A Tale of Two Presses: Manchester City 1-1 Arsenal (WSL)
Gareth Taylor altered his side's defensive structure in a 33rd-minute water break, solving one problem while creating another.
Both Arsenal and Manchester City faced off on Sunday with redemption on their minds. While The Gunners were desperate to fall no further from their status as the nominal best team in England (their three prior games all ended in defeats, albeit in three different competitions), City were intent on proving that they remained within the country’s elite — a case purportedly supported by their slow crawl back into Champions League qualification.
That title-contenders Chelsea had slipped up vs. Brighton earlier in the day only added to the stakes.
Unfortunately, neither side really got what they wanted, splitting the points after a Tobin Heath equalizer at the death.
As one would expect from a tight match between relatively level talent, clear-cut chances were scarce, especially from settled possession. Instead, the meat of the action took place far away from goal, involving micro- and macro-battles alike that threatened to produce a victor. Nevertheless, the combination and relationship of these clashes led to a finely-balanced contest, reinforcing a sort of homeostasis that was further influenced and propagated by a dramatic defensive change on either side of a water break.
Gareth Taylor’s Initial Plan
The 4-3-3 high press was Gareth Taylor’s initial strategy to forge a winning edge.
Arsenal’s 4-2-3-1 morphed into a rather asymmetric look in possession, with Kim Little dropping almost as a pivot, influencing the orientations of Lauren Hemp, Khadija Shaw, and Jess Park.
The way City moved in their first pressing sequence of the game revealed their intent.
With the wingers angling their runs from out to in, they aimed to guide Arsenal into the well-guarded central corridor, forcing Manuela Zinsberger long and straight to Vicky Losada in the 6th minute.
As the match progressed, you could see Arsenal trying to figure out how to play past City’s pressure without taking the bait into the congested middle. A ~60-second segment starting in the 10th minute was particularly reflective of this, as Jonas Eidevall’s women fired a series of long passes to access the fullbacks, pulling City side to side to test their discipline over multiple periods of reorganization.
Many important duels rose to the fore within this spell: Hemp vs. Leah Williamson, Shaw vs. Little, the fullbacks vs. midfielders shifting to cover, and Demi Stokes vs. Nikita Parris.
Little had her successes outwitting Shaw, although it was Williamson’s class that began to create the most promising fledgling progressions.
NEW VIDEO LINK
In theory, there’s a logic to ushering Williamson and her aggressive tendencies into a pack of players. In reality, the speed and sense of purpose with which she carries the ball makes it difficult for anyone to commit to the tackle, leading to tentative hedges and adjustments that simply facilitate breakdowns and open passing windows.
It was after that initial spark of destabilization where Arsenal repeatedly fell short, either showing a lack of quality on the reception, executing inaccurate passes, or losing out in duels. Stokes was a nightmare for Parris, constantly stepping up to harass her as she tried to act as an outlet for right back Noelle Maritz, who had her own troubles trying to catalyze the advantage created by Arsenal’s numerous long balls to the touchline.
Of the twelve pressing actions I counted from this 4-3-3 shape, Arsenal only made four noteworthy ventures into the opposition half, but three of them arrived after the 15th minute.
Despite the unspectacular results, there was a sense that Arsenal were gradually straining and stretching City’s preferred structure. In the 19th minute, Williamson was allowed to play a line-splitting ball as Hemp fell back on Maritz to deny the out ball, leaving Shaw all alone to deal with two players.
In the 23rd, Maritz finally posed dangerous questions thanks to good support from Frida Maanum.
If the first example showed the front three getting beat, the second demonstrated how difficult it could be for the midfield trio to close down wide areas in time.
Gareth Taylor’s Change of Heart
A 33rd-minute water break — prompted by a Williamson injury — provided the perfect opportunity for Taylor to address Arsenal’s creeping advantages, and he reacted by altering the defensive shape entirely.
With a central midfielder now pushing forward alongside Shaw, City generated access to the center-backs while allowing Park and Hemp to stay deeper, situating an additional player in the second line.
You can see it working as intended in the below GIF, as City constrict the space on the wing via a tight network of pressers. That is, until Little works her magic, turning Walsh on a dime and finding Nobbs on the left.
One problem solved — another emerges (while a Little one remains).
And therein lies the complexity of tactical adjustments. There are trade-offs with every system. By trying to solve the issue of width, Taylor introduced a new weakness in the center, enabling Nobbs, instead of the fullbacks, to become the free option vs. the press.1
Consequently, City began to become more cautious with their central midfielders in the first bank of four, declining to shadow Little lest Nobbs get possession uncontested.
This was the right reaction on paper. A front two dealing with a 3v2 overload is one of the most common challenges a press will encounter, but Little had already proven that she could wriggle free with someone draped all over, not to mention that she had beaten Shaw’s cover shadow much earlier.
To add to the challenge, Zinsberger was having a fine day as a distributor, adding clever ground passes to an already impressive repertoire of lofted deliveries.
Thus, for all that changed, not much did.
City managed to shut down one avenue to goal while leaving another vulnerable, and their ability to control the pivot remained uncertain thanks to the consistent quality of Little and sporadic contributions from Maanum and substitute Lia Wälti.
Decisive advantages were not created in other aspects of the game either, with Arsenal responding to a dubious Shaw goal with a late strike of their own. All in all, a Lauren Hemp 1v1 in transition may have been the only thing separating the two sides based on performance.
Assuming that is an accurate summary, City would have the slight upper hand in this regard — something notably unrelated to Taylor’s tactical wrangling with the press. But football is like that sometimes — accentuated by small moments that operate beyond the confines of abstract shapes and structures.
However, it is within them that we gain an understanding of how the entire picture came to be. The moments might tell you the story of the scoreline, but those numerous, fruitless sequences of Arsenal trying to outmaneuver City and vice-versa inform us of why the game was only defined by those moments.
Shaw and Tobin weren’t the only factors that made the match; it was Little’s ingenious movements, and Maanum’s, and Wälti’s, and Zinsberger’s passing, too. And, yes, it was also Gareth Taylor’s two presses and his attempts to reconfigure everything, which, in a sense, ended up transforming nothing.
It was all of those things cancelling each other out, sustaining equilibrium, that set the stage for the deep consequences of the referee’s involvement in the 65th minute and the cathartic release of Heath’s goal at the death.
After not featuring once in my notes against the 4-3-3 structure, she popped up as a relevant factor in at least five of the seventeen pressing sequences that transpired under the 4-4-2.