Chelsea and Maurizio Sarri look to widen the gap between fourth and fifth with a win over Unai Emery’s Arsenal. Arsenal is spinning their wheels currently.
Chelsea’s match against Arsenal on match day two was the first case of “Chelsea was a bit lucky to win that one”. The Blues played well, but Arsenal routinely carved the defense apart and probably should have had more than the two goals in the 3-2 loss.
Since that time, Chelsea got better before throwing themselves into a long rut of possession without purpose. Arsenal rebounded with a long streak of victories, but recent weeks have seen tinkering that has led to dropped points.
Both sides, after hot starts, feel about as good as they were at this point last season. A win for either can be galvanizing in the pursuit of top four. Leave the rest of the narratives aside for now; both teams know that a win here can change everything and they will go all out.
The 4-2-3-1 is still a part of Emery’s Arsenal, but over the winter he has played around with 4-3-1-2, 4-3-3, 3-4-2-1 and more. The idea is to find a way to have both Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette on the field together without sacrificing balance defensively. Emery keeps tinkering with the formula because nothing seems to work for more than a match or two.
Since the formation changes so regularly, it is hard to really get a sense of the overall tactical plan. But their offense is generally based on possession in a deep area creating vertical space. Once that space is found (usually on the flanks), they attack it with speed to create near certain goals. If that sounds a lot like what Sarrismo should be, it is only because it is very similar.
Defensively, Arsenal will look to create a block of eight players that press at various points. And that is about as deep as that goes. Since they change up the formation so often and their main means of attack is through speed, they often just wait for the opponent to make a mistake before starting a counter. For a top six team, it is a surprisingly passive way of defending.
Their strength comes in having two very good partnerships and the variability around those strong partnerships. The pair of Aubameyang and Lacazette are difficult to cope with and the midfield pair of Lucas Torreira and Granit Xhaka has the right blend of silk and steel to adapt to most circumstances. And with the other six outfielders varying so much, they are very hard to plan against.
But variability is a double edged sword. While those pairs have a strong connection, the constant changes create a lot of uncertainty in the side. Is was largely due to that that Liverpool was able to smash them a few weeks ago and a club like West Ham could hold them off. Deal with the strong links and the weak links are not much of an issue.
Given how little Sarri plays with his side, the sheer amount of reps they have together should be enough to give the side an edge over Arsenal. But the Gunners are still a very dangerous side that could awaken at any time. Sarri’s Chelsea cannot enter this match with anything less than their best if they want to widen the gap between fourth and fifth.