By Daily Sports on December 17, 2019

It is seeming increasingly likely that beleaguered Arsenal are going to be hiring a former playing stalwart of the club and current assistant manager at champions Manchester City Mikel Arteta as their new head coach. The Gunners bigwigs are reportedly deep in negotiations with the suits at City to finalise the compensation package for the Citizens so they can let go of the Spaniard.

The possible appointment of Arteta to steer the affairs of Arsenal is such a wild card decision. With no previous experience managing a club, many are rightly skeptical of what Arteta can do to turn the fortunes of Arsenal around.

Yet, he is held in such high regards in coaching and to be Pep Guardiola’s pick as assistant coach is no mean feat at all.

When Guardiola himself kicked off his coaching journey at Barcelona some years ago, he himself had no top level management experience but he came in and made an immediate impact and today he remains the best manager in the world.

Ability and qualities should not be sacrificed on the altar of experience and name recognition and so Arteta, if the stories about his unique knowledge of the game is to be believed, must be given the benefit of the doubt and we shall have to see how he manages the troubled Gunners.

When Arteta was signed as a player at Arsenal in 2011 following a troubling period which culminated in the club suffering a humiliating 8-2 drubbing in the hands of Manchester United at Old Trafford, he immediately formed a core of senior players who worked hard to instill leadership and discipline at the club and helped Arsenal not only to navigate that difficult period but also reestablished the Gunners as a trophy winning club with a couple of FA cup titles under Arsene Wenger. His discipline, dedication and sense of intelligence earned Arteta enormous respect amongst Arsenal's fans and that endures till today.

Now Arteta is expected to carry out another rescue job, this time in the dugout as the main coach. He is to implement a tactical style to address the Gunners slump fast as the club is tethering more on the edge of a relegation dogfight.

One area where the Spaniard will have to work on has just been analysed succinctly by his current player at Manchester City Kevin De Bryune.

The Belgian midfielder was at the heart of City’s tearing of Arsenal apart in their 3-0 triumph at the Emirates stadium last Sunday, scoring a beautiful brace. He accused Arsenal’s attackers of not helping their defence do some defensive work and noted that this is why Arsenal are easy to play against.

Asked if he was surprised by Arsenal giving City’s attackers so much space, De Bruyne said: "We saw up front in the videos… the attackers they try to press up but when we pass their front four they really don’t help the Arsenal defence.

“So they always stay with four up front, except [Gabriel] Martinelli who comes [back] a little bit more.

“So we always get spaces somewhere over the pitch.

“I think it’s really difficult for the six defenders to control that because obviously you can come from everywhere on the pitch.”

This analysis by De Bryune hits the nail on the head. For years the Arsenal defence has been finger Ed for poor defending and individually their defenders have been this poor. That said, the defending from the front has also left much to be desired and this has been an issue for a long time.

There has been a failure to apply an effective and consistent defensive approach that consists of the attackers keeping a compact shape and tracking back to close spaces when the opponents win the ball and begin a swift counter. Countless times, one finds the Arsenal attackers not tracking back with any real urgency to constrict the spaces and make it difficult for the opponents to have time and yards of space to fashion a killer final touch.

A case in point is the club's last home match against City. It was irritating to see captain Pierre Emery-Aubameyang jogging around in attack when he should be sprinting to harass the City defenders or rushing back to help Arsenal keep a compact shape. Same could be said of Mezut Ozil.

This has been an issue at Arsenal for years for anyone that has really studied the team in detail.

It is a failing of coaching, as well as any lack of desire on the forward players’ part to defend well, one must concede.

Despite all the talk about wanting to maintain the ‘Arsenal Way’ of playing in the front foot, taking the game to the opponents and laying entertaining football, the real place to begin for any coach now and Arteta in particular if he gets the job as expected is to fashion a way for the team to press effectively from the front and how they can link up with the rest of the team to form an effective block when they don’t have the ball.

The transfer window could see the Gunners making some defensive improvements but that will pale into insignificance if there’s no clear cut plan and coaching on how to defend from the front.

•PHOTO: Arsenal’s likely incoming head coach Mikel Arteta

Source Daily Sports

Posted December 17, 2019

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