Open Football:Pat Nevin

Open Football:Pat Nevin

Posted by David Aniemeka on Tuesday, 3 December 2013 0

Having watched the team return to winning ways at
the weekend, columnist Pat Nevin looks at answers
being found with adaptability…
There were lots of positives and maybe one or two
negatives following the weekend's win over
Southampton. On the negative side, maybe the
biggest concern was the loss of Oscar to an injury.
We really do need as many bodies as possible this
month and he isn't a player you want to lose, but also
not one you would want to take a chance on by
playing him when he isn't fully recovered. The
medical team will work on him, but the thin line
between working to get him back and rushing him
too much will be severely tested over the next few
games.
Certainly on the positive side, having Juan Mata
ready, willing, able and pretty fresh and desperate to
please is a huge bonus. He certainly played his part
against the Saints, but it was a superb team effort in
the second half that needed sheer force of will to
break the visitors down. Actually sheer physical force
came into it too, when the brawn of Demba Ba and
the renewed power machine that is Fernando
Torres terrorised their defence more and more as
the game wore on.
Much has been made of the Southampton high-
intensity pressing this season but it was actually
Arsene Wenger the other week who seemed to find a
pretty simple answer to it. If five players close you
down in your own area, then forget about trying to
pass it round them, just lump it long, miss them out,
leave them stranded and take it from where the balls
land. Yes, amazingly, Arsenal played the long ball
game in patches against Southampton and it
negated almost all of their strengths.
So when we needed to change it was easy to try a
similar (although I stress not exactly the same) tactic
and system adaptation. When Chelsea went two up
front it was effectively a 4-2-4 formation with Hazard
and Mata wide while Fernando and Demba bullied
their centre-backs. This leaves the midfield open, or
it should do, but the work rate of the two lads left in
there was astounding. Ramires in particular was
chasing and tackling everything that moved. At one
point I thought the referee was in danger from the
Brazilian when the ball ran past the whistler. His
assist for the final goal just summed up how much
effort he had put into the match.

Sent From David Aniemeka