Drag and drop: Arsenal use right sided decoys to pull down the Palace
Today at 08:52 AM
Arsenal made short work of Crystal Palace at Meadow Park on Sunday afternoon. For all the talk of Arsenal's struggles with deep defensive blocks under Jonas Eidevall, and I am clearly dealing in semantics here, I don't think there are a lot of deep defensive blocks in the WSL. Most teams either mid-block or transition between deep and mid blocks.
Crystal Palace, much like West Ham, actually start their defensive line quite high before collapsing into a deep block when teams do work their way through the middle. Renee Slegers told me after the game that Palace usually line up in a 532 but moved to a 541 in this game.
But Arsenal clearly had a plan to target the left side of the Palace defence by tempting Palace defenders to jump out of position. Arsenal tried to provoke these situations either with decoy runs to the passer before lifting the ball in behind into the vacated space, or by tempting Palace's left-sided defenders out with fast passing combinations. Let's look at some examples.
Very early in the game we see that Palace have no intention of pressuring Arsenal's centre-backs but of holding their shape in the middle of the pitch but with players like Leah Williamson and her long range passing, such a tactic is always going to be a little dubious.
Arsenal consistently used one of their attackers as a decoy, coming short for the ball, taking a player away and creating space in behind. Here it is Frida Maanum who shows for the pass, taking a defender with her and Williamson simply dinks the ball over the top and into the space.
Former Arsenal defender Katrine Veje has been attracted away by Maanum showing for the ball, which means Russo can compete for this ball uncontested. She flicks it on but Mead is offside but we can see one of Arsenal's central attacking ideas straight away. Decoy runner and drop the ball in behind.
But Arsenal didn't just use decoys in an off the ball sense, when an attacker came away from the frontline to show for the ball, Arsenal were willing to use them. As we see here when Williamson passes along the floor this time.
Mead shows for it, Veje has to go and meet her and you can already see the situation this is creating when Mead comes in from the line and moves the ball on with one touch. This was a big part of the reason, in my view, that Mead was selected over Foord on this occasion. Arsenal didn't feel this would be a 'dribbly' game from their wide players, they wanted them to come in from the line and attract Palace players out.
Mead shows for it, Veje has to go and meet her and you can already see the situation this is creating when Mead comes in from the line and moves the ball on with one touch. This was a big part of the reason, in my view, that Mead was selected over Foord on this occasion. Arsenal didn't feel this would be a 'dribbly' game from their wide players, they wanted them to come in from the line and attract Palace players out.
Once again, Arsenal are willing to go over the top early here with Leah Williamson. This time it is Alessia Russo who drops short and shows for the pass and once again Veje has to follow her and it creates a gap behind Palace's high line. This time it is Mariona that runs in behind to exploit it.
Alas, the ball holds up for Mariona on a dry, bumpy pitch. But we can see Russo running in to support. This was a theme for Arsenal for the first half in particular, a player dropping short, attracting a Palace defender out then bursting forward to create the secondary attacking run.
When the option to drop over the top wasn't there, Arsenal used fast combination play on the right hand side, usually with someone moving to the right, knocking the ball inside and trying to undo Palace with swift, one touch moves. Fox dribbles into midfield here and Kim Little quietly moves to the right flank.
This entire sequence is all one touch, Arsenal did this on the right hand side several times in the first half. They identified the left side of Palace's defence as an area they could bend out of shape either with decoy runs or swift one touch sequences.
When a team plays with a back five they will often use one defender to be aggressive and go 'fishing' for the ball. For this game it was clearly Katrine Veje and time and again, Arsenal tempted her out and then quickly tried to exploit the space in behind in fewer than three touches. Little finds Maanum here, who comes away from the forward line and Veje follows.
Maanum holds her off and turns and now we can see there is a pass on. On this occasion, Palace keeper Yanez is out to clear the danger but the idea is clear once again.
We see that same idea of economy of touches on the right hand side as Williamson intercepts a Yanez clearance here and heads it first time to Mead.
