Following Arsenal’s 5-2 win over Tottenham on Saturday, Arseblog News asked Renee Slegers about the number of times Arsenal played quickly into the channels and over the top of the Spurs defence. ‘Yes, because with their aggression and jumping on backwards passes and going player for player that’s something we wanted to exploit. So I think we did that really well in the 1st half.’
Arsenal recognised Spurs would play with an aggressive player-for-player press and looked to turn Tottenham’s intensity against them with quick balls into the channels down the sides of the Spurs back three and over the top of their defence. Let’s look at some examples.
This wasn’t a long ball, especially, but it did illustrate how quickly Arsenal wanted to play the ball forwards. Holdt loses the ball here and Little doesn’t take a touch, she just sends it forwards to Russo first time. Russo and Kelly exchange passes and Russo’s shot is deflected wide. Russo then scores from the resulting corner.
Catley finds Mariona here and Spurs have their entire team behind the ball, including three players within a couple of yards of the Spaniard. Notice Olivia Smith inverting from the flank, as one of Slegers’ wide players tends to do.
Mariona takes one touch and wastes absolutely no time whipping a forward pass into Smith.
From here, Smith turns and plays a ball in behind for Russo. Arsenal focused on not taking a lot of touches in build up if they could help it and playing the ball forwards quickly to expose Tottenham’s press.
The pass from Mariona is an outstanding one and you can see she has a little look up to identify it just before receiving the ball from Catley.
Two players come to close her down but she has the technique to both see and play the pass quickly.
Van Domselaar rolls the ball out to Holmberg here.
Holmberg sends it into the channel first time and Bartrip is totally isolated and fouls Russo here.
Wubben-Moy has the ball here and Spurs have five players pressed up into the Arsenal half.
Lotte lofts a nice ball over the top of the Spurs defence and Russo is onto it again. From here, Russo forces a blocked shot.
Once again, Wubben-Moy pulls over to the right and receives the ball from Catley.
You can see that, again, Smith inverting has pulled Bartrip out of position and that allows space for Wubben-Moy to play into the channel and Holmberg has the ball in a dangerous area.
On this occasion, Lotte plays the ball into Mariona and Mariona hits it first time, another example of Arsenal’s intention to play forwards quickly.
Smith flicks the ball on here but can’t find a red shirt. As it turns out, Spurs play the ball back to Lize Kop from here who makes a big mistake and passes straight to Russo for 3-1.
Van Domselaar finds Wubben-Moy in the right channel again and again, there are five Spurs shirts in the frame pressed right up.
Lotte plays straight to Russo who touches it first time to Smith and Arsenal are away again due to quick, direct passing. You don’t always have to go long or over the top to be direct.
As the ball falls to Catley here she is comfortable sending it forwards first time with four Spurs players around her.
Maanum flicks on Catley’s up and under and Russo is in behind again.
Spurs take a throw-in here and as the ball drops to Wubben-Moy, she is happy to send it forwards first time with several Spurs players pressed forwards. It leaves Bartrip in an uncomfortable situation as she just about fends off Russo here.
Koga goes for a clipped clearance here as Spurs play out from the back.
McCabe intercepts and she doesn’t want to bring the ball down, she simply heads it forwards first time.
And this is why, it goes straight through to Russo and her shot is deflected into Kop’s arms from here.
This sense of Arsenal playing forwards quickly drifted a little in the second half. Tottenham fixed up, Arsenal made changes and had an eye on Wednesday evening. In the first half, time and again, they exposed Tottenham’s high press with first time passes forwards.