Can You Control Chaos? Liverpool 1-1 Arsenal Tactical Analysis, Arteta/Klopp, Trent’s role, more…

Liverpool won, Arsenal won, was a fiercely contested football match and one that I felt was on a knife edge throughout and in today's video I'm going to tactically deconstruct the entire 90 minutes including Arsenal's out-of-possession approach, how Trent Alexander-Arnold forced Mikel Arteta into changing this, the difference as well in Arsenal's in-possession performances against the Liverpool press from the first and the second half and the difference between those two, and then why the duel was arguably the most important aspect of the game yesterday. Welcome back to the Harvey Grayson YouTube channel and with all this to come, let's get straight on with it. We're going to start with Arsenal's initial out-of-possession plan and how it was forced to adapt and how this was all based and focused around the role of Trent Alexander-Arnold. Arsenal of course set up in their hybrid zonal slash man-to-man structure which verges on a 4-1-4-1 or a 4-4-2. In the game yesterday, Havertz and Martinelli interestingly were the ones joining Jesus up front in the front two because it seemed as though Jesus I think was tasked with marking Virgil van Dijk specifically and when we could form this high or mid block, Zinchenko followed Gakpo or Sobozlay and Gabriel moved outwards to defend Salah in the channels and of course this is to mitigate Salah in isolation against Alexander Zinchenko and Gabriel is one of the best channel defenders around that low centre of gravity despite his height and those bustling powerful legs, those quick changes of direction. When we were not man-to-man though initially, we always wanted to keep a plus one on the last line because of Liverpool's transitional qualities and Havertz was left with often marking two players, often marking Trent who tried to invert normally into midfield from right back at the start before then Havertz joined Jesus to press the other centre back. Now marking Trent was the key for Arsenal with Martinelli starting on him if he stayed in that nominal right back berth, switching markers to Havertz then when Trent moved infield and Arsenal communicate these changes in markers very well and have done throughout the whole season and this mixture of man marking in a hybrid zonal system is one that Arsenal fans have seen a lot this season. For example, cast your minds back to Manchester City at home, Ben White marked Phil Foden in between the lines, Jesus followed Guardiola into the last line, matching up with City's sort of attempted central overload as well in the deep build-up. However, although Arsenal initially matched up really well against Liverpool, they did change something and it was Trent Alexander-Arnold. Liverpool moved from more of a 2-3 shape to a 3-2 build-up in settled play but the key was Alexander-Arnold dropping in between Kanate and Van Dijk and becoming a sort of a quarterback figure. Endo also did this as well but it was when Liverpool were looking to play through the phases and despite Arsenal's dual capacity across the pitch, I think it's obvious Zinchenko is the only weak player in sort of a vulnerable zone and by bypassing the second phase with sort of Trent's quarterback-esque passes, Liverpool could try and catch Arsenal out and isolate Salah against Zinchenko before the block had time to sort of switch markers and move Gabriel out wide to mark Salah. And this even happened when Arsenal were nice and compact and I think this just shows the power of Trent. Sometimes there is an unstoppable force in another side and his creativity, even when, like we were saying, Liverpool were overloaded in the last line like they often were yesterday, makes it so difficult to defend and I must say Zinchenko did try to meet Salah higher all game and negate him running at him but it's almost impossible to do this, especially with Trent in that quarterback role for the whole 90 minutes. I want to quickly have a tangent and talk about the dialogue in Zinchenko because for me, I don't really care about it. For these games, he's not first choice anyway. It's unfortunate that he's only the real left-back available because of course we've talked about how Timber rolls technical security and athleticism into one and Tomi Asu has been exemplary against Mo Salah in the past and sort of the lack of or the lower dependency we now have on Zinchenko in the build-up, with Odegaard moving deeper, with Rice and other inverting options, means he just isn't the first choice anymore. So that's why the whole discourse around Zinchenko feels a bit novel and forced for me. But now that Trent was starting to open up the pitch, this forced Arsenal deeper and they couldn't go into a man-to-man press with reliability. So they remained in their zonal shape and in the build-up, Jones and Endo, I think, constantly occupied those pockets in the Arsenal zone which, surprisingly, caused a few problems. Havoc's shadow marking has been immense all season and I've touched on how he had to do a dual marking job yesterday and he did a great job yesterday of minimising Sobozlai's involvement. But Endo and Curtis Jones had nice, I think, linear movements when both were in the pivot to evade the shadow marking of Arsenal. But overall though, again, it was a very compact and physical zone from Arsenal as per and Liverpool really struggled to play through and also sustain pressure. And this is what they struggle with, sort