Brighton bested, Anfield awaits

An analysis into why Arsenal looked so suffocating and dominant against Brighton — taking nuanced looks at pressing, rotations, carries, and more — and what it all means for the approach at Liverpool

Dec 21, 2023

It’s not typically a good sign if your manager starts his post-game presser with an apology. But that was the case for Mikel Arteta after last year’s 3-0 loss to Brighton at The Emirates.

“First of all we have to apologise,” said Arteta. “Last week we were really proud and we stood with our chest out … and today we have to apologise for what happened in that second half. That is nowhere near the level that we have to show as a team and as a club.”

While the structure and dynamics were solid in the opening stanza of that one, the wheels eventually came off. As you may recall: Kiwior got stepped on, a small gentleman (Enciso) headed in a cross, Trossard had a cheap error, Ramsdale got chipped by Undav, and then Estupiñán later scored on a rebound. Arteta wasn’t happy.

“We started to lose a lot of duels, and obviously the way we conceded the goals is just unacceptable that this level. After that, we had no answers to get back into the game.”

There was a different tone this Sunday.

Not only was Arteta full of praise for his team’s performance — saying “I think we fully deserved to win the game” — it was time for his opposing manager, Roberto De Zerbi, to be the contemplative one.

“We suffered a lot,” said De Zerbi. “I think Arsenal are one of the best, maybe this season the best team in the Premier League. We are not used to suffering in this way. We are used to controlling the game.”

As the scenes from Brighton fade, and a showdown with Liverpool lingers, there may be two questions on your mind as we celebrate four years of Arteta at the helm of the Arsenal ship.

First, what has changed since last year? And second, how should it make us feel going into Anfield?

👉 What changed since last year

Back in May, Arsenal sought to exploit the spaces that can be found in Brighton’s aggressive structures by loading up after winning the ball and going direct. When the final actions didn’t come off, the attack felt chaotic. On the other side, when Brighton weren’t baiting the press and going over the top to their wingers, there were too many loose duels by Arsenal. Bouncing balls caused attacks to go the other way.

In other words, Arsenal lacked the ability to seamlessly glide through tempos depending on the situation, and the final result felt less controlled and elegant than this newer mint.

That shows up when comparing the numbers of the last two games against Brighton (via opta/fb-ref).

Passing: 272/332 (80.71%) last year ➡️ 471/515 (91.46%) this year.
Forward passing: 90/126 (71.43%) last year ➡️ 141/158 (89.24%) this year.
Low/middle losses: 45 last year ➡️ 23 this year.
Tempo: 3.7 passes per possession last year ➡️ 6.29 passes per possession this year.

This culminated in a dominant performance:

Arsenal had 26 shots, 7 more than any other Brighton opponent.
Arsenal also had the most key passes (19), most progressive passes (53), most shot-creating actions (46), and 70 more touches in the attacking third than any other team.
Arsenal was the first team to have a clean sheet against Brighton since February.
It looked really fucking good; perhaps one of the best in-league performances by any team this year. This is not a stat. This is just me typing.

We can talk about schematic adjustments all we want — but football is players. Here’s how the always-quoted Pep views the question.

“I use tactics to create some patterns so everyone can be more comfortable. That gives them more time to express their talent as much as possible. This is how I use tactics.”

When addressing last year, we would do well to acknowledge the elephant in the room, and begin with the fact that the lineup featured Jakub Kiwior, Granit Xhaka, Jorginho, and Kieran Tierney. On the other side, there was Levi Colwill, Moises Caicedo, Enciso, and perhaps the biggest miss of all: Pervis Estupinán.

We’ll talk in a bit about how Saliba helped a hobbled White rein in Mitoma this time. But the midfield has undergone the largest transformation, and deserves the most attention.

Writing after the loss last year, I came to the following conclusion.

We saw Xhaka miss a walk-in goal by a step. We saw Jorginho miss defending a byline cut by a step. We saw defenders unbothered by their carries. These are brilliant players laying out a perfect blueprint for those with more physical gifts. The ideal Arsenal press and build-up offers a wide swath of real estate for midfielders to roam; with a little more speed and carrying ability in those positions, the marginal improvements could be enormous.

