It is fair to say Arsenal were woeful in their 3-1 defeat at Stamford Bridge on Friday night. Whatever the issues have been in Jonas Eidevall’s tenure, it is unusual to see Arsenal’s out of possession structure look so ragged. Chelsea played a compact 442 with a game plan to win the ball back in midfield and quickly play forward to Lauren James.
Hayes cleverly deployed Nusken as a second striker to prevent Leah Williamson from stepping out and helping to crowd James, often leaving one of the best one on one players in the world…one on one.
Quizzed on this point by Arseblog News after the game, Jonas Eidevall said, ‘Of course that is their plan when they play Lauren James as a 9, to drop with her to be able to get her turning with the ball and dictating play and she is very, very good at that. I think we deal with that very, very poorly, especially in the first half.’ If you can bear it, let’s look at some examples.
Chelsea had a plan to harry Arsenal in midfield and play the ball forward quickly to James and we see it very early on as Caitlin Foord attempts to collect this throw-in from Steph Catley. As Foord looks to drive in field, she is surrounded by Cuthbert and Perisset.
Chelsea crowd Foord out and there is no messing about, they clear the ball forward first time.
James has drifted over to the right hand side so that is where Chelsea play the ball first time and you can see there is confusion about who should be marking her.
James is able to cut in and shoot on her left foot just over the bar. It was an early warning for Arsenal that was not heeded.
Chelsea positioned their wingers aggressively and put Nusken up against Williamson to create space for James but also to create superiority in transition. This was allied with a lack of intensity from Arsenal. As the ball is played to James with her back to goal, Wubben-Moy tracks her, leaving her station at left centre-half. Nusken’s aggressive position means Catley has to drift across to cover and you can see that leaves Kaneryd free on the right.
This is where Arsenal’s lack of intensity is alarming. Wubben-Moy has pushed James away from goal but then nobody takes responsibility for stopping her from turning. James is allowed to do a 180 on the halfway line without challenge.
By giving James time to turn, she is able to spread the play to Kaneryd, who is in space because Catley needed to shuffle across to mark Nusken as Wubben-Moy engaged James.
This example might be the most alarming of the night. James drifts out to the right here and three Arsenal players track her but none take responsibility for trying to engage and win the ball. This means they have left a gaping space in behind.
Once again James has been allowed to turn without pressure and Kaneryd has made the easiest run in the world into the giant space Arsenal have presented her. Nobody takes responsibility for trying to take the ball off James or at least for shepherding her and nobody takes responsibility for tracking Kaneryd’s run.
For a player of James’ quality that is a simple lofted pass, especially when she is under no pressure on the ball. Fortunately for Arsenal, Zinsberger does take responsibility and sees the danger.
Chelsea’s relentless pressure on the ball wins them their first goal. As Mead collects a pass from Williamson here, Charles is onto her immediately. Compare that to what you saw in the last three frames when Chelsea have the ball on the right.
Mead is forced to go back to Williamson but Nusken is already standing on her toes when she gets the ball and Williamson has to rush her pass.
Now when Pelova collects a miscued pass she is under intense pressure too. Look at James in the centre circle, she is starting to tiptoe forwards because she can see what is unfolding. No Arsenal player has eyes on her.
Chelsea pick Pelova’s pocket and once again, there is no messing around. Nusken hits the ball forwards towards James first time.
Lauren James receiving the ball in this kind of scenario is a death sentence for any defence and so it proves here as Chelsea lead from James’ shot which Zinsberger doesn’t get enough behind.
Nusken’s advanced positioning did cause Arsenal problems and prevented them from crowding James. But there were times when they caused their own downfall too. James collects the ball on the halfway line here with roughly 25 yards to play with on the half turn. You can throw a blanket over Arsenal’s back four it’s so close together and, again, that means Kaneryd is in so much space.
No pressure on James + poor defensive organisation was only going to lead one way. James easily turns in space and finds Perisset who is in space. This is wretched stuff from Arsenal.
This example is more to do with Chelsea’s strength and clever deployment of Nusken. They find James with her back to goal here and, again, Nusken’s advanced position prevents Williamson from helping to crowd James.
Wubben-Moy passes James onto Walti and that is the right thing to do. But you can see that, even with James drifting like this, Chelsea still have a firm front three ahead of her in Kaneryd, Nusken and Reiten.
Lauren James spins Walti and this isn’t really to do with structure, shape or intensity. It is just a good player who has been served by the system and her own skill. The system means she is only facing up to one player with the ball and for James, turning one player is child’s play. You need to crowd her and Arsenal couldn’t do it.
