Muzi watching the tiger fight | Mikel Arteta made a major strategic mistake and it would be a tuition fee if Arsenal lose the title

This could be Arteta's most stressful week.

Arsenal drew 2-2 at home to Thomas Tuchel's Bayern Munich in midweek and will be determined by midweek whether they can overcome an opponent that has cast a psychological shadow on Arsenal.

Therefore, how to deal with this league game between these two games has become Arteta's biggest issue.

In the face of the broken lineup, but the tactical thinking of Emery and Aston Villa, of course, Arsenal can't be underestimated, and they have to send the main team to face it, but they can't spend all their strength in this game, so when it comes to the away side, Arsenal may not have any competitiveness.

After all, Arsenal are still in contention for the league title, and Bayern can already choose to lie flat.

In this confusing situation, Arteta decided to become fat in one bite.

He has fielded almost all the big names he has at his disposal at this stage, and a clear example of this is the combination of Gabriel Jesus and Kai Havertz at the same time, but not in a one-sided combination, but with Gabriel Jesus playing in the centre-forward position and Kai Havertz in the left-sided midfield position.

So after the start of the game, Arsenal can not only play their typical attacking routine on the wing:

With the likes of the forward line at bay, Kai Havertz is also a threat from the back of the midfield position:

Yes, Arsenal played well in the opening stages, and even throughout the first half, and the attacking threats were also effective:

But the most fatal point also came at this point: no goals were scored.

Mikel Arteta has sent such a squad to open up the situation quickly, score goals quickly, settle the battle quickly, and get into the plan he envisioned to kill the game and replace the main man.

However, once your opponent withstands your attack, Arsenal will have no back hand to play at all.

Villa did exactly that.

Compared with Arsenal, Emery has quite few available manpower in this game, especially in the midfield, Emery can only use Rodgers, McGinn and Tielemans to form a three-man midfield, so in the positional battle, there is almost no other way to use it except for the full force to shrink.

But they were able to withstand, and in addition to shrinking well, they also had a way to pop out:

This method is directly aimed at the shortcomings of Arsenal's double central defenders.

At the crucial moment of the opening game, Arsenal's double central defenders were still skewed, which directly led to Gabriel and Saliba always leaving a little space for the opponent to handle the ball every time Villa hit them.

In normal times, in other opponents, this little space may not be enough to develop into a counter-attack, but Villa can do it.

So, when Arsenal didn't score in the first half and Villa could develop a counter-attack by simply hitting the Arsenal centre-backs with a simple long pass, Arsenal was already in a bad situation.

In particular, the chance that was given to Villa by mistake in the 39th minute was enough to show the quality of Arsenal's central defenders, including the situation in which they were consumed:

In the second half, Arsenal had no room to maneuver and could only continue to try to break down Villa's dense defence, but there was no other goal than creating set-piece opportunities.

On the contrary, on the Villa side, they are still taking advantage of the small but enough space left for them by Arsenal's central defenders, and they are developing their attack again and again:

In the 62nd minute, Zaniolo won back-to-back duels against Ben White, thus creating set-pieces for Villa to shoot from a long post:

It wasn't just a simple offensive and defensive round, as Ben White had already been booked for a tactical foul in the first half.

It is for this reason that Arteta then opted to replace Ben White with Tomiyasu Kenhiro, after all, if he does not do so, Ben White may have to receive a second yellow card.

This is where Arteta's strategic mistakes are demonstrated. If it is played normally, such as using the midfield combination of Jorginho, Rice and Odegaard, because of the protection of the midfielder and Rice, Ben White's burden will not be too great, and even with Kiwior at the far end of the protection, Ben White can frequently set up side assists and become a variable in the front court.

But in today's starting line-up, you can't count on Odegaard and Kai Havertz to protect from the back, so when the two centre-backs have already been beaten by the opposition, Rice is struggling to the left and right, and Zinchenko can't take care of his left-back defence, the only way to do this is to let Ben White give up and protect Saliba's side more.

And this problem can be extended further.

Saka performed well today, creating chances for the opponent frequently, but still did not knock on the door of Villa, at this time, if Ben White intervened to help, would Villa's defense be the first to collapse?

This is possible.

But if Ben White can't go up today, so if he can't go up, can Odegaard hit his opponent twice inside or outside Saka?

No, then there's no way.

The huge threat that the starting tactics wanted to play did not become a direct advantage on the scoreboard, which led to Arsenal only getting worse and worse in the 90 minutes of the game, and it was difficult to get better and better.

Because your best hands are already on the court, and there's no possibility of throwing combos.

So, in the last 30 minutes of the game, Ben White couldn't hold it anymore, so he replaced Tomiyasu Kenhiro, and Odegaard was injured, so he went to Smith Rowe, and Jesus couldn't move up, and then he redeployed Havertz.

However, on the other hand, Villa did not have the possibility of a combination punch, but on the bench, Emery still has a good card no less than the starter - Leon Bailey.

So towards the end of the game, in the face of Arsenal, who were in the downward range in terms of fitness and ability, Villa took the initiative, although they could only take the initiative to play set-pieces:

But Gabriel and Saliba couldn't get out of their feet in the second attack from this set-piece, and Leon Bailey seized the opportunity:

As soon as the goal was lost, Arsenal immediately fell into passivity and immediately began to pour out, Arteta changed his tactics at this time Nketiah, but before the result could be effective, Villa's second goal came:

Arsenal also failed to withstand Pep Guardiola's poisoned milk, and the game was over.

In this game, the biggest mistake on Arsenal's side was Arteta's starting arrangement, eating a bite to become a fat man, and then the intention to prepare for the Champions League with all his might was too obvious and not ready to play a protracted game.

At this stage, Villa's tactical intensity is indeed not high enough, but they know very well what they will meet when they come to this away game, so they have been mentally prepared early and have withstood the onslaught of Arsenal's starting lineup.

From that time on, the plot went in the other direction.

And in this game, Arsenal's shortcoming directly exposed was their central defender.

Under heavy pressure, the two centre-backs became more cautious. Knowing that Villa's McGinn was pressed at the back and the only key point was Watkins, he still didn't dare to put physical pressure on him, but always tended to leave room for himself to chase back.

The shortcomings of this link will affect Arsenal's tactical ceiling together with Odegaard, who cannot directly put pressure on the opponent in front of him, and if this year's title battle is lost to such Manchester City, then Arteta is still just a younger brother in front of Guardiola.

And the game left for these players to prove the ceiling is the away game against Bayern.