of, with so many direct profiles in their squad at times, they're sort of reduced to Trent's playing the ball into the channels, which is an instant killer type, a brutal creation method. But Arsenal out of possession would still have been very happy with how they limited Liverpool's involvement in playing through the phases yesterday. They were as compact as we would expect them to be. What was interesting as well was Pakaio Saka was tasked with marking Kostas Simikas instantly in Liverpool's 4-2-4 build-up yesterday, not inverting onto the centre-back as we weren't always in that man-to-man press and Saka refused to follow Jones into the pivot because this wasn't his instruction. So in Liverpool's settled possession, this left Arsenal more in a 5-3-2 and this led to Liverpool having more of the ball in that first half. I think Simikas' injury was actually a bit of a blessing for Arsenal as, of course, Joe Gomez isn't a natural width holder like Simikas and, of course, isn't left-footed, meaning he underlaps more and is more of a box-crasher from full-back. And this meant, I think, especially combining that with Nunes or Diaz off the left, you naturally drift inside. Saka could cheat and let him go at times and sort of let Liverpool crowd that area for themselves, not relinquishing the ball to them in our 5-3-2 shape previously. And Salah could stay as part of the front three or front five in settled possession. Moving on, I want to talk about Arsenal's approach on the ball because it's not just about us dropping off from our man-to-man press and letting Trent have space and time in that quarterback role. It was also to do with our on-ball approach. Whether it was forced in-game or planned I think is debatable. I would say both, but we had an unusual directness on the ball and Arteta was certainly more than happy to enter a transitional game with Liverpool, who have been the best around at that for probably five years now and at Anfield. I think with Zinchenko there, of course, there's always an element of us wanting to have a control scheme and that was taken out of the picture until the second half, as I'm going to get on to. But being direct in nature is not something any of us would have expected to the degree of yesterday. Of course, we know we've experimented with bypassing the second phase at times this season, trying to make more of Martinelli as an outlet, as that wide free man off the left, playing over aggressive presses to Kai Havertz or Jesus in between the lines, clustering areas to win second balls and dominating space in a matter of moments. But this has always come as a subsidiary and very secondary to control. And it shows, of course, we have many different game plans to approach games when things are taking slightly out of our control. And we still did relatively well in that first half yesterday. We stay compact, like I've said, but I must admit I was very surprised as controlling the game with the ball is where we can gain a bigger gap relatively to Liverpool. But I want to touch and move on to the second half now, where the dynamics, I think, started to change, certainly from minute 55 onwards, as we've seen by the field tilt. And it's Arsenal searching for control, trying to take advantage of a decompacted Liverpool zone out of possession. Because, of course, Liverpool press in that 4-3-3 with their two interiors often jumping and joining alongside the centre forward to press the ball. Sobreslai and Jones and Gravenberg all do this with very good intensity. And for the first 10 minutes of that second half, there were high turnovers and Arsenal were only allowed 6.4 passes per defensive action. And that's very good from the Liverpool press. However, a staple of Liverpool out of possession this season has been missed time jumps or a lack of harmony between the counter press and defending deep. And when we compare this to Arsenal, whose egos I don't think are affected at all by having to defend deep with 11 men, this is, I think, a difference defensively across the two sides. And, of course, Anfield allows the intensity of the press to be more consistent to some extent. But Liverpool's zone before they switched, I think, to a man-to-man was fairly uncompact. And across the whole game, Zinchenko and Oerdegaard's technical security was unusually low for the pair. A trend that I think has actually crept into Zinchenko's game of late, maybe looking to do slightly too much on the ball. But with Zinchenko inverting and being able to do so with much more reliability in the second half, Oerdegaard as well starting in that pivot in Arsenal's 4-2 build-up and oftentimes staying deep in almost a 3-3 to try and help dictate attacks, gain control of the ball for Arsenal and control the tempo and the rhythm of the game. Arsenal had the structure to bypass the Liverpool press. We often saw Oerdegaard or Rice drifting to the right and left, combining with the full-backs, the centre-backs and wingers, creating a 4v3 out wide, similar to what Manchester City did against Liverpool at the Etihad, waiting for jumps and being composed to try and find the free man and a way out. As I said, Liverpool's 4-3-3 shape was really uncompact at times, so as Arsenal grew in composure and started to play through the press. I want to here show a little example of this, where we form a 3-2 build-up shape and the pocket for Rice to operate in is absolutely massive and neither Gakpo or Diaz really have the correct angles. Rice then