Midfielders with more physical gifts? Thank you, Edu.

Now let’s talk about how that translates into a performance.

🏃🏽 The audacity to press

We can often reduce tactics to shapes and numbers. All of that is important for creating the appropriate foundation for players to do their best work, but we’ve covered all that at length, and good out-of-possession work is much more than arranging dots on a screen.

When discussing pressing, especially, there are very human elements in play.

A good press can get by with mid-tier athletes, but a great press requires a high degree of running power, work-rate, and physicality. Players must eat up yards quickly yet discriminately, closing lanes and stifling the opponent, all to the beat of a silent drum. (Just kidding, the drum is not silent: it is Arteta and Ødegaard yelling at you.)

And here’s where we venture into coach-speak.

It is said that the job of a trainer is to remove doubt. That is useful to reflect on here, because doubt kills a press. That hesitation, that feeling of questioning, is currently permeating the out-of-possession efforts of Manchester United, for example, just as it did Chelsea’s a year ago. If one person runs with doubt in their minds, that effect compounds to the next presser, and so on, and so on. Lanes suddenly open.

How does one feel confident enough to rip forward with full beans?

You must trust your cover.

This concept was present throughout the game against Brighton. Let’s see how.

🔥 Trust your cover

Here, Ferguson drops deep. Brighton identified that Arsenal were man-marking their forwards, so they sought to pull them around and then exploit the space in behind, which is a pretty common thing these days. Gabriel follows the Irishman. From there, Lallana goes to occupy that zone, and Saka is trailing him.

But Gabriel is following Ferguson with full gusto, contacting his back, and pushing him all the way back to the box. At this point, there is likely to be a switch, so Saka hands Lallana off to Havertz, who identifies the move at the same time. Havertz then shadow-marks the advanced midfielder.

Now, the switch happens, and Saka rushes all the way over to greet Dunk. There’s another addition to the scene. White leaves behind his responsibilities further back (hanging around his previous nemesis, Mitoma), and rushes at Milner at full-speed.

Now, it’s Mitoma who has dropped — which creates a situation where Saliba follows him all the way into the midfield. Brighton have now completed their first objective. While they’d already had so much trouble in escaping the Arsenal press, they’ve now passed crisply, successfully yanked both CB’s around, and are free to exploit the space behind.

…except there is no space behind. Because every one of the pressers has been forceful in their reactions, little passes and movements were delayed ever-so-slightly. But more important is the reason they were able to rush forward: they fully trusted their teammates to cover their back. Others easily picked up their slot in the scheme, and rotated appropriately.

And there he is, Chekhov’s Kai. He’d identified all the proper rotations, and has now slid into the backline.

As a reminder, the Brighton objective is not to just get the ball at the half-line; if that were the case, they’d just hoof it. The goal is to bait the press, get the team out of sorts, and create confusion. This was an example of them performing brilliantly and breaking the press. Their reward is a 3 … on … 6, with every spot on the pitch covered.

While I could show you examples of Arsenal winning the ball, I think these are more interesting. Here’s another moment of Brighton successfully progressing ten minutes later.

As you’ll see, Arsenal have their usual “hinge” up top as Brighton get the ball in a more steady situation. With Jesus and Ødegaard having specific responsibilities, Havertz looks back, then decides to press the issue with a sprint towards Groß at full speed.

This isn’t too concerning for a team who is as good at passing as Brighton. They switch the ball and progress it up the right flank. Because Havertz got sucked up in the press, his usual zones are now vulnerable. Rice and Martinelli identify this right away, and peel all the way down to aggressively help Zinchenko.

Together, they snuff out any chance of creating a chance down the wing.

With the ball recycled, Rice and Havertz now form a double-pivot, except their usual places are switched. Gilmour has the ball as a quarterback, while Jesus is saying “WTF — where are are my destroyers?”

…and in this moment, Havertz may think to himself: “oh wait, I’m Declan Rice in this situation.” He then does his best impression, destroying Lallana, and kicking if off to Saka for a transition opportunity post haste.

