Stoke 0 – 0 Arsenal: Match Thoughts And Individual Analysis

One point at Stoke is not a bad result on its own. Few visitors will return from the Britannia with three points and that makes it tough to criticize the Arsenal performance. The irony here is that this was probably the Gunners’ best defensive display at Stoke but by the end the hosts, having realized their single attacking tactic had failed to generate any threat, just wanted to hang on for a point. Such a finish and the discernible lack of quality chances for Arsenal, despite the late push, left fans demanding more but the point was a fair result. Both teams were defensive in their own ways and neither did enough to get the game winning goal.


 

It’s not worth going through this game in a sequential manner as few events of note took place. Instead I want to focus on certain patterns of play that affected either sides attacking and defensive capabilities.

Stoke, for some reason, didn’t press as intensely as they have done in the past. It could be that, just like the Gunners, they’re not at the top of their game just yet. This created a problem for the hosts as they weren’t able to keep the ball in the Arsenal half for as long as they’d have liked.

As expected, this was a game of long balls but Arsenal did excellently against the aerial and physical threats. Stoke just completed a 150 passes in the whole game at a pedestrian 63 percent success rate. In contrast there were 90 ground duels, 28 tackles, and a whopping 70 aerial duels in this fixture. This was literally a battle with some football thrown in between.

The Gunners only won 29 of those 70 aerial duels but they put enough pressure to ensure that the player winning the challenge wasn’t able to do as well with it as he’d have wanted. The midfield also stayed really deep, with Diaby contesting more duels (6/17) than any defender, and helped the back four. Together, Wenger’s team were not only able to put pressure on the first ball, they did extremely well to win the second balls and close down space for the runners. The shape of the back four was nearly perfect. Stoke didn’t find any space in the channels, their midfield runners didn’t go untracked, and it minimized any chance they had of putting crosses into the box or winning set-pieces.

In the past I’ve often noted that a clean sheet does not mean the defending was assured. There are games when Wenger’s team has kept the opponents out with desperation stuff. In this case though, it was a solid defensive effort and Mannone would have loved playing behind that bunch of outfielders.

Unfortunately, that’s only half the story.

For their part, Stoke too put up a strong defensive display. Arsenal only had one shot on target from inside the penalty box and Begovic was almost as comfortable as his opposite number despite Arsenal’s superior possession and passing stats. Wenger’s side won a number of corners and set-pieces but their efforts were innocuous.

I don’t appreciate much of what Tony Pulis does but he can train his sides to put up a strong resistance once they go deep and narrow. Arsenal just did not have enough creativity or mutual understanding between the players to break that down.

Part of the problem for the Gunners was also the fact that they could not strike the right balance between defence and attack. The strong defensive performance fostered a weakened ineffective attack. As Wenger says, you only have 11 players on the pitch. If more are pulled back to keep things tight there will be a shortage up front. Arsenal just did not have enough pace or quality on the transitions to catch Stoke out. Once the transitions were slowed the hosts were able to sit deep and protect their goal.

Arsenal’s midfield was really conservative and rarely ventured beyond the centre of the Stoke half. If we look at passes received by Diaby, Arteta, And Cazorla it shows very little in the form of penetration.

The following charts for Diaby and Cazorla are too similar with a lot of action areas in the middle of the Stoke half.