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Arsenal Tactics – Too many CAMs spoil the width!

Arsenal’s Strategy for Using Pace and Wingers Under the Current 4-2-3-1 System By Supertuur

Now that the transfer window is shut and Arsenal has signed a new centre forward in Danny Welbeck it is time to look at what to do with our attack. After looking at the first few games of this season I noticed 2 things. We like to use Giroud as our holdup and play centre forward. This will bring the rest of our midfield in and then we score. Even with Giroud injured, Arsenal is still programed to play this style. Hence why we bought Welbeck to continue with this style, as Sanogo is still too raw to take on this role.

Secondly we like to play through the middle and play the ball across our midfielders, which takes the pace out of an attack and allows the opposition to organise themselves. If we continue to play 4-2-3-1 we will not score 100 goals in a season. For that you need a lethal striker like Diego Costa as Chelsea have in their 4-2-3-1 formation.

One of the problems is our left wing where we do not use a winger. We deploy CAMs like Carzola and Ozil to play on the left and sometimes we use Podolski. Both Ozil and Carzola like to drift towards the middle, thereby crowding the middle and making it easier to defend for the opposition.
Arsene and his love for the CAMs

My guess is Wenger loves his CAMs so much he wants to play them all, Ozil, Carzola and Wilshere. This takes the pace out of our game and leads to a lot of passing in front of the goal. Wenger was right in the sense we did not need Cesc Fabregas. We should only play one CAM in this system, we have about 4 if we include Rosicky.

Arsenal needs to start using speedy wingers on the left. We should use Oxlade Chamberlain as he is a left footer. Sanchez can also be deployed on the left when Wallcott makes his full return. Gnabry could be the deputy for Walcott in the longer run on the right. Campbell should be deployed left or right.

With Walcott, Sanchez, Welbeck and Oxlade Chamberlain we have a very pacey attack. If we continue to play this system I can see Podolski being sold and maybe one of the CAMs, Carzola most likely.

This is what it would look like.

I will discuss other alternative strategies in further articles. I would love to hear your input.

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Tags Ozil Sanchez welbeck Wilshere

46 Comments

  1. Nice.

    Way way way offtopic-
    In the hurley burley of the deal line day of transfers, footballing fans have missed the a big, if not the biggest phenomenon in internet.

    The Fappening

    Google and find out. Oldies stay put. This is for the young with hormonal dysfunction.

      1. u mean the n*de pics of Jennifer Lawrence damn …………… probably they were all smokescreens
        I bet gazdis had something 2 do with it so that fans won’t be pi$$ed

  2. I am getting a little bit worried about the OX. I think he hasn’t developed as quickly as we have liked. He’s not playing bad, but given his undoubted talent, he should be further ahead than he is. R.Sterling is younger but there’s much more end product to his game. At the moment, the OX only provides the occasional flash, then gets injured or makes a poor pass in the final 3rd.

    1. Sterling is class because he has been given trust and game time by Rodgers.. if Chambo didn’t get injured last season he would be up there with him by now

    2. “Not reaching their potential”
      is synonymous with every
      Arsenal player for the past
      10 years. The wildeness years,
      the trophyless years. The laughing stock
      decade and the mastering of excuses
      decade. “The stadium build restricted
      our spend to a mere 1,500 million pound”.
      “You realize we play better football
      and our fans have more class
      then those who win trophies”.
      Promises and excuses have
      become endemic at Arsenal for a decade.
      Let the Bulls#it cease.
      Win the fecking EPL.
      Once more into the breach. 11th time lucky.

      1. I’m not worried about Ox, but I’m not entirely sure he is a winger. I really liked the look of him in the Ramsey type role. He was great in the tackle and driving us up field too. I know I’m going to stir a hornets nest here, but I thought he looked better in that role than Jack does,

          1. I’m starting to be persuaded, he has a better strength of movement than Jack, if you get what I mean. And I have been very impressed with his tracking back to tackle, even if he was the one who lost it. He seems to be able to recover well.