Don’t believe he was channeling Rice?

Look at this mirror image example from the man himself.

Arsenal’s out-of-possession work was monstrous throughout the day. It was perhaps the best pressing performance I’ve seen by any team in any league this year, and it resulted in 11 high turnovers.

To reference the intro again: Last season, I introduced Xhaka and Jorginho as “brilliant players laying out a perfect blueprint for those with more physical gifts.” The ways in which Rice has impacted this squad are fairly self-evident to any onlooker. It’s easy to take this as a given, but Arteta and Rice had to figure a lot of things out in preseason. His tendency to “over-help” could occasionally throw the structure out of whack. Much credit is due to them for working it all out.

But as sacrilege as it may feel, it’s worth reflecting on how much Havertz has upgraded the Arsenal press. Compared to Xhaka last year, he’s got more tackles, a higher tackling percentage (52.6% to 39%), more interceptions, more pass blocks, and a bunch more aerial wins — all despite the opponent having the ball less.

By eye, it’s a very simple athletic upgrade. Havertz has a similar work-rate and game-feel to Xhaka — which is no low bar to clear — but he also has more speed and longer legs for tackling and blocking, which make his contributions more directly impactful and suffocating.

All of this leads to a press that has rotations, coverage, and most importantly: the courage to keep going.

That, then, shows up in the more directly successful moments. Look at poor Mr. Groß trying to play out.

And here’s an answer to a hypothetical.

Q. What happens when the Premier League’s most swaggering build-up faces the Premier League’s most committed press?

A. The game turns into a crowded rondo game in the Brighton box.

Rice stole that one, performing one of those little actions I find so pleasing: intercepting and passing in a single touch.

But it’s also worth noting how far up everybody is.

👉 Everything is everything

Since the spring, we Arsenal fans have become accustomed to a familiar sight: our wingers getting doubled immediately, with haste. Here’s a random example I found. on my desktop, from Newcastle last year.

In the Champions League, opponents have learned the hard way that there is a steep price to be paid if you don’t offer help to your full-back with the requisite speed.

While we’re on the subject: I’m not too concerned about Martinelli’s output. He looks as good as ever; he’s able to rely on the byline more to generate corners, which is advantageous for the team, if not his own goal numbers; there are fewer transitional opportunities as teams sit lower; he’s refining some of his moves; he’s finding it difficult to get shots off in crowded boxes. His overall impact has still been stellar. See:

His central rotations have been coming of late, and I’d like to provide him the defensive support to “cheat” forward a bit more when the team is in a block so he can launch snap-counters with more frequency. Ultimately, these are just quibbles.

But if I were to hope you take away one thing from this article, it may be this: there are no phases of play, really. There is a football match. Everything is connected.

As such, this increased fear of Arsenal’s wing play is directly tied to Arsenal’s defensive dominance. By requiring so much help low, you are deciding the field of battle, and pulling opposing wingers all the way down to the byline with you for, perhaps, 40-50%+ of the game. After all, if you lose a ball near the corner flag, you are much further from your own goal than if you do so from the middle.

Early in the game, you saw a Saka dribble to the byline, resulting in a dangerous cross that was narrowly missed. But look closer, and you’ll see something else: all eleven Brighton players are in the shot.

What we saw from Brighton was a forward attack that was routinely under-staffed.

And this is why possessional dominance is ultimately the best model for a team. Pure, low-block defensive focus does not necessarily lead to goals; but attacking control does prevent goals the other way.

One way to force danger and keep them pinned? Overloads.

👉 Carrying the load

Here was another complaint I had after last year’s loss:

Martinelli and Saka frequently lead the league in progressive carries, but those in the middle of the pitch tend to fall behind as an outlet when passing won’t quite do the trick. This is particularly an issue with Xhaka, who is often presented with opportunities to infiltrate the press with a carry, but isn’t agile enough to do it. This may have been decisive against Liverpool. It reared its head again versus a similar-intensity side on Sunday.
[…]
Improving the quality of our midfield carries is a tangible way to upgrade this summer.
Basmati, anyone?

