Arsenal met Chelsea at Wembley, looking to salvage an FA Cup win out of what has otherwise been a poor season. For Chelsea, it was a chance to complete an impressive double.

Arsenal dominate with midfield overload

Arsenal were able to dominate the opening stages of the game by virtue of the control they were able to exert in midfield through their central overloads. Xhaka was a key player in the #6 position, acting as the central passing hub in front of the defence. Ramsey was nominally a central midfielder alongside Xhaka, but in many scenes he was effectively operating on the next line as a #10. Either side of him in the halfspaces were Ozil and Sanchez.

Chelsea struggled to deal with the overload presented to them by Arsenal. Matic or Kante felt the need to step forward from the midfield line to close down Xhaka. Predictably this left a lot of space for Arsenal’s attacking midfield trio of Ozil, Ramsey and Sanchez to exploit. This is something Arsenal were able to exploit repeatedly, especially in the first 20 minutes or so, allowing them to reach the spaces around Chelsea’s box fairly easily.

The selection of Welbeck as striker for Arsenal may have also contributed to Chelsea’s inability to close the space behind their midfield once their central midfielder had stepped out. The threat that Welbeck provides with his ability to run into depth makes it risky for teams to play a higher defensive line against him, and this may have had a psychological and tactical effect on Chelsea’s defenders.

How could Chelsea have solved their problem?

Adjusting to deal with with such overloads isn’t easy, particularly in-game, due to difficulty in communicating and coordinating instructions. Nevertheless it is interesting to explore some of the solutions that Chelsea could’ve used in order to try and nullify Arsenal’s midfield overload and their ability to access the space between lines. To keep it simple, and semi-realistic, I’ve chosen solutions which don’t require a complete change of formation/play-style.

• Central defender stepping out: with Arsenal playing with a lone striker, Chelsea could possibly have afforded to have one of their central defenders step out into midfield when Matic/Kante pressed, in order to mitigate Arsenal’s midfield overload. This prevents Arsenal from having the degree of freedom behind Chelsea’s midfield that they enjoyed in this game. Theoretically, Chelsea should still have a 2v1 against Welbeck on the last line. Key to this tactic would be the fast shifting of the other defenders in the chain once the defender steps out, in order to ensure that they close the space he leaves behind, maintaining horizontal compactness. Obviously, the narrowing of the defensive line means that they are covering less lateral space, so Arsenal could respond with quick switches to the opposite wing back who should be in space.
• Costa drops back: A more conservative solution might have been for Costa to drop off of the first line and mark Xhaka, reducing the midfielders’ his ability to receive the ball and play passes beyond Chelsea’s midfield. This also allows Matic and Kante to stay more reserved and focus on preventing Arsenal accessing the #10 space, rather than having to pressure Xhaka. Obviously, the removal of Costa from the first line gives more time and space for Arsenal defenders to begin attacking moves. Another disadvantage is that Costa, due to his now-deeper starting position, would find it more difficult to act as an outlet for Chelsea’s counter-attack, and losing Costa’s ability to hold the ball up, as well as make runs into depth, would be damaging for Chelsea’s transition game.
• Focus on the central spaces: Another alternative would be for Chelsea to sacrifice some coverage and access to the wings in order to close the central spaces in their formation and prevent Arsenal from moving the ball inside their defensive block. For example, when Matic steps out to pressure Xhaka, Hazard indents in order to cover Ozil (or whichever Arsenal midfielder is in the ball-near halfspace). This leaves Arsenal with the only option of playing wide, from which Hazard should still able to use his cover shadow to prevent the pass inside to Ozil. This leaves Chelsea’s wing-back somewhat isolated against Arsenal’s, however it does the job of preventing Arsenal accessing dangerous spaces inside Chelsea’s defensive block.

Advantageous positions for Ozil and Sanchez

One of the reasons why Arsenal’s midfield overload is dangerous is because of the advantageous positions offered to Ozil and Sanchez by the 3-4-2-1 formation that Arsenal have recently adopted. Their starting positions in the right and left halfspaces respectively give them some interesting possibilities.

Ozil and Sanchez are able to act as diagonal playmakers when they receive the ball in the halfspace, cutting towards the centre on their stronger foot. With their creativity, penetrative passing and ability to dribble under pressure, this suits both Ozil and Sanchez. Ozil can cut in from the right halfspace with his left foot and look for diagonal passes to the left wing-back making a blindside run behind the opposition fullback. He can also play reverse passes against the grain from this position to runs behind the defence from Welbeck, for example. He can also easily switch to a teammate in the opposite halfspace.

