The race for the Premier League has entered its final sprint, and Arsenal are still in contention.
From a fixture point of view, Arsenal's prospects are not as good as those of Manchester City, who have to face more tough opponents and can only encourage themselves with one more game in hand, which is not really good for the team, but Mikel Arteta's side are still holding on to the string.
This away game against Tottenham is a good example.
Although the score looked close at 3-2, Arsenal showed enough on the pitch to build a big advantage at one point, and should have brought home a more hearty win away from home had it not been for a mistake.
If you keep this performance, even if you miss the championship again, you won't have too many regrets for yourself.
In contrast to the 5-0 thrashing of Chelsea in their last game, Arsenal did not make any changes to their starting line-up in the north London derby.
That's understandable, given the results have confirmed Arteta's vision, but at the end of the last game we mentioned the high Arsenal backfield that could cause them some problems on the road.
In fact, this problem was already evident in the early stages of the game:
In the face of the pressing of Tottenham players, Thomas and Tomiyasu both made mistakes in the opening stage, which is their inherent shortcoming as big men, and the teammates around them cannot help cover, which is also the relationship between the big players around.
This is actually an obvious shortcoming of Arsenal in this game, once caught by the opponent and used from it, Arsenal will actually face considerable trouble, but Arsenal has passed it.
Yes, with the play on the offensive end, it passed through.
From the start of the game, Kai Havertz and Bukayo Saka were already playing the pitch up front with duels and sprints:
This is the inherent plot of Arsenal's games, but in some games it will gradually reduce the intensity of development over time and physical reduction.
But in this game, this point did not arise, and the reason is simple, but also amazing:
Odegaard is also working.
In the third minute of the game, Kai Havertz struggled for a bit from the back, and instead of trying to keep the ball in place and get rid of the opponent as he had done in the past, Odegaard struggled to open up space under pressure and successfully get rid of the opponent:
This is not an isolated case.
In the 13th minute, when Kai Havertz drew the Tottenham defence forward, Odegaard made a rare move from the back to take the depth, thus helping Havertz to insert for the second time, even if this time Odegaard and Thomas's pass was offside, but it was still exciting:
In addition to this, Odegaard also has a role to play on the defensive end.
In the 6th minute of the game, in the face of Tottenham's attack in the middle, Odegaard chose to put his foot in the 30-meter area. If it weren't for the offense's advantage, Odegaard's move this time would have been recognized as a foul.
Yes, even if it is a foul, it has an effect:
These three shots fully show Odegaard's dedication in this game, and this is what Odegaard should play as Arsenal's attacking second.
In the first two shots, Odegaard provided the role of a striker, and when Havertz was fighting for the top and was dropping back, Odegaard should be taking space and creating pressure like this.
This is the role that the second lightest defensive player should provide in the possession phase, rather than focusing only on receiving and delivering the ball, as in the past, and only selectively showing his accuracy in the direction of the left foot.
And if it is difficult for Odegaard to provide such a role consistently, then Odegaard will have to make more sacrifices on the defensive end, more chasing, more confrontations, and more feet, so as to replace Saka.
The reason for this is very simple, Kai Havertz is not a lone striker after all, he needs the regular help of his team-mates, and the person who can provide this help, apart from Odegaard, can only be Bukayo Saka.
So, even if it's a foul, even if it's a set-piece for the opponent, Odegaard's kick is worth encouraging.
So far in the season, 35 rounds have ended, and Odegaard has only committed 30 fouls in the league, an average of less than one per game. This statistic makes sense for the second attacker, but only if the rights and responsibilities are equal, and you have to be able to provide the role of the second attacker.
This is actually a fairly simple truth at the tactical level.
So, thanks to Arsenal's attacking play, they got past the opening stages on the road, and in the next leg of Odegaard and Kai Havertz's offside attack, Arsenal created a corner in front of the field by pressing and pressing Tottenham's goal kicks.
In the 14th minute of the game, Arsenal took the lead:
After conceding the goal, Tottenham, who were playing at home, quickly increased their strength and increased the number of people who pressed and attacked in the front, thus creating a succession of set-piece opportunities, and once scored with this link:
However, because of the offside, Tottenham's goal was blown out.
During this period, Tottenham's intensity has indeed increased significantly, but the extra manpower will also become a hidden danger in defence, and in the hands of those who should have been invested, only Kulusevski played a real advantage:
Obviously, Tomiyasu was unable to limit Kulusevski's play, which allowed Tottenham to play a steady stream of push and attack from him, but to put it bluntly, Kulusevski is a wide player, and the goal is in the middle, and he needs the help of his teammates in the middle to get the ball into the goal.