It does feel nice to look back at these old diary entries, in which I was wish-casting for a delicious dish of Basmati, and then to receive said dish, and for it to better than I could have ever imagined.

Carries and dribbles unlock things that are difficult to achieve through passing. Especially against tough blocks, it is the single best way to drag people out of position and create space. Look at this.

Rice has been transformative in this regard, but is only beginning to show his promise. There is more left to unlock, I promise.

Here, he joins the right-sided triangle, where it is a simple 4v4. There is no discernible advantage to be exploited, but again, look at how far these Brighton attackers are dragged away from the goal.

From there, the unit recycles and reloads. With Saliba now joining the crew, it is a 5v4, and suddenly, the Brighton defenders are overburdened. A simple wall pass out to White will discard Lallana from the proceedings, as Rice points out to Saliba (who doesn’t need any help to see such things).

With Lallana gone (👋), Rice identifies the next opportunity for a free man circuit. Gilmour is left with the responsibility to mark two players, and asks for help.

But those two passes cleared out both he (👋) and Mitoma (👋). Thanks to some clean recognition and the addition of Saliba, the 4v4 turned into a 5v4. Then it sent three of the defenders out to sea. Rice is left to attack the box directly, and create a golden opportunity for Saka, who is cutting behind Milner.

Rice doesn’t always need such help.

Here, he got the ball from Raya. Havertz had turned into Late Game Klutch Kai, moving up to the striker role to accept any long-balls his way. Trossard had come on and didn’t identify the need to drop in. Rice is wondering why nobody is offering him an option.

…and so he says, fuck it, I’ll do it myself.

…and the rest is beauty.

👉 Fløategaard forever

You may be interested to see Ødegaard dropping deep to to form a double-pivot, as we’ve seen lately. Except: this screenshot is from last year, not this year.

Ødegaard has done such things a few times over the years — an Ø/Sambi/ESR midfield against Liverpool in the League Cup comes to mind — but we’ve seen a much more committed version of this lately.

Despite his help deep, Ødegaard didn’t actually really serve as a secondary controller last year. He did this time, and he was, again, absolutely brilliant. I’ve said this before, but this is probably the most important tactical story of the year for Arsenal.

It can be difficult to explain just how “locked” into the right channel Ødegaard could get in previous periods. We’ve covered this at great length, but here’s a stark example against Brentford earlier this year.

Those days seem to be behind us — and it is directly leading to output.

In the 86th minute, with the game still in the balance, Trossard dropped low and kept dribbling, looking for options. Whereas a previous Ødegaard may have stayed put, preserving space, this new version actively looks to get on the ball. He pulls his marker (Groß) across the pitch and offers Trossard an option.

…and there it is. This space, the spot where Ødegaard would have likely been parked just a few weeks ago, is the exact space that Nkeitah exploits to create the goal that seals it.

Direct results.

👉 Final thoughts

As always, I didn’t intend to cover everything that happened in the game, or even many of the notable bits. I prefer to dive into little subplots that we may excavate for some learnings. Here are a couple others.

Here’s White dropping into the midfield, which you don’t often see. This looked more like opportunism than some tactical shift, but often things can be tested in small doses. In this case, he helped drag Milner up and create some space for Saka and Jesus to play with out wide.

Next one. This resulted in a switch to Saka, an Ødegaard overlap, and a Saka shot — all within 20 seconds of the ball hitting Raya’s hands.

Next. Gabriel and Saliba are good at these.

…and finally, the corner. This went according to plan, even if the flick-header was provided by the opposition. Look at something subtle — how Jesus uses the big bodies of his teammates to blend in and feign a lack of involvement. Once position is established, Gabriel and company box out the defenders, and Jesus is free at the back-post. All intentional:

While the flick header may have been lucky, generating these chances isn’t. Arsenal have taken 139 corners (21 more than anybody in the league), and conceded only 39 (28 fewer than anybody in the league). Corners are always opportunities for variance, luck, mistakes, and cheap goals — remember Luton? — so it is a good plan to get as many as possible and limit your opponent’s ability to do so.

