Emery's Plan, Arteta's KEY Changes: Aston Villa 0-2 Arsenal Tactical Analysis

I think it's safe to say that the Premier League is back yeah I mean there was stress reprieve relief and although this video is going to deconstruct from a tactical point of view astonvilla nil Arsenal 2 from an Arsenal perspective let's take a moment to thank David ryer and Leandro trossard no seriously thanks guys welcome back to the Harvey graci YouTube channel I'm so glad you found us or joining us once again and yes Arsenal definitely have these two to thank but the game on Saturday had so much more in it for me to discuss and we're going to be focusing today on how Aston Villa was so impressive out of possession but how Arsenal adapted throughout the game to combat this minutely analyzing Arsenal's own buildup and their own tweaked press out of possession there is lots and lots more to cover on the way to so with all this to come let's get straight on in with it and with our first tactical Deep dive of the season on this channel we're going to start with completely un packing Aston Villa's updated 424 press against the Arsenal buildup looking in detail at the Gunner's Central Access problems at times my solutions to it and how these were actually put into practice in the second half first let's lay out this changed Aston Villa and their approach out of possession in their 424 midblock mcin and Bailey position themselves narrow initially either side of Watkins and Rogers ready to trigger the team's jump when the ball was passed back by Arsenal to one of their wide center backs Watkins and Rogers had different jobs they initially matched up with our pivot which in settled play was jurian Timber and Thomas party mostly and between Watkins and Rogers one of them would press the ball while Shadow marking their pivot man but Villa's press had more Nuance to it still our biggest threat last season when we played Aston Villa in those two defeats was those off theh shoulder movements from Kai havitz to stretch their back line and as artetta said in his postmatch comment Onana in particular had a different role where he would track deam Rice's stretching movements to form a back five at times the Hing midfielder had a very specific behavior with our attacking midfielders as well we have to find something else and the moment we understood the game we created more and more PRS and this gave Onana a dual role where he had to then hustle back into the pivot next to Yuri tielemans when the ball was switched across to tman side but remember that artetta quote that I just brought up I want you to focus on the last bit of it for today's video in particular the moment we understood the game we created more and more problems I think this anecdote sums up my analysis today so stay tuned because with this mid blocky jumpy and trigger-based Aston Villa front four it was clear to me that the key in our buildup for Arsenal was how we create our passing Lanes how do we expose the sizable distances Onana and tielemans had to cover in the middle of pitch in their narrow pivot how do we position and how do we overload the Midfield to open up new access routes behind the front line of that Villa press whil simultaneously not allowing them to squeeze up the pitch and containers we're going to get on about how Arsenal set about trying to do that in the second half but first it's really important that we look at the passages of play that showcase the Aston Villa plan and our initial difficulty accessing the central areas straight away here you see Jan Timber moving inside Rogers taking him up as baay squeezes onto Gabrielle now out of the picture here amadu oana follows deam rice into the backline before the ball makes its way over to Ben White where mcin now applies pressure and Onana skips back into the pivot and as of yet there hasn't been too much of an attempt from Arsenal at this point in the game to disorganize this Aston Villa block the passing Lanes to our pivot have been really well regulated by Watkins and Rogers and any passes around the sides of the block are relatively hard less with it being B Saka or Gabriel Martinelli pivoting lower instead of rice or most importantly Martin erard swinging into these sorts of positions to change tian's discipline for example if it is erard we're talking about change his discipline in the pivot does he stay or does he go towards erard and open up that third passing Lane into Midfield and at halime I posted on X that need for us to find that 33 base more why well of of course as I've been alluding to we get that extra line through Aston Villa's first line of pressure challenging Tans for example of whether he is okay with just allowing erard to pick up the balls between the lines or move out to him but also the 33 promotes those fluid rotations that have come to be a real symbol of the Arsenal buildup nowadays those disorganizing movements we rely on in terms of finding players arriving into space playing through presses and in the second half from I would say about 50 5 minutes in and I think really kick started by that Rya Wonder save from olle Watkins we started to see this much more from Arsenal this was the first time I noted a real concertive effort from erard to change his reception points and this seemingly insignificant play we'll share a lot of details that will become more significant later on so for now I just want you to focus on a couple of bits here notice