  3. I will support Arsenal forever! Whether we buy or don’t buy it doesn’t change anything for me. It doesn’t mean that i can’t complain about where i feel we are lacking (defence) and that i can’t be critical of arsenal management. COYG!

    1. I agree with you entirely. Perhaps it’s because I have supported Arsenal far longer than Wenger has been the manager that I don’t associate him and Arsenal as being the same thing. For the first 8 years he was a great coach, for the second he has been more of a great chief executive in away.

    1. —–Dispensery — Medical Shop
      Overpaid–Out-of-form–Greedy–Who?

      What a shattack…!!!

      Go on now. Rectified it for you.

    2. RVP and Falcao are both hurt. Mata is average. Their defense is suspect. For such an unlimited budget, you’d think they could have done much better.

      1. don’t know about manure but city & chelski will battle it out for title while we liverlool & maybe manure 4 3rd or 4th pos unless wenger goes out in jan & spend some money

  5. Too many CAM is better than too many striker or CM. Most of the worlds best CAM players can play in a number of positions.

    To add on, I believe Debuchy has potential to play as cover for CB considering his aerial duels stats are promising, hes fast, atheltic and a good tackler.

  6. If we had a strong DM, can play his preferred position, and won’t have to defend so much, bringing the best out him, for now I think we should play ox, campbell or poldi on the left wing, with sanchez on the right..

  8. This 4-2-3-1 is perfectly fine. I think it’s the best formation for Arsenal.

    By moving Ozil inside, you put your best control player in the center of the pitch, giving him 360 degree options. In addition you strengthen the attack and defense by moving Sanchez in place of Ozil on the left side.

    Giroud is purely a hold up player, whereas Welbeck is a holdup player and a thru ball threat. He’s fast as Arsenal fan will soon find out. This gives you a quick counter threat left, center, and right.

    The weakness is in DM, against a strong attacking/ counter attacking team.

  10. Hi guys,
    I’m new here, that is as a registered user. I’ve been reading the posts and comments for years but have just now signed up. I need some help from the londoners here. Me and my friends are planning to visit London and watch a game later this year but we’re having problem finding a reliable website to book tickets from. I have an account on arsenal.com but not as a silver member or anything. I would like to book and pay the tickets from Sweden but I can order them with delivery to my friends address in London. Anyone have any ideas?

    Thanks!
    Max

  12. Me thinks we too focused on the 11 players on field forgetting the the 12th very active member of the team (the coach). I think we lose more games if the coach’s tactical approach misfire despite having a dynamic team. Spying on opposition’s game before engaging them will help the coach a lot in team selection and game tactics. I find Wenger very short or very lazy in this regard. (Fergie was very good at paying opposition a visit before engaging them). His flapping arms animation on the touch line or just sitting wrapping his fingers on the bench shows a lack of tactical depth from my point of view.

    1. Wenger was an awesome coach, but like players there comes when a coaches performance starts to drop. I too have concerns about him. I don’t know if it is that he is trying to do too much, or he has become obsessive stubborn, but he isn’t seeing the bigger picture. To be honest he lost a top 3 position in the EPL last season during the Jan transfer window. He became obsessed with Draxler, and missed the fact that we needed reinforcing badly, and the panic loan of Kallstrom epitomised his failure to see that which is blatantly obvious in time. He now obsesses about building an English core, a worthy challenge indeed, but again it overlooks our need to play with players who know and understand their position, with the left wing and CDM being classic examples. Artetta, as much as I like him, is not a CDM, no has he ever been. And Ozil, Cazola and every other person Wenger seems to play there, icluding (Ox and Alexis) are not left wingers. So with our very one dimensional attacking play of a lot of passes until we can find a way through the middle of the oppositions defence, the better opponents know to either gengen pressen our central midfield, or go down our left. We are tactically an open book at the moment sadly

    1. So Alexis on the left wing and we should use Ox on the right whilst TW14 recovers?

      Welbeck up front makes good sense. Please no more Ozil or Carzola on the left please.

      1. Alexis is World class on the right, where he played for Barca and Chile. As far as I can remember he’s only ever played on the left under Wenger naturally.

