How Tomiyasu and Xhaka joined forces to pocket Salah and disrupt Liverpool's attack
The Liverpool matchup was fated to be a battle for production between two pivotal areas of the pitch.
The first was Arsenal's left-wing, where the league's two most successful dribblers were set to exploit Liverpool's world-famous weakness.
The second was on Liverpool's right-wing, where a still-dangerous Salah was set to roam a piece of grass that Arsenal often vacates.
Because of the latter, there was a good deal of hand-wringing about who would start at left-back for Arsenal.
In recent matches, particularly against Bodø/Glimt, Kieran Tierney looked to be at the top of his game: fully fit, disruptive in transition defense, settling into an inverted role, and ripping screamers along the way.
Zinchenko, if healthy, would offer his normal variety of dominant possession and elite passing. Who would it be?
An hour before kickoff, we got our answer.
Tomiyasu, of course
With the benefit of hindsight, his selection can be attributed to three reasons:
Aerial focus: Tomi is world-elite in the air, winning 2.6 of those duels per 90 — putting him in the 97th percentile. It's never more important than against Liverpool, when teams face an artillery barrage of long balls, corners, set pieces, and crosses.
Positioning: Of the three, Tomi makes the fewest aggressive moves in the attacking third, and offers the highest degree of predictability and support alongside Gabriel.
Bipedal: Against a wider, inverted winger, it's helpful to have both feet at your disposal for blocking chances. Tomi's two-footedness is about as good as it gets.
A fourth reason is that Tomi is really fucking good.
In the Battle of the Flanks, Arteta was accepting no half-measures: overload his left in attack, and overload his own left in defense.
Let's dive into what Arteta and Tomiyasu did to blunt the Liverpool attack, while paying attention to a less obvious factor in the success of the defensive gameplan: Granit Xhaka.
But first, Salah.
How is defending Salah different this year?
In the preview post last week, we covered Salah's updated role and how it's impacted the overall threat of Liverpool and the Golden Boot winner.
The short hypothesis is this: Klopp has had to make room to accommodate long term plan of Darwin Núñez at striker. Whereas Firmino and the like thrive in the false 9 — allowing the wingers to cut in to spots normally reserved for a striker — Núñez is more traditional.
In response, Salah is wider, settling into a role with more playmaking responsibilities. This has domino'ed through the pitch, impacting everything, from the positioning of the midfield and TAA, to the issues they have at the back.
But rumors of a massive drop in form are likely exaggerated. While Salah looked understandably tired down the stretch last year, and might have lost a touch of his dribbling explosiveness overall, he's been one of Liverpool's higher-effort (and more dangerous) players this year, as far as one idiot's eye test goes.
Some numbers to prove the danger he still offers:
He is sixth in the league in npxG+xA, with 5.77, behind only Haaland, Kane, Jesus, KDB, and Toney.
According to wyscout, he is second in xA (2.61 per 90), behind only KDB.
And some numbers to show how he's trading direct attacks for passes:
He has 1.47 fewer shots per 90 this year, and 2.56 fewer dribbles.
He's third in the league in key passes (with 1.19 per 90) and passes it into the penalty area more often (4.69 to 3.69 per 90)
So now that we've established the baseline that Salah is different but still a big threat, let us ask ourselves...
How did it go for Salah against Arsenal?
He had his worst, most invisible game of the season.
He tallied his:
Fewest total actions (33)
Fewest touches overall (23)
Fewest passes (18)
Fewest shots (1)
Fewest duels (9)
Fewest touches in penalty area (1)
Fewest passes into penalty area (2)
How it happened
The simplest way to defend somebody like Salah is to make sure he doesn't get the ball in the first place. On this, Tomiyasu's skill at this showed early, in numerous, seemingly-routine chances.
1. Simple, composed clearances
In an early chance, Tsimikas looks to loop a cross around back to Salah...
...and Tomiyasu calmly heads it out of harm's way. One thing you'll notice (spoiler alert) is who is back next to Tomi: Xhaka.
