Stoke v Arsenal – a passing comparison
Stoke against Arsenal offers the most blatant difference in playing styles you will encounter in any major European league game. Stoke are the scrappy long-ball team who rely on set-pieces, Arsenal play a short, quick, neat passing game.
That is not to say that one style is necessarily more effective than another. In the previous two encounters at the Britannia Stadium, Stoke (deservedly) ran out winners, as Arsenal struggled to come with the physical game of Stoke, whereas Arsenal have won the two games at the Emirates.
Pointing out the differences in style between the two sides is hardly an original point, but it is astonishing to look at the differences in passing when the two teams are laid side by side.
Firstly, the overall passing patterns of the two teams. Stoke completed 116 passes, Arsenal completed 340. (These chalkboards are clearer if you click on ‘hide numbers’ at the bottom of each).
Here, Stoke’s left-winger (Danny Pugh) is compared to Arsenal’s left-wing (Samir Nasri). Whilst Pugh completed just 5 out of 15 attempted passes, Nasri’s record was 37 out of 39.
Lastly, a comparison of Stoke’s holding midfielder (Abdoulaye Faye) and Arsenal’s holding midfielder (Alex Song).
Stoke v Arsenal – a passing comparison
Song’s passing positions highlight a problem I have noticed with him: He does not hold his position and protect the defense. Instead he roams all over the pitch getting involved in everything. This would be fine if he was not the holding player, but HE IS and often Arsenal get caught on the counter attack as a result. He needs to be more disciplined, just make the simple forward pass and hold his position instead of getting sucked into midfield(why so many passes on the wing?). I guess those are the instructions Wenger gives him but they are asking for trouble.
Nasri has been seeing a lot of the ball in the last 5 games or so but is he using it effectively ?
A few comments.
1. @Pheteesh – i am not disagreeing with you but perhaps the chalkboard just shows how much ground Stoke conceded in the middle of the park. I did not watch the game but I would wager Arsenal’s back line played fairly far up the pitch, so sitting in front of the back four may not have meant sitting in his own half.
2. Is a left winger and holding midfield combining for 21% of a team’s total passes high or low? i dont know but it could be just their fair share.
3. I think this site is fantastic!!
Fair points Anonymous. I think I read too much into these chalkboards.
Arsenal’s high line does force Song into midfield but I think he gets over excited and gets pulled out of position.Both of Arsenal’s fullbacks push up, leaving just the center-backs to deal with the transitions. He has already been punished by better counter attacking teams than Stoke(not saying he is a bad player of course). In fairness to him, he does have to plug A LOT of gaps and its a consequence of Arsenal’s pressing game that players will be out of position.
The Stoke game is not a good example of the point I was trying to make about Nasri. He is the secondary playmaker in the team and I was wondering if he does enough in that role.
All – firstly, I must agree with Point #3 by Anon – this site is just astonishingly cool! For those us who mainline football it is just thoroughly enjoyable.
It is important to remember Song is still learning the position and hasn’t played it for very long. The point about the high line is also quite important. When you look at the difference in average position of the back line from match to match you will see striking differences. There are a few teams – Stoke included – that play the vast bulk of a match against The Arsenal in their own half. By default our back line will then be quite forward on average.
Song is still developing the requisite discipline for the position but I feel he is going to be quite good at it. With that said, if he were playing it without Vermaelan he would be exposed a lot more. Perhaps it is important to realize and note that each player and his role is impacted by the players in close proximity.
I think this is maybe an unfair game to judge Song’s positional sense based upon these Chalkboards. Since Arsenal pressed Stoke back so much, and Stoke had no counter-attacking threat from the centre of midfield, I think he had more license than usual to get ahead of play and join the attacking players.
It’s a bit late this comment, but 2 points;
Danny Pugh is not first choice left winger, or even really a winger. He’s the utility player that fits in at LB, LM, or CM (in the case LM because Etherington was injured) It’s unfair to judge his stats whilst assuming he can play LM in any sort of attacking role (he was basically a second LB for this game) Abdoulaye Faye is a centre back, and a good one at that. The article probably should read Amdy Faye, who, as well as being about 726 years old, spent most of this season and last out injured, and this was his first game back, so to compare his stats against that of Song is also abit misleading
I think ZM’s point is more to do with the length of their respective passes rather than just their success rates. Both Arsenal players have a lot of short passes, both Stoke players appear, from the chalkboards (and from watching them, to be fair) to seek the longer pass. Nobody was criticising Stoke, just highlighting differences.