit that I am a total hypocrite with xG in that I will bounce between "it's a meaningless stat" and "it's the gospel of all football" if it suits my agenda . So I need to find more of a neutral ground myself! I do agree they would have backed off and in fact that's why we got back into it, the attack momentum shows they didn't start the second half as ferociously as they could.

 

The idea of Buonanotte as a false 9 is quite interesting actually. Maybe he's a bit short for it, but he's shown how strong he is on the ball and is suprisingly good at holding the ball up, plus has the vision to do it and can play under pressure. It would be an interesting experiment for sure.

[indierich06]

The more I read this, the more I worry - if there was a tactical plan that we weren't quite executing right, it'd be one thing, but it looks more as though there isn't a plan and it's moments of individual quality that are dragging us through at the minute in terms of turning losses into draws etc. 

 

I think if we could see the idea, if we could understand what he's trying to do, that would placate the fanbase - he just seems like a man without a plan.