puts the ball through the lines to Oerdegaard, who's been allowed to drift higher. Jesus has taken advantage of the space in between the lines, as he does so well, clustering then around him to ensure we win the lay-off and find Martinelli, who's that wide free man, off the left. And realistically, Martinelli should do better here, but it's a really nice pattern of play for Arsenal and it was a growing theme in the second 45. I want to highlight Declan Rice here and how integral his presence was for settling us down, because let's say if we had Thomas Partey in the six in these situations, his tendency to become far too vertical would incite more and more turnovers, and it's just what Anfield has fed off in the past. But obviously we've got Declan Rice now, he has the perfect temperament for a number six, that mobility to constantly offer in the pocket and between the centre-backs, and once again was nicely progressive where he could be yesterday, with switches of play, passes fired through the lines, to Oerdegaard mostly in that right-sided half-space, and again was imperious in the duel. And this takes us nicely to the topic of the duel, which I think epitomised the game yesterday, and Arsenal and Liverpool were trying to gain ascendancy out wide and in the centre of the pitch via this real physical and intense method, because I think for all the slight positional advantages Arsenal may have had, we always talk on this channel about how ultimately duels win football matches, and Liverpool won I think most of them in the key areas yesterday. Of course the Salah and Zinchenko battle was pretty obvious, and I think Canate versus Martinelli as well. Canate did so well, again incredible channel defending, him, Saliba, Van Dijk and Gabriel were all exemplary yesterday, and there was one moment with Canate where Martinelli was actually past him, and these long legs sort of came out of nowhere and stole the ball back, and I think Arsenal would have been expecting a lot more joy in behind Trent, and in that gap between full-back and centre-back that maybe Havertz thought he could exploit by probing that back line constantly in the left shadow striker, but Canate and also Sobreslui, who tracked back, plugged it really well. I thought Bakayosaka, of course, had another strong performance yesterday, he was the main guy to open the pitch up for Arsenal, especially with switches of play, but he didn't quite dominate Joe Gomez, as we probably expected because we didn't have that sustained high possession as much, and it's probably another example of left-footers finding it trickier against right-footed full-backs a la Arteta has done with Tomiasu, also with Timbury against Manchester City, Pep with Ikanji, for example, even though Saka did well. So I think these wide battles and these wide duels, Liverpool had the upper hand, but I would say Arsenal did win the duels in the centre of the pitch. There was a lot of sort of messy centres of play yesterday, and Arsenal, a lot of the time, looked to purposely bunch the middle of the pitch, either to isolate someone on the flank, or to ensure when sort of these areas of the pitch almost becomes a pinball machine, you have the long legs of Havertz and Reiss, the work ethic of Martinelli, Saka, Jesus, Odegaard, to win the ball back, and I think Arsenal definitely did that yesterday. The duel, of course, also enables sides to force quick transitions, and this was part of the thinking, I think, from Jurgen Klopp, by bringing on Gravenberch, Nunez, moving Salah to the centre forward, and Elliott on the right, but the retention of the Liverpool side went completely down, especially with the Jones to Gravenberch switch, and I think for Ryan Gravenberch this is something that he really has to improve in this aspect of his game, getting that pass volume up to the of Curtis Jones, and of course, I think Elliott, he has been more ineffectual without an overlapper on that right wing, and Arsenal were able to adjust the game to their rhythm in those closing stages, I think. Before I finish, though, I want to comment on a couple of individual displays, because I thought Eddie Nketiah was brilliant when he came on in his work, great in holding the ball off, even up against, you know, the presences of Van Dijk and Kanate, he gave Arsenal some really much needed relief in the final sort of five, ten minutes when we had to defend a bit deeper. I also want to comment on Havertz's sort of nonchalance yesterday, I think at times he can be a bit quicker with his actions, but his composure and his confidence is going up, I think, game by game. And then finally, David Ryer, he was given a couple of bouncing balls, a couple of difficult passes to deal with, but once again, his composure playing out from the back when he did become that plus one in possession, making the right pass choice, finding the out ball of Havertz or Martinelli or spaces in between the lines, he did really well yesterday, and didn't relinquish control to Liverpool at all. But that is all we have time for today, I really hope you've enjoyed this tactical analysis of Arsenal-Liverpool, leave a like, comment, subscribe if you've enjoyed, I only ask you to do these things right at the end of the video, as you know, because hopefully that's meant you've found the video informative or enjoyable in whichever way, shape or form you derive that from. But that's all from me, I'll catch you in the next one, thank you so much for watching, see you later.