Arsenal worried by Spurs counter-attacks

Soon, in this boring week with no football, a game will come round and a big game it will be, a game where form is totally irrelevant. It's North London Derby time against the red boys.

Arsenal worried by Spurs counter-attacks


On their patch of course we were leading 1-0 but a miss kick from Lamela on the edge of the box resulted in a fluke equaliser as Danny Welbeck only had to connect with the ball and it would have flown miles wide and miles over. As it was his air shot enabled the ball to somehow find it's way to Oxlade-Chamberlain who couldn't miss.

It was early days in the Pochettino system and the team was set up to defend which by and large they did very well. Younes Kaboul had his only decent game of the season at the heart of the defence and when Eriksen closed the ball down and tackled, a Lamela pass to Chadli put us one up.

The red boys dominated possession thereafter as we set ourselves to defend a 1-0 lead, which but for that mistake would have been successful. Wenger complained, when doesn't he, that Arsenal has 15 corners and didn't make anything of them and that at a time when our defending of corners was still dodgy. Clearly they were frightened of being caught on the break as we had everyone back for corners yet they had nobody on the keeper and only 4 players in the box, even then we counter-attacked them as their side lacked pace.

Incredibly after we had counter-attacked them, the next corner they has, when we again had all 11 men back inside the box, they took an extra man out and has 6 players defending a counter attack with only 3 in the box (graphic below).

Arsenal worried by Spurs counter-attacks

If we move this corner on the ball has come over and the ball has made it's way to Aaron Ramsey (centre nearest bottom of screenshot below) but he slips and we counter-attack again.

Arsenal worried by Spurs counter-attacks

This was the first-half of the game when we should really have scored but our decision making and passing in the final third was poor. We had enough opportunities to creates chances to score a couple. Moving to the second half with the score still at 0-0 look at the defensive approach at home, the screenshot below shows a clear concern what we might do rather than what they can do. Incidentally this corner was way over hit and went out for a throw-in.

Arsenal worried by Spurs counter-attacks

Clearly Spurs were defending as a team but then when we broke we broke in numbers and very direct. Those players responsible for defending stayed and defended allowing the attacking players to break and attack. Everyone has a role and for those who complain Bentaleb, Stambouli or Capoue don't create more, their role is to stay to help the centre-backs, allowing the fill-backs to go forward if they can.

It's all a part of playing as a team instead of giving the ball to Christian Eriksen and saying do something with it or in the past just passing the ball to Gareth Bale. The creative players can perform because their is a shield behind them. It's a point Hugo Lloris was making to the official site.

“I’m always talking about the team and team spirit. And when the team is doing well defensively and offensively, it’s always better for our talented players like Christian and Harry. 
“We put them in the best condition and after that they make the difference, so we need to continue in this way all together and keep this belief because there are a lot of things to aim for until the end of the season.”

Players now should know their roles, even those not playing. Bringing in any new players in January they would have had to learn the system as well as get to the fitness levels Pochettino requires. That would have taken at least a month, leaving just two and a half months of the season left. It made sense to do little business, let's hope the team ethic brings home a trophy and a top four berth, that really would make quite a first season.