While footballer Pep Guardiola was looking for a club in 2005, he spent a rainy afternoon craning his neck as Manchester City and West Bromwich Albion played a goalless draw that consisted largely of head tennis.
“I was squirming because it was quite a direct play,” Tony Sharkey, the football manager who arranged Guardiola’s visit to Manchester, said in a BBC documentary about City’s manager earlier this year. “David James makes a move completely bypassing the midfield.”
This was the safety-first football we once knew as English football, before Guardiola’s use of short passes, ball-playing goalkeepers and inverted full-backs led the Premier League into tactical enlightenment. Or the story just goes.
Guardiola has inspired his disciples, such as Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta, who is his opponent in Sunday’s crucial match between the two title hopefuls. It will be billed as the meeting of two football aesthetics that want the ball to stay on the carpet at all costs.
But this overshadows how willing both City and Arsenal are to mix long balls forward when the time comes. Both teams’ goalkeepers are precise and good at long-range distribution, but Ederson will not be City’s first choice. Erling Haaland and Kai Havertz both have tall forwards who offer aerial presence and the chance to play directly from A to B.
City and Arsenal are the two best defenses in the Premier League; The two most compact units from front to back. With world-class ball-winners Rodri and Declan Rice patrolling congested central areas, it could be difficult for either team to play the other. So why not pass?
Sunday’s game could be decided by which team deals best with the long ball and the key second-ball contests that result.
City adapt to Arsenal and score knockout title blows
Manchester City’s two league wins against Arsenal last season were decisive, and on both occasions they enjoyed long-lasting joy. In fact, although City was a better and stronger team, Guardiola was the one who adapted to Arsenal.
City’s two games against Arsenal in 38 league games last season were in the top four for long pass percentage. City’s 3-1 win at the Emirates was highlighted by an unusual 17 per cent of long passes. City gained just 36 per cent of possession that night and completed just 72.28 per cent of passes.
City struggled to play off the pressure from Arsenal, who changed from a zonal 4-4-2 to an intense, man-to-man approach after certain triggers. In Arsenal’s match against City, Ederson was the substitute and Haaland’s centre-back was isolated. Guardiola rewards possession of the ball, but he also wants his team to find space to their advantage. In this case, he was the player furthest from the ball.
Guardiola said after the game last February: “Erling helped us a lot because he is very aggressive against them man to man, the only one left free is the goalkeeper and long balls against Saliba and Gabriel are of course not easy.”
For City’s first goal at the Emirates, Arsenal passed the ball back to Ederson, who slotted a long ball forward with his left foot.
Haaland entered into a one-on-one duel with William Saliba on the half-court line. The Arsenal defender won initial contact but was under enough pressure that he could only get the ball into the right-back area.
This left Takehiro Tomiyasu in a recovery battle against Jack Grealish, but although the Arsenal full-back won the race, he was panicked by a poor back pass.
Kevin De Bruyne got there first and put in a superb first-time finish past Aaron Ramsdale. This goal shows that the danger is not over after winning the first header; It’s about managing the second ball and avoiding turnovers within seconds of winning the ball back.
City and De Bruyne also launched a long Arsenal forward for their first goals at the Etihad.
Playing from behind and playing directly are not necessarily mutually exclusive. The old adage was that ‘you play long to play short’, turning the opposition defense early to make them fall and give players time on the ball. But City, like many teams, like to play short to play long, encouraging the opposition to press before passing the ball to them.
Looking to get off to a flying start in a decisive match in April, Arsenal looked to break out of the traps and put pressure on City when Ederson played a short, square ball to John Stones. Note the positioning of Martin Odegaard pressing Stones and Granit Xhaka ready to pressure Rodri. These are two of Arsenal’s midfield trio performing decisively high up the pitch.
This time Haaland won the first ball and softened the ball in a duel against Rob Holding.
De Bruyne won the race against Thomas Partey, the only Arsenal midfielder in the picture after Xhaka and Odegaard advanced in the first phase of the move. De Bruyne was clear and his right foot did the rest.
Arsenal can now give City a taste of their own medicine
With William Saliba replacing Holding and the more powerful Rice in midfield rather than a half-fit Partey, Arsenal should be in a better position to deal with City’s direct play, although they may be sweating Gabriel’s availability.
They also have the option of playing for longer periods of time, as Havertz was a missing target in the forward line last season. Goalkeeper David Raya can find him, and if the game turns into a second-ball tackle in midfield, few will be better than Rice.
Last season Arsenal finished bottom of the Premier League in terms of percentage of long goalkeeper passes completed, with just 24 per cent. This season they rank a more respectable 10th with 39 percent. City completed a league-best 55 per cent of long goalkeeper passes last season and are again near the top of the table with 49 per cent. Opta defines long balls as pass attempts of 32 meters or longer.
Arsenal’s winning goal against City at the Emirates in October came from some pretty simple football; This move was unlikely to be rehearsed on the training field.
Partey played a long diagonal pass into the box, where Arsenal set Tomiyasu and Havertz up against the City defense like old-school English centre-forwards. Tomiyasu won the kick, Havertz passed the ball back to Gabriel Martinelli and the Brazilian’s shot caused the Emirates to explode.
Martinelli also scored the decisive goal in Arsenal’s 3-1 win over Liverpool. The culprits were Virgil van Dijk and Alisson, of course, but the danger came when Gabriel sent a long ball forward for Martinelli to chase. None of these goals were picturesque football, but without them Arsenal might have been knocked out of title contention.
Both teams’ weakness against long, straight balls
Not only do City and Arsenal have the tools to threaten with long balls going forward; Both defenses look skittish at times when asked to engage in route one tactics. This is partly due to the dominance exercised by City and Arsenal; Defenders believe they can handle space without keeping their hands on the halfway line. Any slip could be fatal.
City conceded a goal kick directly at Brentford. Ivan Toney and Neal Maupay lurked in offside positions behind City’s back four and were aware that it could not be offside directly from a goal kick. After the ball was played forward Toney linked up with Nathan Ake and used his upper body strength to keep him at bay, allowing the ball to pass to Maupay. City were slow to unlock Brentford’s play and Maupay converted.
Manchester United’s goal at the Etihad was similar; Andre Onana put Bruno Fernandes past the City defence. There were objections for offside, but Ake was letting Fernandes play. The United midfielder put the ball back for Marcus Rashford to score the screamer and City came out of it.
There were warning signs for Arsenal too. In the first minute of an exemplary performance against Liverpool, Arsenal were guilty of letting a long ball bounce. Van Dijk threw the ball forward, Gabriel stepped back and allowed Cody Gakpo to control the duel; Liverpool might well have scored the first goal if Diogo Jota’s touch had not left him.
Brentford’s front pair of Ivan Toney and Yoanne Wissa also showed that early forward balls can trouble Arsenal, even with Saliba and Gabriel around. Meanwhile, Gabriel got stuck under a ball bouncing in the channel, causing Wissa to move away from him. The Arsenal defender was forced to pull Wissa back at the expense of receiving a yellow card.
Later in the half Gabriel contests a goal kick against Toney and Rice is dropped to left centre-back. Toney has the ball under his spell and, with Jorginho intrigued, releases Mathias Jensen into space with Rice otherwise occupied. Arsenal survived, but they replaced Jensen with De Bruyne and Wissa with Haaland and the result could have been different.
As with every match between Guardiola and Arteta, Sunday will see moves and counter-moves, and each team’s preparation patterns and pressing plans will be examined in detail. But don’t be surprised if the competition comes down to which team can best master moments when the ball is out of control.