How Arsenal controlled the chaos to overcome City
Arsenal somehow came out on top in a chaotic 4-3 clash with Manchester City. Here's how they did it
Arsenal returned to the WSL's top three after edging a seven-goal thriller against Manchester City at the Joie stadium on Sunday afternoon, which marked their first win of the season against one of the WSL's 'big four'. The win represented another landmark result for new head coach Renee Slegers, whose side will now feel confident of securing Champions League football for another season with league games against City and Chelsea now ticked off for the season. Here's how they did it.
Starting on the front foot
While last weekend's game against Chelsea was an absorbing contest that always had a 'first goal wins' feel to it, it was evident from early on – 42 seconds to be precise – that this game was going to have an entirely more chaotic feel to it. Arsenal set out their intention to press City from the off, and it bore immediate rewards.
Not long after kick off, Mariona Caldentey went to press Laia Aleixandri and the City captain proceeded to tie herself in knots, opting to go back onto her weaker foot with Alessia Russo covering City right-back Kerstin Casparij. At this point, Mariona is able to steal the ball from her international teammate and calmly wrap the ball into the bottom corner, beyond the outstretched glove of Khiara Keating. One minute on the clock, 1–0.
Buoyed by their fast start, Arsenal continued to press City in the opening stages. This would often play out with Mariona pushing up from her position in the Arsenal midfield double-pivot, joining Russo, Stina Blackstenius, Frida Maanum, and Beth Mead, in pressing City's backline. This often led to a situation where her midfield partner Kyra Cooney-Cross was left on an island in the centre of midfield, while Lotte Wubben-Moy did not hesitate to apply pressure to City players on the halfway line to ensure the hosts were suffocated. We see the latter aspect of this plan in action in the lead up to the second goal, as it is Wubben-Moy that nips in ahead of Jill Roord to win the ball before being fouled. From the resulting free kick, it is Wubben-Moy herself who gets on the end of Cooney-Cross's teasing delivery to double the Arsenal lead after just eight minutes.
Moments later, Wubben-Moy's aggressive and proactive defending once again causes City problems. The England international, starting her first WSL match under Slegers, wins the ball in the City half, outmuscling Aoba Fujino, before the ball eventually finds its way to Mariona, who plays in Blackstenius (one of five chances created by Arsenal's chief creator in this match) for a one-on-one, leading to an excellent last-ditch tackle by City's Rebecca Knaak.
Passivity problems
Despite this fast start, it would be City who ended the half well on top, halving the deficit through Mary Fowler and racking up ten shots before the break. Having stormed into an early two goal lead, Arsenal dialled back their pressing, and this only played into City's hands. Yui Hasegawa was able to dictate the play against Arsenal's patchwork central midfield pairing, as City enjoyed 64% of the possession in the first half.
Out wide, City's wingers were able to pull Arsenal's players out of position and isolate markers. This is evident in City's first goal, with Fujino finding herself one-v-one with Russo, beating the makeshift winger with a burst of pace before finding Fowler at the back post, who was able to out jump Emily Fox to get City right back into the match. As the half went on, it became evident that Arsenal would need to change something to stop what had become a City onslaught. Sinking deeper and deeper into their own defensive third, it was becoming a matter of when, not if, City would score again.
Renee reasserts Arsenal's dominance
While many Arsenal fans would have hoped for a change of personal from the bench (more on that later), it was instead a tactical tweak from Slegers that initially allowed Arsenal to stem the City tide, in some respects at least. The Gunners started the second half well, mostly restricting City to possession in their own half and enjoying more of the ball themselves. You can see right from the start of the half that Arsenal reverted to showing the sort of out of possession intent that had got them into the lead in the first place. Mirroring the situation from the first half, Mariona is once again applying pressure to Aleixandri as City look to build up.
A couple of minutes later, we see Arsenal hunting City in packs from a City throw-in. The turnover eventually leads to a two-on-two, and while Arsenal aren't able to make the most of it, it is an early sign that there were more goals yet in the game for Arsenal, with City leaving themselves wide open at the back.
After three goals in the space of five minutes as 2–1 became 3–3, the game returned to the pattern seen early in the second half, with Arsenal asking probing questions of City, forcing their opponents back and continuing to feast on the vast spaces left in behind sky blue shirts. Arsenal should have immediately restored their lead after Fowler's leveller from the spot (despite Steph Catley's foul on Fujino clearly taking place outside of the box), but the ease in which Arsenal were able to get three runners in behind the City defence offered yet more encouragement, as Blackstenius was once again denied in a one-on-one.
Walti's impact
In stark contrast to their first-half onslaught, City managed just three shots from open play in the second half. This can partly be put down to aforementioned tactical tweaks, but the impact of Lia Walti from the Arsenal bench cannot be understated. One of Arsenal's most technically gifted players, recent injury issues have stunted the captain of the Swiss national team, as her 22 minute cameo represented just her second WSL appearance since mid-November. As soon as she made it onto the pitch at the Joie Stadium, her impact was obvious. In the ten minutes following her introduction, Arsenal enjoyed 71% possession, in stark contrast to the latter part of the first half in which they struggled to get any sort of foothold in the game.
While Kyra Cooney-Cross performed admirably, assisting the second goal and releasing Arsenal players into space with her excellent passing range, dictating the tempo is not one of the Australian's strengths. In the 22 minutes in which Walti was on the pitch, she attempted 24 passes, just seven less than Cooney-Cross had attempted in the previous 68 minutes. With Walti on the pitch, Arsenal were able to continue to exploit the oceans of space left in behind the City defence. Of course, it would be the best player on the pitch in Mariona who made the decisive impact, with her sweeping pass out to the right releasing Mead, who was able to fire across goal for Blackstenius, who was rewarded for her trademark persistence by scoring yet another winner against a Manchester City side that she relishes facing.
Going forward, Arsenal will have to ensure that spells like the one they endured from the 15th to 45th minute of this match are kept to a minimum, but given the number first team players unavailable to Slegers (six in all), they could be forgiven for not dominating from the first whistle to the last. All in all, this was a mightily impressive performance with a depleted XI in which the Gunners were rewarded for their bravery in and out of possession.
I do wonder if longer term Slegers wants to play with a single 6 and 2 AM's ahead instead of the double pivot of the Eidevall era. She seemed to have little compunction to play Mariona as an 8 when injuries hit that part of the team.