Sanchez benefits similarly from the left halfspace, although his actions are often more direct and individualistic. Cutting in on his right foot, he has similar passing options, but is also likely to use his shooting skill from range, or through dribbling and starting quick combinations.

This aspect of Arsenal’s game has been improved by the change in formation. In their 4-2-3-1 Ozil would sometimes drop into the right halfspace from the #10 position, however this sometimes left the #10 space unoccupied and weakened Arsenal’s overall attacking structure. With Ramsey’s more aggressive role in the 3-4-2-1, he can often fill that space, with Xhaka and the back three providing defensive cover behind him.

Game evens out

The second part of the first half was a bit more chaotic. Chelsea tried to take more of a foothold in the game, pressing more aggressively and starting to have some possession and get out of their half at least. For the most part though, this period of the game was fairly unclean from both teams’ point of view, although Chelsea probably preferred this more chaotic game-state to the previous Arsenal-dominated one. There were a lot of turnovers and transition phases, neither team were really able to control space or the ball in an effective manner. As such, the teams went in at halftime with the score at 1-0.

Arsenal’s halfspace vulnerability

Chelsea were able to pin Arsenal in their own half for a 10 minute period following half time. During this time, there was a visible weakness in Arsenal’s ability to defend the halfspaces when they were in their deep block.

Arsenal’s defensive shape was somewhere between a 5-2-3-0 and a 5-4-1-0. Ozil and Sanchez often played in line with Welbeck, who usually dropped off the first line when Arsenal were in their deep block, orienting himself towards one of Chelsea’s central-midfielders.

The slightly advanced positioning of Ozil and Sanchez gave Arsenal a somewhat weak control of the halfspaces, which Chelsea used to their advantage a few times in their possession phase. Despite this, I feel that Chelsea could’ve done more to exploit this. Their pass choice and execution wasn’t always great on an individual level, which prevented them from taking advantage. Furthermore with the roaming of Hazard and Pedro they didn’t always have a positional structure whereby players were able to receive the ball in these areas, even if they were not properly controlled by Arsenal.

Dramatic final 30 minutes

Another rather chaotic period followed Chelsea’s short spell of dominance, again with a lot of turnovers and counter-attacks. Despite Victor Moses’ red card in the 67th minute, Chelsea were able to equalise 8 minutes later. With 10 men they had reverted to a 4-4-1 shape. Fabregas and Kante were in central midfield, Willian and Hazard starting on the wings but with a lot of positional freedom, with the creative burden very much on them due to the man-disadvantage they had.

Indeed, Chelsea’s goal did involve Hazard and Willian. It also showed Arsenal’s weakness in defending the halfspaces mentioned earlier, although this time in transition. Chelsea won the ball on their left side through pressing in Arsenal’s half. Chelsea eventually switched the ball across to the right halfspace via Fabregas and a layoff from Hazard to Willian. Sanchez was still positioned higher on the left side, leaving the halfspace open, meaning Willian had ample time to pick out Costa with his cross, making it 1-1.

The scoreline wasn’t equal for long however, straight from the kick-off, Arsenal scored seemingly out of nothing. Some unintense shifting from Chelsea after the kick-off allowed Sanchez time to find Giroud’s run, who crossed for a trademark run into the box from Ramsey, making it 2-1.

Conclusion

Chelsea weren’t able to create anything meaningful in the final 10 minutes, and Arsenal had the better moments with some dangerous counter-attacks, particularly on the right side through Ozil, with Bellerin overlapping him.

This result gave Arsenal their 3rd FA Cup in 4 years. Nevertheless, this will obviously be viewed as a very disappointing season for Arsenal given their league position. The one positive from the latter part of the season has been their form since adopting the 3-4-2-1 system. They have won all but one of their games since switching to this system. Early on in that run of good form it seemed possible that Arsenal were simply getting a good slice of luck, given that they were outperforming their xG numbers substantially, therefore there were questions about the sustainability of their good form. However since then the xG numbers have improved slightly, and have fallen more in line with performances, which may be seen as encouraging from a long-term point of view. The all-important questions now are, of course, surrounding the future of Arsene Wenger, as well as their star players Ozil and Sanchez, both of whom run out of contract next summer.