What a strange season it has been for Arsenal. Before the season had even started supporters were calling for the sacking of Arsene Wenger, a man who has been there since 1996 and has won almost everything he can do in club football (bar Champions League, but has reached the final) has been called into question from just about everybody in the game. The lack of high money transfers was one of the many things supporters were complaining about. Start of the season had become a disaster for himself and Arsenal, losing 3-1 to Aston Villa at home; a side that last season finished 15th had beaten the team who finished the last campaign 4th.
Boos rang out at the Emirates after the game and looked like the end already for Arsene and the club. One signing had changed all this however, Mesut Özil. On the last day of the transfer market, with the time drawing to an end, Arsenal had purchased their most expensive player in history and the most impactful player of their season.
They’ve pushed onwards and upwards after that defeat with only losing one in that time since (to Manchester United) and with the team top of the league, five points clear of their nearest rivals, Liverpool, things are looking fantastic.
But based on the way they’ve played this season, it isn’t Mesut Özil, Aaron Ramsey or Per Mertesacker which have been the most important to where they have been this season, that award goes to Oliver Giroud.
With Theo Walcott and Lukas Poldolski out at the start of the season for a lengthy period of time, Arsene Wenger had no wide forward players to call on, apart from Serge Gnabry who has impressed in the games called upon, but at only 18 years old, couldn’t be relied on all the time, especially in Arsenals biggest games.
With this dilemma, Arsene has created a new way in which his team play the game and possibly how a new way of playing could come from. To get the best out of the squad he had at his disposal, Wenger has focussed his game on their midfield, possibly one the best in the Premier League and had turned Arsenal from the standard 4-3-3 to a very exciting 4-6-0.
The first thought to the new formation when reading this is ‘Oliver Giroud is a striker,’ well let’s have a look, in footballing terms, what a striker actually is:
“An attacking player, esp one who generally positions himself near his opponent’s goal in the hope of scoring.”
This is where Wenger’s new formation cancels out the statement, using what Giroud’s best ability is, holding up the ball, he has created a way where the furthest players forward are Arsenal’s centre attacking midfielders. The players which are generally ‘near his opponent’s goal’ are the likes of Jack Wilshire, Aaron Ramsey and Mesut Özil. Oliver Giroud is used as the player to set up the attacking chances, with the attacking midfielders used as ‘strikers.’
And this is clearly seen in the way Arsenal score and who has scored. Giroud has scored a respectable seven goals this season, if he was to lead the line and be the focal point then this would be an average record for a team like Arsenal, who have seen their pitches been graced with the players of Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp and Ian Wright. As he is not seen as the one to score the goals, but their centre attacking midfielders, the way Arsene has selected his team shows that this is working, with the usual midfield of Wilshire, Ramsey and Özil scoring a combined total of 14 goals in the Premier League, that comes to just under a goal a game from those three players.
Giroud this season has seen himself being a more creator than finisher and with a total of four assists this season, higher than Jack Wilshire, Mikel Arteta and Santi Carzola, this shows the effect the formation is having on the players. Only two others have a higher assist tally than Giroud for Arsenal, Mesut Özil (joint top this season with the most assists) and Aaron Ramsey.
The 4-6-0 formation has been experimented before, most notably was Spain in the latest European Championships at Poland, where the preferred ‘striker’ was Cesc Fabregas, with the likes of Fernando Torres, Álvaro Negredo and Fernando Llorente looking from the bench and witnessing a centre attacking midfielder play their position.
The tactics for Spain was to use their strongest part of the team, midfield, to control the game and contain possession. Teams would then tire out to Spain and the way they played, which led to brilliant through balls or pieces of brilliance to unlock the stubborn defence, where Fabregas was able to then score. If the midfield was unable to unlock the defence, strikers and wingers were then brought on to revert to a 4-3-3 which teams just couldn’t handle with in the end.
A different type of 4-6-0 used this season have been from West Ham, with Andy Carroll injured for a long sustained period of time, Sam Allardyce has used the 4-6-0 tactic as a more defensive way than attacking. Allardyce’s theory of the formation is ‘if we can’t score, you can’t score.’ By overloading the midfield with defensive minded players such as Mohamed Diamé and Razvan Rat, they essentially play with six defensive players on the pitch, which can and will cause problems for teams scoring against them. Ravel Morrison is used as the most forward, but instead of holding the ball up for other players to join attack, he is used as an counter attacking player, with his fantastic pace and great dribbling qualities can be seen as a relief for the ‘back six.’
Unfortunately playing such negative football can have a serious impact of the team and fans, with West Ham playing very unattractive football and the clean sheets not supporting the formation used, they will be wishing Andy Carroll to a very quick return.
The lack of strikers and wingers Wenger had at his disposal, rival fans and teams sniggered when playing against them, feeling if they stopped Giroud, they stopped the team. Arsenal’s manager has brought in a brilliant new system which has other manager and teams scratching their heads as to how they stop it and with only one defeat since their loss to Aston Villa, the formation could bring in a new tactical way to play.