what Tans chooses to do with erard swinging and his partner Onana pinned by Declan also note the domino effect from erard swings how it affects Thomas party's positioning how Timber dovetails off this and then how easily we force Villa's midblock deep with this from a white overlap from Deep let's continue and let's actually focus on the buildup for our first goal cuz this is key we're clearly focusing at this point in the game on stacking the right hand side here I think we were good to take advantage of the Aston Villa press when Duran and Ramsey were subbed on Duran being here slightly overeager and Ramsey caught between dropping off like mcin or getting really tight to Thomas party there is that erard swing which stretches things unnaturally from a villa point of view party has time to get on the half turn here which we know he loves to do but look at jurian Timber it's almost as if that additional body in Martin Ard allows jurian to be a bit braver in his positioning staggering himself higher and actually moving on top of Thomas party then finding erard w this is a Midfield and a Midfield three here working as a unit the ball finds its way out to B sacka and as that right hand side threatened to do every time we attacked against Aston Villa we formed a sort of diamond or a box shape with party located inside the Villa block here and he's able to open up that passing Lane to sacka with White's inside Dart actually drawing G away comes back to igard who finds saaka in behind and the rest is history suddenly I think after that goal our buildup became much more confident more expressive in our movements and look at this tight Midfield with Timber party and erard when erard swings wide and then inside the type of interconnectedness we came to see this preseason with Zeno and georgino in the midfield for example just a couple more in-game examples to highlight what I'm saying here again Jan is on his own jumping out of the 424 opening the pass up to Ben White who now has the option of erard in the 33 suddenly there are too many players now for Villa to manage with their angles in their press Tans become sucked out to Martin erard Rogers suddenly has to transfer markers from Timber to party leaving subsequently jury and Timber free to receive because Onana has remained deeper with Declan rice trossard is found um who becomes I think a really nice reference point for our build up on the left hand side when we really do need it at times lastly I just want to show you I think how simple you can make all of this look when you have the wavelength that this Arsenal team do when we are confident and then that is the key confidence this is only a little detail but when erard makes that swinging movement party is allowed as we've touched on to reposition higher and with how he likes to use the pitch in his ankles this o this often opens up a heck of a lot of angles for Thomas party but it's right now to switch lenses and to look at Arsenal off the ball because there were some tweaks to how we press Villa our elves when Arsenal pressed typically we look to squeeze on the left hand side of the pitch to win the ball back on the right hand side but that was almost flipped yesterday saaka set himself much higher which effectively gave Emmy Martinez the choice of either being funnel towards njel kovich on and the right hand side of Aston ville's buildup or if he wanted to go to the left hand side he was forced to clip balls like this over the top of sacka to Lucin where white was sort of covering ready to back up the mantoan Press now before we get into anything despite that real transition power that Aston Villa have with the long legs of amadu Onana Morgan Rogers Etc and real Pace that they have at times and Power in the front line and also before we get into the Morgan Rogers Thomas party matchup in particular which we all saw coming Arsenal's press yesterday irrespective of this I thought was fantastic when we did go mantoan part of the thinking I think funneling Villa to their right was keeping party stuck to John mcin manto man instead of following Morgan Rogers who Gabrielle in the man man was tasked with sticking to as we see here following Rogers almost into the Villa box and again we're going to get onto that Rogers party battle in particular but I think if we're honest with the amount of possession that we had especially in the first half and how we were able to limit Aston Villa's buildup um to channel balls to olle Watkins which celba made sure this time that the level of effectiveness of these balls were null and void Villa could simply not play through us we blocked them off however Morgan roggers was the thorn in our side but a lot of times when he ran at us and caused us problems and ran through us it didn't actually come from the Aston Villa build as I said we pressed very well yesterday but most of the time these Rogers situations especially in transition against Thomas party came in the second ball situations or when we weren't quite set enough in the Press I wanted to find a situation of Rogers actually being found high and free able to run at us in the Villa buildup this is the best I could find between Dean rice and Kai havitz they probably sit off a bit too much and when amadu oana gets time on the ball we know he loves to pick a pass forward in between the lines we do not really close the angle because we're not set enough and Rogers is found with this incisive ball