Here's another one.
At the end of the first half, there was a beautiful, long, low, change-of-play ball hit by VVD out to Salah, who has space on the wing...
...and Tomi somehow gets fully under it and heads it away.
In all, he notched 6 aerial duels (winning 4), 7 interceptions, and 14 ball recoveries (when defined more broadly, as wyscout does), and 5 clearances.
There's nothing particularly interesting or noteworthy about many of these, and that's the point. The safe handling of these mundane moments can make all the difference, and there aren't many players in the world better at doing it with their heads than Tomi.
2. Win duels (so you don't get upset)
It got spicy at 13'. After doing well to get back against a dangerous Thiago-to-Diaz transition, the line settles into a back six. Back six? Back six.
Xhaka is clearly settling into an intentional position between Tomi and Gabriel, which we'll get to later.
Henderson plays it out to Salah, who is asking for it...
...Tomi immediately crowds him and forces him to go on his weaker foot...
...he dispossesses him immediately...
...and is off running to the other side.
In terms of dictating the overall feel of the match, this early play was right up there with the goal. Arsenal's intentions were made clear.
3. Send backup
This is where Arteta seemed to go pretty extreme with the gameplan. He simply did not want to get beat by the right-wing.
Below, in Salah's most successful action, you'll see the extent of the field-crunch at times.
Salah accepts a ball out on the wing, and he's got Tomiyasu marking him, helped by Martinelli, with Odegaard shading over, with Xhaka backing up, with Partey leaning, with Gabriel behind them...
...but Salah can still be Salah. He splits Martinelli, freezes Tomi, takes on Xhaka...
...and still gets a shot away.
One can only imagine how that might have gone if there was a little more space over there.
4. Do-it-all Xhaka
Maybe the most undercelebrated performance of the match was by Xhaka, who had an even tougher role than usual: all the way back, or all the way forward.
Let's contrast his heatmaps in the games against Spurs and Liverpool:
For any player, this is challenging: to be a partner to Martinelli and Jesus up top (even a striker at times) and then to sit next to Gabriel on defense, disrupting one of the best attacks on God's Green Earth. For a player with limited speed — for a laugh, let me check what his pace on FIFA is, yep: he's a 48 — this requires an almost fanatical work ethic. And he has one.
In a period of high danger, Liverpool started rotating to kickstart their attack.
Salah comes up to the middle and Tomi man-marks him. Jota swings out wide, and Xhaka rotates to cover him. This is seemingly a speed matchup that Liverpool would like to exploit. Henderson pings a throughball...
...and Xhaka anticipates it beautifully and kicks it away.
In another quick-attack during the same phase, Xhaka catches up to Jota and dispossesses him.
Some final notes:
However well Xhaka did against Jota in the above moments, they were not quite as solid with Xhaka on Salah way out wide at LB and Tomi up the middle. Xhaka's speed deficit is more apparent out there, and Salah got a throughball ... through ... for a Nunez shot.
There was a really marauding throughball opportunity to Salah that Tomiyasu somehow slide-intercepted away. It may have been offside in any case but we never had to find out. Tomi can really have amazing short-burst athleticism.
Tomi broke this up.
🔥 In Conclusion 🔥
In the end, the team zeroed-out the Golden Boot winner, who was subbed off at 69' (nice) for Fabinho, making way for Jordan Henderson to play RW for some reason.
Tomiyasu didn't stop there, with good play until the whistle, including calm headers and 3/5-back defense that showcased all his versatility. To be able to play four comfortable CB's at the back like this, and attack like Arsenal did against one of the world's best clubs, is just more evidence of a plan coming together.
Xhaka's headered clearances, work rate, and positional intelligence also paid dividends — and was totally vital to the shutdown of the most dangerous part of the pitch for Liverpool. Not bad for somebody with more shot-creating actions than, say, Harry Kane or Bruno Fernandes.
Onward and upward.
Happy grilling everybody.
🔥
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