Side note, and not applicable here, but: something I’d like to investigate is how many of these corners are generated by Martinelli himself by dribbling to the byline and kicking it off his opponent. With Rice and Havertz increasing the team’s advantages in this area, it has likely become more of a focus area. This might be a subtle way in which Martinelli’s goal output is impacted.

In all, it was a determined, statement performance, with several puzzle pieces clicking together (except, perhaps, the “finishing” piece). I think big dreams are currently proportionate to the quality I see on the pitch. These dreams will continue to be tested by variance and injury, sure, but so will everybody else’s.

On Saturday, these dreams may face their biggest test yet.

👉 Preparing for Anfield

To say that Saturday represents a big challenge is an understatement.

Much of the title hopes of the two teams hinge on simple questions. Can Liverpool defend enough to win? Can Arsenal score enough to win? Can Alisson break math?

The two teams are discouraging opponents, but for opposite reasons. Arsenal can squeeze the life out of attacks, calmly dispatching seemingly-promising transitions, keeping the ball pinned over and over. Liverpool, on the other hand, can nick a goal at any moment, and their barrage of ball-strikers usually deliver late.

With a home record of 7-1-0 — and 5 clean sheets in that span — Liverpool have gained the most points the league overall since that electric, disappointing draw at Anfield in April. That also marks the debut of Trent Alexander-Arnold in an updated role, which still gets tweaked regularly.

As the above chart indicates, adjustments and game-state will matter a whole lot in this one, and Liverpool have vulnerabilities.

Here are a few things on my mind. This is less a prediction, and more a collection of thoughts on what my approach may be.

1. Be physical

The most straightforward reason for Arsenal fans to be optimistic is this: games at Anfield are often based on duels and second balls, and we now have Declan Rice and Kai Havertz. They are built for these kinds of games (as are Martinelli, Saliba, Gabriel, and Jesus, for what it’s worth).

In the background, I’ve been building a little opposition research tool. (If you know python and worldfootballR and data viz and want to help me automate it, hit me up!). It’s a simple script that goes through all of a team’s statistics, and then identifies the areas that may have a disproportionate impact on their underlying performances (when compared other teams in the league). The idea, basically, is to identify areas of focus.

For Liverpool, one of the strongest relationships to a weaker performance seems to be the number of combined fouls. There are a lot of other factors that play into why that may be, and the normal correlation/causation thing, but it’s nonetheless interesting: Crystal Palace (-0.5 xGD) had 34 total fouls, Toulouse (2-3 loss) had 25, Brighton (2-2 draw) had 32, Tottenham (-0.9 xGD) had 28, Newcastle (-1.1 xGD) had 25. All well over season averages.

While it’s tempting to start Jorginho from a control perspective — and I have no real qualms if that happens — I am so enthusiastic about what I’ve seen lately from the starting RKØ configuration — Rice, Kai, Ødegaard — and am anxious to go to Anfield with our best athletes starting.

For that reason, I’d lean towards a 4-1-4-1, with Rice patrolling the middle.

When out-of-possession, here are some notes on what I’d do:

In transitional moments, Gabriel can mark Salah out wide, and Zinchenko and Rice can fill the channel behind. As long as they’re patient and not too jumpy (as Rice perhaps was in that moment against Aston Villa), this is structurally strong. Gabriel should hold his own.
The LW (Martinelli) can drop low to support Zinchenko in a true double-team when in a more typical block; if Rice is in the middle, he can drop down to support a whole lot as well. I would personally have Jesus and Martinelli rotate in and out of the LW role in the block, so they stay fresh and feisty, and so Martinelli has chances to hit the counter from the top of the shape.
These aggressive ball-side leans will render Arsenal a little vulnerable to quick switches, but hey, there’s risk in anything.
Alexander-Arnold will naturally see a lot of Kai Havertz, as they occupy a lot of the same zones. For much of the proceedings I’d essentially have Havertz hassling the right-back at every opportunity, shoving him down and making him uncomfortable. Trent’s new role should put marginally less pressure on Zinchenko out wide (I know, I know, I was watching too), but makes him much more of a threat for central progression. This is why I like Rice in the middle.
I think there’s a decent argument for settling into a mid-block to start the game and then go all out on the press after 15 minutes or so. If the game gets too chaotic, too early, it may play into their hands. Liverpool played midweek, and Arsenal didn’t, so dialing up the pressure may be an unwelcome thing for them.
That said, after last week’s performance, I can definitely see Arsenal going full steam from the opening whistle.

