The ears stand up when Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta on the Chelsea page made an unexpected compliment.
“We didn't admit anything,” said Areta to Arsenals 1-0 victory in the Emirates stage on Sunday. “This is a great honor for the team because in my opinion you (Chelsea) are the best attack team in the league.”
In view of the contrasting narrative, which has recently been about Chelsea and the patting of her property, it was a blurred comment. It was particularly contrary to the game that we had all seen. But maybe when Areta talks about the “best” attack, it is because he appreciates and prioritizes various things for the average press box/armchair viewer.
His promotion of Chelsea's style may affect some that he has a blind spot when it comes to identifying what arsenal demands when attacking, but his knowledge of the opposite number marescas Pep Guardiola-like search for control is also the reason why he understands better than most how to neutralize this football brand.
Here were two teams without their main creators and strikers, with Bukayo Saka and Kai Havertz missing for Arsenal, as well as Cole Palmer and Nicolas Jackson, who were absent for Chelsea. The team of Areta expired the winners because they were the threat in the first half hour, but the game soon fell flat when their magic of undisputed possessions due to the lack of imagination in the last third were not converted into anything into anything.
It was a match that recorded certain aspects of modern, possession football credibility that reduces the spectacle of spontaneity and made the players for robots.
In the first half there was a point when Chelsea worked the ball into the corner of the pitch next to her away fans. The expectation built up when they had the chance to attack numbers, but they turned back and slowly played square passes at half -time. The traveling supporters booed, but the pattern was repeated endless.
A 1-0 match had only six pictures of the two teams and a combined record of 1.12. And there were no “great opportunities” – only the sixth time that took place in the Premier League this season, and the first in this special game since the start of the Opta records.
Chelsea followed the game from the 20th minute, but only registered eight touches in Arsenal's box. They tried eight shots, their joint-fewest this season, and managed to create only 0.35 XG, also the lowest reign of Maresca.
It seemed to be lifeless, but Areteta said his belief that Arsenal had just contained the best attack in England.
“In the open game, yes,” he said. “A mile. The statistics say it and everything I saw, say it. You can open them, you can run in the transition, you have individual quality, every player in the defense line can throw you behind, you can combine on both sides on weak sides. And at the moment they also miss some big players. “
The Arsenal Manager could have tried to improve the result, but it felt revealing in relation to what he sees as an attacking football.
“Dominance” is species the most common word when he describes what he wants from his team. He prefers this for “control” because it suggests more purpose for your game. But in the times when Arsenal has tried to create, he regularly runs the areas in which they were superior and emphasizes how few chances they gave the opposition.
Ownership and territory are important for the calculation of the probability of winning, but the recycling of the ball and the lack of daring or intentions in the penalty area of Chelsea and to a lesser extent arsenal caught the frustration, which some supporters see as the obsession of the modern trainer, with the possession and supervision of the structure of the structure.
The Areta team has become an expert on the incoming opponents (Shaun Brooks Camerasport via Getty Images)
Perhaps Areta's appreciation is how Chelsea keeps the ball and balance of her team, the deviations of the taste between coaches on the elite level and those who are looking for a spectacle. Perhaps that comes from Areta (and Maresca, a former assistant by Manchester City), which is laid in Guardiola's “a thousand pass policy”.
Although Areta spoke of his appreciation for Maresca's football, Chelsea is exactly the kind of opponents that he has kept an expert on Arsenal in his five years. Therefore, they were more than happy to sacrifice ownership after they had gone in front.
While Arsenal has problems reducing low blocks, they have to be unrivaled in their ability in games against the traditional 'Big Six' from Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea, City and Tottenham. Sunday was a clinic that a often dominant team can prevent disabled people and counterattacks.
Last season Arsenal has been the fourth team since 2009-10, which became unbeaten in all 10 games against the rest of the 'Big Six' and scored 22 points out of the possible 30. Although this' Big Six 'day in the current campaign in the current campaign of the growing middle class in combination with United and Spurs' low square, the victory over Chelssea, was watered down, this means that you are able to win Liverpool with United and Spurs at playing on Liverpool. A tie in this game would make her the first team to become unbeaten in a row.
This was a match in which Little New was learned about every team. Arsenal broke her relatively long wait for a set-piece gate, but it was her eleventh corner this season and the 11th time that you have broken the deadlock in the Premier League over this route since the beginning of last season.
Dead ball situations are still a valuable game breaker and arsenal that they can still be able to captivate the largest, best gathered attacks, even if a game becomes lively.
Football may not be exhilarating, but with the midfielder Mikel Merino as a striker due to her attacking injuries, all arsenal can concentrate on it if he deals with second place in a row for a third year in a row and Liverpool runs as close as possible.
But the blueprint to be raised here, which has lost at home in February 2023 at home in Manchester City since the 3-1, will probably be used in the quarter -finals of the Champions League of the next month against Real Madrid, albeit against a team in a different class against the opponents on Sunday. For this reason, there is a logic that Arsenal may be more suitable for 15 times the winner than their city rivals and the last 16 sacrifices, Atletico.
Real Manager Carlo Ancelotti's free -handed approach contradicts the structured, pregnant football on Sunday at the Emirates – but the decision of Arteta to limit the mistake for the errors against the larger teams is still effective.
If Arsenal can translate this into European knockout format, there will be no worries about the style of his style or the other in the creativity spectrum.
(Top photo: Robbie Jay Barratt – Ama/Getty Images)
