When Arsenal start with Stina Blackstenius upfront, it is usually because they expect to face an opponent who either plays a high line, or else is susceptible in the channels. Under Rick Passmor, Leicester have played with a back three. Arseblog News asked Renee Slegers post-match whether they had a plan to expose Leicester in the channels.
‘We always want to look at the opposition and where we see opportunities and we want to look at our own strengths in the squad and I think if you talk about Stina and her performance today, I think she did everything that she’s good at. She played to her strengths, but also the team put her in really good positions. So I’m happy with what she meant for us today, and I think we found some good moments to exploit things that Leicester gave us.’ Let’s look at some examples of how Arsenal exposed Leicester’s narrow back line.
Arsenal’s plan to expose Leicester’s channels begins absolutely immediately. Steph Catley receives the ball from kickoff five seconds into the game and look what she does with it.
She puts Blackstenius through on goal for what should have been maybe the quickest WSL goal ever. Unfortunately, Stina takes a heavy touch and Leicester clear. But the intention is clear immediately.
Arsenal force the first goal in the 6th minute and they set up a situation where they can attack the gaps Leicester leave out wide. Hinds inverts into midfield to provide a give and go with Kim Little, Hinds takes a defender with her in doing so and look at the big gap Leicester have left for Beth Mead to run into.
Hinds actually makes herself available on the underlap too but Mead has so much time to pick out a cross and this is a situation Arsenal would have wanted, Blackstenius running towards goal and taking defenders with her, allowing Russo to make the third player run behind her. Blackstenius takes another heavy touch but Russo runs in to lash Arsenal into the lead. It emanates from attacking the spaces Leicester’s back three leaves at the sides.
I enjoyed the detail on the goal where Hinds is inverted. I took this picture from the press box during the game to highlight how far in-field Hinds was travelling out of possession sometimes.
Mariona pulled into a lot of wide left positions during the game and we are about to see why as Catley gives her the ball here.
Once again, the Leicester right wing-back Kees is pushed right up leaving a gap in the channel and Mariona picks Blackstenius out there again. Swaby eventually muscles her off the ball in the area but it’s another dangerous situation created around the side of Leicester’s back three.
This move that ends with a dangerous shot from Russo begins with Foord one v one against Kees and look how much space Foord has to play with here.
Foord is an accomplished dribbler but with that much space behind Kees, this is a simple ‘push the ball into the space and run after it’ scenario. Foord beats Kees easily and pulls the ball back to Russo here, who fires just wide.
Leicester consistently overcommitted their wing-backs. As Russo receives and spins in midfield here, Asmita Ale is frantically pointing for someone to pick up Beth Mead, who is again in space. The widest Leicester defender here is in line with the penalty spot.
Russo finds Mead and it doesn’t even need to be a tidy pass due to the amount of space. Look at how stretched Leicester’s back three is here and look how narrow they are. Eventually they do clear Mead’s cross but Arsenal were able to get in down the sides again and again.
Yet another example of Arsenal looking for that ball into the channel ASAP.
Leicester’s lack of compactness out wide leads to another chance, Mariona runs into a generous amount of space here.
She then has time and space to play a slide rule pass to Stina, whose shot is saved by Leitzig. But again, just look at the green expanse in Leicester’s full-back areas.
Once again, Leicester are exposed around the side of their centre-halves here, look how much space Foord has as Russo collects here.
It doesn’t even have to be an especially pinpoint pass, there is so much space in the wide area Russo just needs to play the ball there. Foord finds Mead with a cutback which really should have yielded a third goal.
For the third goal Arsenal have their choice of which side of Leicester’s narrow defence to exploit. Mariona could just as easily have slipped Blackstenius through in the channel here.
Instead she bears right and Russo has time and space to pick out Mead, who has lots of space on the right. The positioning of the Leicester defence here is poor, there are six players retreating and you could throw a blanket over all six of them.
Again, Leicester’s defenders have moved in an almost perfectly parallel fashion, as if they are deliberately trying to be as narrow as possible. Mead picks out Stina who makes no mistake.
You can see at half-time that Leicester made an effort to close these spaces up and play more as a back five. Leicester’s backline is tighter with greater coverage out wide. The home side were better at clogging up Arsenal’s left side, the right side was a different story as the half progressed…
As a transition drops for Russo here, Mead has a lot of space to attack (though she is probably just offside). Russo overcooks this pass though. Eventually Blackstenius stops attacking the left channel and starts to drift over to the right as Arsenal notice this pattern.
The next time Arsenal attack on the counter here, we can see that Blackstenius has peeled over to the other side of the pitch.
Mariona delivers a pass and Stina has acres of space to run into. Swaby gets back with a good block here.
The introduction of Emily Fox really opened up the right hand side again, you can see there is an obvious pass here and Fox picks it.
Blackstenius again has space to run in the channel. From here, Stina crosses to Russo who heads just over.
Fox’s road runner style acceleration created several good situations. Here she gets the after burners on and leaves Ale with a ‘meep meep’ as she passes.
Blackstenius can see the vision and hits that channel once more and her shot here hits the outside of the post.
Leicester get one back and immediately from kick off, Fox finds Kelly and she plays the ball forwards into the channel immediately.
And Kelly’s pass into green grass puts Stina in and she absolutely roofs it.
Blackstenius finished the game with seven shots, which tells you how pivotal her inclusion was to Arsenal’s game plan. Leicester gave Arsenal the channels and Arsenal tuned in.
The post Arsenal Women Analysis: Arsenal tune into Leicester Channels appeared first on Arseblog News – the Arsenal news site.
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