And once again we see those patterns repeat. Mead moving in from the left with that first time, horizontal pass. Maanum plays the ball first time to Russo and Russo tries a clever turn but is just crowded out. When Arsenal played into that right hand side, they played quickly and with as few touches as possible to pull Palace out of shape.
Williamson sizes up the ball over the top here, we see Maanum again looking to tempt Palace out of their defensive shape but, perhaps a symptom of lessons learned, nobody takes the bait. So Williamson looks right to Fox.
Once again, this sequence is one touch passing and once again, we see Veje, who started her career as a winger, then moved to full-back, then to centre-half, is attracted away from the LCB spot and leaving space. Arsenal looked to expose Palace consistently with either quick balls over the top, or one touch passing sequences, almost always on the right-hand side. This will have been why Mead was selected over Foord on this flank on this occasion too.
Palace readjusted slightly in the second half but really they just dropped into a low block and abandoned their high starting position in defence. It meant that Arsenal found things a little more crowded as they tried to play fast, one touch football. Little here finds Mariona.
We see Maanum occupying Veje again and Mariona tries a cute pass around the corner first time. But we can see that Palace are now a lot more compact on the edge of their own area. Everett hooks the attempted pass from Mariona away as the space shrinks.
Palace also became much more aggressive in defending when Arsenal went down the right. Williamson find Fox here and we can already see that Palace are more compact than they were in the first half.
The Eagles compressed this space far better in the second half, Fox is immediately under pressure and there are four Palace players that you could throw a blanket over in this space now.
Williamson looks to slip a ball into that right half-space again here.
And we can see the pressure is far greater, it is also Lily Woodham tracking the Arsenal player coming short this time instead of Veje, so that Palace don't leave such a big gap in their left centre-half space.
Slegers, I presume, spots that Palace are much more alive to Arsenal's attempts at quick combination play and that they are defending more aggressively. So she decides to bring her best dribbling player on, in Caitlin Foord and moves Mariona into a more central position, quite early in the second half. Slegers' willingness to make early subs has been a feature of her reign so far.
Moving Mariona into a more central position enabled her to come over to the right side, which has now become more congested, because she is probably Arsenal's best player in tight spaces. Her first involvement after Foord's arrival is over on the right.
Mariona's ability to get out of tight spaces just helped Arsenal get their right side flowing again. We can see here that she retains possession among a slew of Palace bodies.
When Arsenal made this change, they also committed more to a back three shape and look at where Katie McCabe is here, she is inverting into that left central midfield space where Mariona previously was. Where Palace have moved into more of a low block, Arsenal commit another player to attack.
And just so you know it's not a one-off, here McCabe is in that position again two minutes later in a different phase of play.
Look at the position McCabe drives from for the second goal. She is very central and a big part of that is because Caitlin Foord is a more natural left winger than Mariona and she will hold the width of the pitch. Arsenal basically moved to a back three, stopped asking for the left back to overlap and instead she went into midfield and Foord provided the width.
This is the pass McCabe makes to Foord, from here Foord cuts in and shoots and Russo scores the rebound. Arsenal reshuffled. Instead of having McCabe overlapping Mariona, they flipped the script. Mariona was needed on the right, so they had Foord overlapping McCabe, who moved into that inside left position. It paid immediate dividends.
For the third goal we see the benefit of moving Mariona to the right side, Williamson finds here and Veje comes to meet her.
And the speed and accuracy of the pass to Fox means Palace are suddenly exposed on this side again. When you look at this frame, you can see Palace still have numbers on this side, they have just been caught out by the speed of Mariona's play.
And once again it is a series of one touch passes that opens Palace up on Arsenal's right, culminating in Mead's finish. Again, just have a little look at where McCabe is as this move finishes. She looks a lot more like a left central midfield player than a left-back.
In essence, this game was a victory for the number of adaptable players that Arsenal have. Slegers was able to change Mariona and McCabe's roles in-game and neither player missed a beat. It was also a victory for Slegers' adaptability, where Arsenal had a game plan that was getting some joy. Once the opposition responded to it, Slegers did not hesitate to make some tweaks. This was a victory with a heavy bias on the right side of Arsenal's attack.
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