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Mikel Arteta Rails Against Premier League Managers’ Attacks—Receives Surprise Support

Arsenal’s tactics have inspired calls of a changes to the laws of the game from rival Premier League managers.

By Grey Whitebloom

9:30 AM EST

Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal have come under fire for their rough tactics. / Catherine Ivill-AMA/Getty Images

Arsenal’s set-piece tactics have inspired criticism from several Premier League managers but Mikel Arteta’s only issue is that his team haven’t scored enough from dead-ball scenarios.

The Gunners equaled the Premier League record for corners scored in a single season with their 15th and 16th goals from this avenue during Sunday’s win over Chelsea. Arsenal have mastered this particular aspect of the game over recent years, although the physical approach they take in such situations has inspired outcries.

Liverpool’s Arne Slot led the way, lamenting how “his heart as a former player” doesn’t like the rough treatment in penalty boxes. “Here, you can almost hit a goalkeeper in the face and the referee still says, ‘Play on,’” he claimed.

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Brighton & Hove Albion boss Fabian Hürzeler previewed Wednesday’s meeting with Arsenal by bemoaning the amount of time they take before each corner. Manchester United’s Michael Carrick has also offered his opinion on the situation yet Arteta found an unlikely supporter in the form of his direct rival for the Premier League title, Pep Guardiola.

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‘It’s Gone Too Far’

Brighton are drifting under Fabian Hürzeler. / Darren Staples/AFP/Getty Images

“For me, the main topic is [to] make a clear rule how much time you can waste for a corner, for a throw-in, for a free-kick,” Hürzeler fumed in midweek. “When Arsenal has a corner and they are leading, sometimes they spend over one minute just to take a corner.”

The Brighton boss is backed up by the numbers. Arsenal take an average of four minutes and 18 seconds to prepare for corners each game, the most of any team in the division, per Opta. It would be quicker to drive from London to Brighton (one hour, 56 minutes) than watch a supercut of Arsenal’s preparations for corner kicks over the course of the entire season (two hours, five minutes).

“It disturbs the rhythm of the game,” Hürzeler fairly argued before turning to another divisive aspect of the Gunners’ routines. “Some of the blocking or the way teams are blocking, I think there’s no clear rule—sometimes the referee whistles and it’s a foul, sometimes he doesn’t.”

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Arsenal’s charge from the back of the box towards the near post is a hurly-burly ballet of intricate coordination. While those who eventually meet the in-swinging delivery from Declan Rice or Bukayo Saka claim the headlines, the players that position their bodies in such a way to prevent their opponents from making contact are just as important.

United’s Carrick argued that the level of contact allowed has “gone too far.”

“It wasn’t long ago we were told you couldn't lay a hand on anyone in the box and it would be stamped out,” he grumbled. “It’s crept in. The success of set pieces, corners in particular, probably in terms of being able to put so many bodies close together, has made more teams do it because the success rate is so high.

“It’s understandable why there are so many teams doing it. As a game, it doesn’t feel like we’ve got that balance right.”

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Arteta Dismisses Criticism, Offers Explanation

Mikel Arteta isn’t fazed by criticism. / Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC/Getty Images

Arteta would not be drawn on Hürzeler’s criticism of Arsenal’s timings, dismissing it as “part of the job.”

With a mischievous glint in his eye, Arteta added: “I am upset we haven’t scored more and that we have conceded [from set pieces] as well. We want to be the best and most dominant team in every aspect of the game. That is the trajectory and the aim of this team.”

Arteta’s argument is that Arsenal are simply making the most of the cards they have been dealt. Play the game or get played. More interesting is his reasoning as to why it is increasingly difficult to create chances from open play: the rise of man-to-man marking.

“There are phases, and there are moments when a team has an opportunity to do certain things, and the game is evolving, and the game is becoming more and more difficult [in open play],” he fretted.

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The Premier League’s Set-Piece Obsession

League	Total Set Piece Goals	Proportion of Total Goals From Set Pieces
Premier League	202	25.6%
Serie A	155	23.6%
Bundesliga	145	21.2%
La Liga	128	18.6%
Ligue 1	99	16.4%

Stats via WhoScored .

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The concept of having players drift into different zones of the pitch to create numerical overloads is no longer effective if every member of the defending team is prepared to track each step made by their opponent.

“Before, when you used to do a game plan, and you just invert a fullback and bring an extra player in midfield or a false nine, the opponent is ‘Fini!’ Big overload, four vs. three inside, two vs. one inside, time on the ball,” Arteta explained. “So dominant, 70–80% of possession, the other opponent, two counter-attackers, set pieces, the game is done.

“Now, teams are adapting.” Including Arsenal.

In that aforementioned Chelsea game, Liam Rosenior tried to tease apart the stitching of Arsenal’s rearguard with some inventive open-play tactics. Cole Palmer and Enzo Fernández traded positions freely, bamboozling Martín Zubimendi as he tried to track both players for much of the first half. Arteta spotted this issue and tweaked the man-marking brief: Zubimendi would only deal with Fernández while one of Gabriel or William Saliba was to track Palmer. Chelsea scarcely had a sniff thereafter.

“Teams know after every sequence of play, whether it’s a throw-in, a restart of play, an open-play situation, or after direct play, exactly what they have to do, and everything is almost man-to-man,” Arteta pointed out, from experience.

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Pep Guardiola Preaches the Ultimate Lesson: Adapt or Die

Pep Guardiola’s confidence is building. / Robbie Jay Barratt/AMA/Getty Images

“I understand completely the reason why Arne said that and in some aspects I agree,” Guardiola conceded. But he would not be joining in the pile-on. “You can sit and complain, but you have to adapt,” Manchester City’s revered tactician insisted. “You have to adapt and especially adapt in the way it is whistled [refereed] and conducted in the Premier League.”

Guardiola’s entire managerial career is an example of supreme adaptation: “Football is about how, when the opponents create problems for you, you have to find a solution.”

After instilling a brand of positional play at Barcelona which took Europe by storm at the start of his managerial career, Guardiola has set about changing his approach to combat the challenges set up by his opponents.

To get the best out of Lionel Messi when faced with a meaty wall of low blocks, he returned to the false nine concept. At Bayern Munich, Guardiola reintroduced the concept of inverted fullbacks to guard against counterattacks. The reverse is true: each attacking weapon Guardiola introduces inspires another response.

“When we started with Kevin De Bruyne in the channels between central defenders and fullbacks to the byline, people started playing five at the back,” City’s boss reflected. “We killed them there with David Silva and Kevin De Bruyne so they said: ‘We need another defender.’ It’s all evolution. Set pieces are the same.”

Arsenal are killing their opponents from corners but the most popular solution for Premier League managers seems to be crying foul play and demanding a change in the laws of the game.

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