Arsenal vs Manchester City: Tactical analysis

David Silva (21), Alvaro Negredo(9), Samir Nasri (8) often drifted into the centre to trouble Arsenal’s midfield transition.

Manchester City’s formation from the outset preferred to squeeze Arsenal’s midfield quartet of Ozil, Ramsey, Flamini and Wilshere restricting Ozil to drift wide into positions to receive the ball, switching Arsenal’s style to a crossing game/ through balls clipped over City’s back four.

Arsenal’s conventional shape was their undoing.(attacking the left) This was their team shape right at the beginning which was later altered by City tactics. (Numbers indicate player jerseys)

Arsenal on the other hand started the game with a conventional shape restricting themselves to long balls played to Olivier Giroud(12) when Arsenal started from the back and the occasional dink over the defense to a diagonal run by Theo Walcott(14) who constantly drifted into a center forward position. Nacho Monreal(17) at left back was exposed by Wilshere’s(10) terrible defensive work on numerous occasions as City’s attacking forces exploited the space out wide.Flamini(20) found it very difficult to cope with the sheer size and shape of City’s defensive midfielders.

This shape by Arsenal allowed a squeezed City with technically gifted players in Nasri, Silva, Toure and Fernandhino to over haul Aaron Ramsey(16) and Mesut Ozil(11), Arsenal’s main threatening forces. With Wilshere contributing nothing to Arsenal’s offensive transition, Wenger needed to change things quickly but didn’t.

Key passes from key attacking players

Bacary Sagna – 3	Samir Nasri – 7
Aaron Ramsey – 1	Yaya Toure – 3
Theo Walcott – 2	David Silva – 3
Mesut Ozil – 2	Negredo – 1
Jack Wilshere – 1	Aguero – 1
	Milner – 1
	Navas – 1

Total Key Passes (including others):

Manchester City- 20

Arsenal – 11

The bottom line remains that Manchester City was simply better on the day in every department. There was no tactical revelation that exposed Arsenal but errors and increasingly petulant players that led to the humiliating loss.

Maneul Pelligrini though must be credited with the introduction of Jesus Navas and James Milner when Arsenal switched to the 4-3-3 system opting to play a tired trio of Ozil, Ramsey and Wilshere in the middle and Nicklas Bendtner, Walcott and Serge Gnabry up front.

Pellegrini’s choice to put on fresh legged natural wide men paid its dividends by keeping the Arsenal full backs in check and providing options for the counter attack.

Both wingers finished with a key pass each, Milner winning a penalty and Navas setting up a goal to kill off what looked like at the time, a resurgent Arsenal.

Manchester City under Pellegrini look brutal, classy and ruthless at the same time. The manager’s tactical acumen combined with the sheer tenacity, efficiency, variety and talent of his squad was too much for the league leaders.

Arsenal were simply not good enough.