Now James is running towards the Arsenal goal again and that always spells trouble.
Eventually Cuthbert’s shot is diverted in by Nusken and from this angle, you can see that Williamson has dropped behind the Arsenal defensive line because she is preoccupied with Nusken’s positioning. James weaved magic with the ball and Nusken’s off-ball position gave her the space to do it.
Straight after the third goal, you can see Arsenal are frazzled and they nearly gift Chelsea a fourth. Foord plays a blind pass forward here in hope more than expectation and Chelsea gratefully pick up the turnover.
Once again, there is no finessing or messing. Chelsea simply play the ball to James as quickly as possible. They played 12 more long balls than Arsenal on the night despite having 44% possession.
Once again, you can see Nusken’s positioning as a second striker means Wubben-Moy cannot go over to double up on James and James turns Williamson. Again, most defenders will lose to James one-on-one, you need bodies around her and Nusken means Arsenal don’t have a body to spare.
James is perhaps guilty of over confidence here, thankfully for Arsenal, as she tries a chip which sails over when a through ball to Nusken was the better option.
Arsenal’s defensive organisation wasn’t particularly superior in the second half, Chelsea just didn’t need to attack as much. Chelsea pass out from the back very easily to Niamh Charles at left-back who is under no pressure and you can already see the situation developing here.
One ball from Charles and James is through on goal. Chelsea pass the ball along the floor from the goalkeeper, to a defender, to the left-back, to the striker and they have a one-on-one. Three along the floor passes from a goal kick cannot be enough to for a one-on-one with the goalkeeper. It is, once again, lamentable stuff.
Chelsea are once again able to expose Arsenal with ease here. Hannah Hampton has a goal kick…
And she has managed to kick it all the way over to Perisset on the right and inside Arsenal’s half.
Perisset drives forward and look at the situation Chelsea have created from one stroke of the ball from the keeper. Three Arsenal players, at least, have now managed to run back and crowd Perisset.
It’s a simple pass to Kaneryd who enjoys one of the easiest nights she will have had in a Chelsea shirt, sauntering through on goal without challenge until Zinsberger comes to the rescue. This all emanates from a simple goal kick.
In the end, this has to go down as one of the worst performances under Eidevall. It is unusual to see Arsenal’s off ball structure look so ragged and for the intensity in challenges to come under question. It was a dark night for Arsenal.
Sorry Jonas, your time is up.
Totally agree
I’ve said this ages ago, he isn’t up to the job considering we’re one of the biggest spenders.
Thanks, Tim. Rewatching the match and then reading this puts some of the performances into perspective. They weren’t all terrible and in some cases it wasn’t necessarily their fault. Funnily enough, I thought Stina noticeably had a good first half. So basically, Emma Hayes was very smart to use LJ in a position in which her lack of defensive awareness/effort wouldn’t hurt Chelsea, and Njusken’s (sp) positioning maximised her effect by creating the best conditions for LJ to perform to her strengths. Was there a tactical answer that you can see? Would it have helped starting Russo with Blackstenius and… Read more »
I think it was Bielsa who used to say you always want 1 more CB than they have CF. If they’re playing 4-4-2 then would a back three not have given us more control? It’s interesting that they almost manmarked Williamson to prevent her playing her usual repertoire of long balls. I think during the match I was too frustrated by the lack of intensity or fight in the Arsenal players to notice how Chelsea targeted our back line. But it’s not a surprise, we’ve struggled with deep defensive lines who counter attack quickly all season.
Great points, thanks. Maybe Leah further down the road would have coped better with the pressing.
Three at the back would have been possible with Codina in the backline, McCabe and Lacasse/Pelova as wingbacks. Perhaps we will see that next time.
In hindsight I would have played a back three so you can stick someone on James without it harming the rest of the defensive line. I would have had Catley LCB to look after Kaneyrd’s runs inside. Honestly i think this squad has the players for a 352 too but that would probably be over complicating it.
Cheers, Tim.
Like Barcelona Femeni, center backs deep and the defensive midfielder very deep too like a back 3 with full backs almost in midfield to chockablock the midfield and advance in triangles till the final 3rd.Arsenal have awesome players to do that, but Jonas dreams to play like Mancity are very predictable.