  14. . Spot on Sango… Spot on.
    Wenger is tactically blank, if he wants to play thru the middle, you need a physically presence there (but he dosen’t think so).
    If u want to play thru the Flanks, you need wingers or inside forwards, but instead he deploys CAM’s on the wing & ends up leaving the wings for the FB’s alone to run.
    I wonder what Wenger, does with those guys in training….. Does he have a tactically adviser? Does he listen to his assistants, cos i don’t think they’re as blank as he is? Dosen’t he have a brain???
    Wenger has done a enough… Thanks for everything…. BUT HE MUST GO !!!!!

  15. i like where your article is going..i think to unlock arsenals real potential how we play ozil is key, and he doesnt belong in the wings..playing him centrally is more suitable for him..the link up between ozil, sanchez and welbeck is also key. welbeck has pace and power and is confident infront of goal,if he can finish passes laid out to him he can be the next allan shearer interms of scoring goals..

  16. I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t like to hear my input, I’m also pretty sure no matter what the time, we have nothing to do with our attack, So we can’t “look at what to do with it” Come now children put away the subbuteo sets!……Yeah, yeah i know 🙂

    1. That’s not true at all, I would like to hear your input. I might disagree, but it is your view, nad it could be very right. I’m open to persuasion.

    1. Where do you see Wilshere play. He has talent and if he stays injury free that would be great but what is his position. B2B backup of Ramsey.

      I wrote this article to talk about the left side of our formation. I know we have Holding Midfield problems but they can not be addressed now. I think we play the wrong players on the left with Ozil/Carzola and Podolski. That is all.

      1. There is only one player on the left I would like to see at the moment, and that is Joel Campbell. He can, I believe, play well on the left, and it was when he and Ox swapped in the game v Benfica we took control of the match. All of a sudden Gibbs had protection and between Joel and him they were able to stop and break up play, turning defence into attack with speed. Joel, as a left footer also can hold the position well, but also has ability to move into the 6 yard box. His pass back to Sanogo, which ignored the other players who have been offside shows just how intelligent he is. Personally, I’m cursing Wenger for not giving him the chance. I listened to the Leicester game on Arsenal player, and you could tell that even they had hoped for Joel to come into the game. Wenger’s reluctance to use Campbell, and his stupidity with Kin Kallstrom has actually changed my mind about Wenger,

      2. Wilshere is interesting/talented problem, and I would like to hear your take on Wilshere’s best position. Personally, it has to be a central attacking role probably a No.10. And there in lies the problem. Ultimately, we need to accept that he is still young for that role.

  18. A different transfer window: How the Arsenal first team could have looked had things happened differently.

    Remy
    Sanchez Ozil Walcott
    Carvalho Ramsey
    Gibbs Koscielny Mertasacker Debuchy
    Szczesny

    Bench: Wilshere, OX, Arteta, Ospina, Nastasic, Chambers, Giroud

    1. Transfer window is over. I would discussions about how to use the best of the current squad we have. Should we play 2 strikers like Liverpool, ManU & City?

  19. When will you lots realise that the transfer window is over? We are not wenger,neither are we gazidis but we are truly and purely gooners…we fail,we falter we fly…we are still f**king gooners!…we can either slate our players before they kick a ball or we cheer them up to greatness. I don’t know about you but I believe that 1 things that separates gunners from the others is our level of optimism and hope even when it looks like its a dead end! So COYG,get behind the boys,scream when alexis puts the ball in the net,shout when Ozil lays a killer pass,laugh it out when giroud misses a clear cut chance,clap when the boss makes a great tackle,raise your glasses when sczcensny makes a save,most importantly,bring out your phones when wenger messes with his zipper again and snap him…we will remain GOONERS!!!…take that russian-shitty and manure and liverlool and manshitty!!! We are here to stay!

    1. But isn’t that like going to see the same film over and over again, hoping to see a change in the films ending. Surely you must have a worry over whether the new formation is working, or whether our zonal marking system is failing to address our weakness from set ball play. Our left flank gets exposed over and over again, but Wenger still uses CAMs out wide, doesn’t that make you question his methods? Just asking

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