UEFA champions League: Arsenal 1 – 2 Dortmund: Tactical Analysis

Olivier Giroud scored the only goal of the match for Arsenal

Arsenal Wide Play

Arsenal had to start without the injured Theo Walcott, and with Alex-Oxlade Chamberlain out to a long term injury, Arsenal were left without any real width.

This wasn’t helped by the fact that Wilshere and Rosicky, two players who are nominally central, manned the wide areas. This meant that they started the game playing very narrow, and this played into Dortmund’s hands, as they were attempting to make crowded areas while defending to aid their pressing.

Wenger though, recognised this, and changed it very quickly. The aim for Arsenal soon became to bring the full backs forward as much as possible. This happened quite a bit on the right hand side, with Ramsey, Sagna and Wilshere spending a fair amount of time in this region of the pitch.

In the second half, it was Ozil who was on the right hand side, creating all sorts of chances for his team. The injection of width was necessary for Arsenal to bypass and avoid the high pressure from the Dortmund players in the central areas.

It worked well to the extent that the wide areas became the main source of threat from Arsenal. This was probably also caused partially due to Dortmund trying to show Arsenal inside and crowding the center, and as a result ignoring the wings. The Arsenal goal ultimately came from a cross whipped in.

In the second half, Arsenal tried to stretch the play quite a bit, and to this effect, a number of cross field passes were also tried by the Gunners. Cazorla came on for Wilshere and almost immediately hit a very precise cross field pass towards the right to create a chance.

Arsenal used a lot of wide play eventually – via squawka.com

Dortmund Wide Play

The team from the Ruhr were sensitive to the narrow nature of the Arsenal formation and team, and hence were always on the look-out for an opportunity to exploit the wide areas and attack the full backs.

Even in the beginning of the match, they tried a lot of one-twos in and around the full backs in an attempt to isolate them, and brought their own ones, Schmelzer and Grosskreutz forward very often.

This attacking approach eventually turned into a fine counter attacking tactic when Arsenal began pushing their full backs forward to take advantage of the space in front of them.

The attacking wide men had space and chances to put in crosses, and fired in almost as many as the home side. One player who had a number of opportunities to do this was Kevin Grosskreutz.

The German is certainly a hard worker and offers boundless energy from a position that is alien to him. Klopp however, would do well to work hard with him on his delivery, as it could add a lethal edge to his game. He had some great chances to provide crosses, but failed to do so. Of the 3 he did attempt, 2 were accurate, and one of course, led to the winning goal.

Conclusion

Dortmund showed the verve and were fearless enough to attack and press Arsenal in their own den.

They were rewarded for this approach with 3 points to make the group very interesting.

Arsenal, Napoli and Dortmund are now level on 6 points each at the top, with Marsielle stranded on 0. One feels that Dortmund have the advantage, as they face both other contenders at home now, with Arsenal facing tricky trips to San Paolo and the Signal Iduna Park in the coming weeks.

Over to you! That was our analysis the clash, was there anything particular that you (tactically) noticed? Let us know by dropping a comment below.