2. Overburden the left channel

I think a lot of criticism of Alexander-Arnold is silly and overstated, and know that much of his issues as a defender stem from structural things. It’s just hard to be the primary playmaker for a team and cover every flank attack.

With that said, I went through every goal that Liverpool have conceded this year, and yeah, a lot of them come via attacking the space that he leaves open.

Where he previously would get sucked up the pitch on the right, he’s now more central. That means the wide RCB (Matip here, who has since torn his ACL) covers the wide area and then Alexander-Arnold slots in through the middle.

Wait, Billy, didn’t you just say that you want Gabriel covering wide for Zinchenko?

You’re right, I did. There’s one difference: Arsenal have Declan Rice for support, whereas Liverpool have 39 left-sided eights. Endo may start in this one, but this still deserves a lot of prodding.

Here is Alexander-Arnold defending that one as a CB:

The day calls for a lot of this good stuff, with Rice and Ødegaard cheating over.

…and this:

If this induces Salah to hang back and help more, all the better.

3. Force coordination

Klopp hasn’t been perfect this year. I think signing all these profiles when you already have Curtis Jones is a weird thing to do. There are two byproducts of the sheer amount of midfielders and attackers Liverpool can offer:

They have some nasty, fresh shot-makers to put into games late
There is not enough relationship continuity on the team, and they suffer for it

As a unit, they are relatively patient in the first line of press, but may run too much from there — challenging everything, getting yanked around, and opening gaps. They have lost the most attempted tackles in the league (188), they have the lowest tackle success rate in the league (42%, tied with Brighton). Arsenal is first in both.

Outside of take-ons, Liverpool have directly dispossessed their opponents at the lowest rate in the league as well (127 times).

Forcing communication like this is the ticket, and Ødegaard should be at his freewheeling best. On this right side, Saka should be able to go bang 1v1, but Rice and the captain can likely trigger some happy confusion together.

Their very looseness, and their ability to pick up loose balls, directly translates into attacking might — but it also leaves gaps. This can lead to some scattered recoveries in transition, and it also means that crosses can work against them.

4. Rip some snap shots

Liverpool allow the third-most direct attacks in the league (with 55, behind Sheffield United and Everton). It’ll be important for Arsenal to pick their moments on this one without it devolving into a loose, end-to-end Bundesliga game that would suit the home side.

Alisson has no weaknesses, particularly when he’s settled. But I like the idea of testing him at unexpected times, like Adingra did here right after winning it back.

5. Adjustments, adjustments

So much will depend on this. My impulse is try to win the game in the middle stages, then sub Kiwior on for Zinchenko and Jorginho on for Jesus, switching to a Rice/Jorginho pivot, playing defensively, passing around, and going long to Havertz. But you know what they say about best-laid plans.

Bonus: Galaxy brain

Here are my best big brain ideas:

Start Kiwior at LCB, Gabriel LB, and just hoof it long
Put Jesus at LW and Martinelli at striker, but for real

I couldn’t be looking forward to this one any more. Liverpool are a devastating attacking unit, capable of scoring at any time and from anywhere, and the game throws all kinds of interesting variables into the equation.

But, especially if the Brighton performance is repeated, Arsenal are increasing their own intimidation factor as every week goes by.

Are we in danger at Anfield? Perhaps. Or, perhaps it’s that scene from Breaking Bad:

“I am not in danger, Skyler. I am the danger … I am the one who knocks.”

Be good out there.

Billy loves you.

❤️

Edu's BBQ

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