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Olivier Giroud of Chelsea thinks that playing at Arsenal will be special, but he feels frustrated by the lack of playing time he has had in Chelsea since Maurizio Sarri took over.
Halfway through an intriguing season in the Premier League, it can be said that the two most tactically interesting teams meet this weekend in Emirates.
Neither Arsenal nor Chelsea are battling this season's Premier League and have stammered in recent weeks after promising debuts under Unai Emery and Maurizio Sarri respectively. Evaluating how parties have adapted to new regimes has been fascinating.
Neither Emery nor Sarri seemed perfect: Emery is a tactical handyman who joins a club accustomed to "playing in the manner of Arsenal". Sarri is the opposite, an ideologue engaged in possession football in a club determined to win at all costs. It has been a kind of role reversal and this weekend we could see a Chelsea trip to the Emirates and a dominant possession, something that has rarely happened in the last 15 years.
The two managers also encountered a particular problem: how to format their side in the attacking third. The last decade of the Premier League has been marked by the domination of single-striker formations, whether in 4-3-3, 4-2-3-1 or 3-4-2-1, but these teams are find no true effective attacker. Therefore, Emery and Sarri have approached the problem in different ways: Emery deploys two, while Sarri does not use any.
Emery is determined to play both Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. In basic terms, there is no problem here; the two friends are good friends off the field and sometimes combined effectively, as was the case for Lacazette's excellent goal in Cardiff early in the season.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was integrated into the clumsy system of two Arsenal forwards.
A literal training with two attackers, however, is not suitable for Arsenal, that is why Aubameyang was integrated on the left. This is not disastrous, and he has recorded some excellent goal goals scored, but that 's not his best role yet. Aubameyang played much earlier in his career, but became a great finisher for shots on goal, great for getting to the right place at the right time. Starting from the left – and more recently from the right – it is less threatening.
There is also a problem with the Arsenal link game. If Aubameyang is on the left, intending to sneak behind, it means that the opponent's side flanker must make a significant contribution in terms of bridging the midfield and attacking. Obviously, this is exactly what Mesut Ozil excels at, but he finds himself in need, probably because of a personal problem between him and Emery. Without Ozil and with Henrikh Mkhitaryan injured and Lucas Torreira not having reached the top of his first two months, Arsenal lacked creativity against West Ham last weekend. Alex Iwobi is great at positioning himself to pull opponents out of position and to make simple pbades behind, but he's not quite the player to reunite everything.
Too often, Aubameyang and Lacazette are disconnected from their teammates, which raises the question of whether it is worth playing against two attackers. The alternative only plays one, which means that Aubeameyang, the oldest and most prolific forward, gets the nod. But the collapse of Arsenal in a 5-1 defeat at Anfield showed the problem with this system: Aubameyang offers little with his back to the goal, and does not put others in. game in the manner of Lacazette. Should Aubameyang be omitted instead? In tactical terms, most likely. But Ozil and Aubameyang are the two best players of Arsenal. if the optimal system excludes both, something catastrophic happens.
Sarri, meanwhile, is completely diverted from the attackers. Alvaro Morata's confidence crisis meant that he was often not even in the 18-player Chelsea team, while Sarri seems to consider Olivier Giroud as a Plan B despite his combination perfect with Eden Hazard.
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Instead, Hazard was used in the central typing position. The Belgian does not like this role because he does not touch the ball often enough. He does not score enough goals to be part of this position either. Curiously, Hazard recently stated that his performance in Belgium's World Cup 2 quarter-final win against Brazil last summer was the best of his career. He particularly appreciated this performance because he did not score or help, proving that you can play well without contributing. directly to a goal. It was a refreshing take, but probably not a music for Sarri's ears, which wanted Hazard to aim for 40 goals this season.
The imminent signature of Gonzalo Higuain's loan theoretically improves the situation. Higuain performed very well in front of the Sarri club, scoring a record 36 goals in Serie A before moving to Juventus. It can be said that the Sarri Club in Naples looked better after his departure, when Dries Mertens advanced inside to direct the line, to Hazard. Higuain also appeared somewhat immobile in recent months and lacking the speed that he discovered in Napoli, where he became pacier after losing a lot of weight. He could be a useful boxer, which is sorely lacking in Chelsea.
This weekend, it will be Hazard who will lead the line. And although his interpretation of the role of the fake is imperfect, he played well against Newcastle last weekend, especially for his contribution to Chelsea's second goal, scored by Willian. Hazard narrowly missed receiving the ball, dragging the Newcastle defenders onto the field before elegantly skirting them and feeding the Brazilian, who cut the ball inside and bowed the ball into the far corner. That was all you want from a fake nine.
This weekend could be perfect for Hazard. The three central defenders of Arsenal, Laurent Koscielny, Sokratis Papastathopoulos and, in particular, Shkodran Mustafi, all have the habit of placing themselves too high out of the line of defense and finding themselves out of position. Aside from tactical fouling, it's hard to imagine how they'll cope with Hazard's change of direction, and Chelsea should be able to create opportunities to score goals at will.
This could be the most interesting aspect of the shock this weekend. It is north London against west London, red against blue, possession against pragmatism. But there is also a good chance that it will be two strikers against no attacker, both sides offsetting the absence of a single and truly outstanding central striker.
Source: espn.co.uk
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