Great analysis Tim, albeit painful reading. A real head scratcher of a performance. We simply cannot afford anything like this again. 3rd spot in the WSL is not a given when we’ve already suffered surprise results against Liverpool, West Ham and Sp*rs. I feel the travel miles are taking a toll on our Aussies. The impact of travel that distance followed by matches a few days later is exhausting, even if you travelled in the posh seats. Steph did not look fully fit yesterday, didn’t attempt to run down some crosses and shots. But it was a bad day at… Read more »
Symptomatic of every major game of consequence JE is a man lost in his own grandiosity.
Giving him a new contract with zero basis to support it was a mistake
Yes, like last season’s Conti Cup Final last season, the CL knock out games, the 5-1 stuffing of Lyon or the game that secured third spot Vs City last season. And then there’s the thumping of Chelsea and Utd at Emirates this season or Conti Cup semi final victory Vs Villa.
Yes we have screwed up in some key games like last night and the last FA Cup final we were in but you must have a memory of a goldfish or just very jaundiced.
People fixate too much on the contract IMO. It was an attempt to give team / club stability (we can see what happened to City last season and United this season without that). But mostly people get too fussed about extending manager contracts, it’s still incredibly easy to sack a manager if they are not performing well if you want / need to. I don’t know why everyone seems to think that every manager now sees out every day of their contract when football shows you consistently that is not the case.
It’s not the big games that are costing us it is the tiny little ones! You can afford to lose to Chelsea once in a season (although at least show some form of enthusiasm and desire!) but not when you have already given away the title by losing to Liverpool at home no less, West Ham and Spuds.
It’s not that this performance was symptomatic of every major game of consequence. That’s not true.
The problem is that our two big performances this season (Chelsea & Man Utd at the Emirates) were completely out of step with the rest of the season. We have been a dull, pedestrian team without a clear style of play for most of the time, with enough individual quality to dig out results against weaker opposition, that in a lot of cases we haven’t really deserved.
That’s the problem with Jonas, not ‘big game’ performances.
Thanks for analysis. Jonas out. He’s taken the team as far as he can. Always clever explanations afterwards but preparing the team inadequate. Arsenal have a quality squad and deserve a top coach. Jonas ain’t that
Who then? In an environment where Chelsea and Barca fem are also looking for new coaches (and frankly, I’d question the judgement of a top coach that picked us over them), I’d like Jonas out people to have a positive answer to this…
As long as fans regularly fill up Emirates, MP, and the team finishes top3, the club/team management would not care about Win or Lost, or even how we fans feel. Why will they, they achieved their goals.
I think you’re thinking of arsenal a few years ago when Stan and usmanov were in a staring contest and wenger was fiddling while the emirates burned. THIS Arsenal have ambition. And Arteta is a stark contrast to Jonas in that regard I think. Women’s football is growing and compared to men’s it’s cheap to invest in winning. We didn’t re sign Viv and get Russo to come third. I think coming third will see Jonas get the elbow at THIS Arsenal.
Yes there is a serious push from the top to make this team the best and the ambition is to fill the Emirates for every home game regardless of the competion. Unfortunately, sometimes to be the best the management have to make difficult decisions. We now have decent strength and depth in the squad so where is the weak link now? That’s where Josh Kronke, Edu, Claire Wheatley et al have to earn their keep and understand why this season has gone pear-shaped and what needs to be done to fix it.
Can I register disagreement on Wenger and leave it there as this is the womens page. Arteta vs Jonas is interesting as Arteta took us lot further down than Jonas during his Process (TM) – performances especially. One big difference being he had empty stadiums whereas Jonas is operating during a record surge in support.
They certainly won’t keep filling up the Emirates playing dross like this, and the socks issue is cringe worthy. Time to grow up and become an adult team. With all the money invested in the women’s team there are expectations. Arsenal should be better than this.
The analysis is spot-on as to how it went so wrong. But I still don’t understand why. With today’s results, we’re now six points ahead of United and Liverpool. You have to price in a defeat away to City, so the gap comes down to three. Every other match is now a must win.
Both United and Liverpool still have to play City and Chelsea as well if you are pricing in defeats.
Thanks for looking deeper into the fixtures than I had – relieves the pessimism somewhat.
Jonas told us he’d got all the squad he wanted. Then why leave a player he’d willingly have spent £500k a year ago to get, but eventually got for free, on the bench? In a pivotal game like it was on Friday he should have played his most influential players in the most influential roles.
Is there a problem in the dressing room, one may ask?
Arsenal’s game was só bad that It made It seem like Chelsea played well, without taking away the mérito of Chelsea’s players and Emma but we have to trust this coach’s work, there’s no other way,, because handing him over won’t Just hand over the coach of the Barça who had the courage not to harm the team