So at this point, Tottenham's problems became extremely clear, and in contrast, Arsenal's good forward structure in this game paid off at this time.
In the 25th minute, Kulusevski attacked Tottenham again from Takehiro Tomiyasu, and it was noted that Odegaard once got down on the way and tried to block it, but it was unsuccessful:
When Tottenham developed possession up front and attacked from the right, Odegaard also retreated to the edge of the box:
At this time, Saka can be swapped out and play a counter-attack with Kai Havertz at the top:
During the whole process, Saka sprinted more than 80 meters by himself, ran from the penalty area here to the penalty area on that side, and was able to dunk the opponent in front of the goal to maintain accuracy, which was the result of physical support.
That's what we mentioned, the importance of swapping Saka out.
You know, Kulusevski performed well in this game, and while killing Kenhiro Tomiyasu, he also restrained Trossard's energy, Kulusevski fell in the penalty area, and he met Trossard who came back to defend, so in this game, Arsenal couldn't play the three-striker effect that Arteta wanted at all, and could only try to make up an attacking trio.
Then when Saka defends, Odegaard has to be the second man, and when Odegaard defends, Saka can be replaced.
Setting pieces and counter-attacking to extend the score, Arsenal played beautifully in this tough away game, and in stark contrast to Tottenham's central players.
While Kulusevski was working on the wing, Son Heung-min in the middle was constantly being disposed of by Arsenal's centre-backs:
As we mentioned before, Son Xingmin can still play data at one point when he plays center, which is based on Tottenham's investment of a large number of manpower in the positional warfare stage, and in this kind of procedure that requires strikers to open up space before they can enter positional warfare, Son Xingmin exposes his problem of playing center:
As for Maddison, it's normal for him to disappear when the center can't get up.
So at the end of the first half, Arsenal played up again and scored again from set-pieces, thus establishing a 3-0 lead:
And in this first half, the performances of the two teams were very different, especially the contrast between the central players. Towards the end of the first half, Odegaard and Kai Havertz were still trying to break through the opposition's pressing line with the ball, which of course did not succeed, but at least caused a foul:
That's what a really strong frontcourt player looks like.
Of course, Postecoglou didn't necessarily understand the reasoning, which was reflected in the fact that Romero became more and more involved in the attack in the second half, not only directly in the positional battle:
will also participate in high pressing, thus creating Raya's mistakes:
But if you want to say how much he understands, or how willing he wants to understand immediately, you don't necessarily know.
In the second half of the game, Sergio Romero was involved in the attack in this way for almost 20 minutes before Postecoglou brought on Richarlison, giving Tottenham a true centre-forward.
And ahead of this game, Kulusevski hasn't started for a while.
Of course, the exact reason behind this is difficult for the outside world to know, but there is a direction that is not difficult to guess: the melon coach does not like confrontation after all.
So, if Postecoglou really thinks that Kulusevski's style of play is not aesthetically pleasing when it comes to running, receiving and playing, then Tottenham fans will soon see a different side of Postecoglou.
Strictly speaking, Tottenham's performance did improve in the second half after making continuous adjustments, but Arsenal's side also continued to create countermeasures and fouls, so Arsenal's intensity did not drop.
After Raya's mistake, Rice converted a penalty in the 80th minute to make it 2-3:
From a tactical point of view, Arsenal deserved to win the game despite the closing scoreline, and the final result was no different.
So, apart from these goals conceded due to mistakes, Arsenal did not have much to blame in this game, and the only player who underperformed was Kenhiro Tomiyasu, who almost lost the battle against Kulusevski, which directly led to the decline of Arsenal's attack on the left.
However, Tomiyasu himself is not an ideal choice at left-back, so like Gabriel made some of the footwork and defensive mistakes, which are the case at this stage, you can't change them.
And the most gratifying thing is Arsenal's performance up front, especially Odegaard.
At a time when Trossard needed more help defensively, Arsenal took on the attacking load with three men, and that's exactly what a team with a normal system and personnel should do.
The first half of the game was a testament to Odegaard's ability to work, but the question was why the powerful shots didn't appear so often, and why did they only appear in a game as emotional as the north London derby?
The answer is imminent, so Arteta still needs to make it clear that your centre-forwards are players like Gabriel Jesus and Kai Havertz who are good at dropping back, so they shouldn't be paired with Odegaard, who focuses on passing, and if you value Odegaard's passing more, buy a new centre-forward in the summer.
But the question is, will Arteta, who comes from the melon line, buy a centre-forward who has more output than a pass?