and ironically it's our pivot player in Thomas party this time who has been pinned Deep by mcin Rogers has the space to drive between the lines but here lies the problem though with Dean rice yesterday as he did last season too much he's ultimately forced when he's playing with a georgino or a Thomas party to cover a bigger area of the pitch than someone as an eight in our system should do we're ultimately trying to compensate for the legs of the other Midfield partner now if you follow the channel for a while you will know that for over a year I've been speaking on Thomas party's weighing physicality but I'm not going to use that point to jump on the wagon of critiquing him what for now we can all see that's not the point of this at all the main problem that you have with Pary physical deficiencies in transition and in particular the Rogers party battle yesterday if you rewatch The Game is that it's not that Thomas party doesn't have any legs but it it's that he still jumps and he presses and he's frontf footed as as if he had the legs and the physicality that he had in his prime he's frontf footed where he should be conservative as in this clip rice ends up like many a time as the deepest Defender from Midfield despite being that fulcrum of our press just behind the front two and as I've said I was still really happy with our out of possession performance yesterday but I just don't see the point in berating party for his physical decline especially if you can't see the Nuance to it and that's how he is defending to finish though and there's loads of other stuff that I wish I could have gone into but for this video's sake let's finish with the little details let's talk about jurri and Timber I think it's fa to say he probably had a quieter game in terms of admitting his personality on the ball to his normal standards but I don't think we should expect anything else when the guy is literally making his second ever start in the Premier League for Arsenal yet using the context of what we were talking about in the beginning with our Central Access there was still plenty of times and plenty of glimpses even if they weren't in abundance of what Timber gives us in the middle of the pitch in terms of press breaking that term that I've been talking about for a while now this passage here that I'm going to show you is quintessential jurrian Timber the license he has to move across the Midfield line is key and it's in tandem with parties consistent movements to create that back four the timing though is the key here from Timber it's absolutely superb so that makes it difficult for Morgan Rogers to react because Timber's coming on his Blind Side and party also shifting deep deeper in front of him again Onana in his role makes sure he's stuck next to Declan rice there is plenty of time for Jan Timber to get on the halterm and progress the ball to Gabrielle Martinelli or take his first touches in the whole game for example poignantly it's deam rice forming that 33 that I wanted to see more across the game and in the first half especially that fashion this opening but then again it's all about having Jan Tim but having those press Breakers who are resistant enough in tight spaces also have the brave to play forward and through and with a Timber with more minutes I think we're going to see this more and more his dism marking movements are so so clever I think for Me overall the Aston Villa game was a definite positive I think if we're looking at margins to improve on I think the game shows the responsibility the players need to demand more of especially in the buildup and how specific tools probably still need polishing whether that is after players being injured or after recent arrivals or even still needing sourcing on the market do we still need that extra profile to push back a press we have lots of those pulling factors as I've been talking about and then exploit the space our buildup creates do we still need that profile to spin away and Carries up the pitch for example Others May point to the front line and again that's totally fair I'm thinking of doing a specific video on Gabriel Martinelli later next week and how in our current game model even if he's being found 1 V one up against his manm more you're still asking him quite often to be something he is not overall though we should be super happy we've just beaten astonvilla a really tough Place away from home the pressing structure was really good and we started to look much more like ourselves on the ball once as Mikel Etta said we started to understand the game more I think inefficiencies persist and we will hopefully look to solve them come the end of the window but there is a lot to like about this F of performance and we'll take stock and I will take stock again with a proper I think predictions video and Overlook when the window closes but I've got so much more content to come I really really hope you guys have enjoyed this video I just want to say before you go this year for the Harvey gra YouTube channel this season is going to be absolutely massive I've got big big plans and it's thanks to every single one of you for sticking by me so if you are around still at the end of this video as you know I only ask you to like comment subscribe at the end of the video cuz hopefully that means you found it enjoyable or informative in whichever shape way or form you derive that from but I'll catch you very very shortly see you later