Sunday, September 27, 2015

Leicester-Arsenal post match analysis

Arsenal was able to bounce back from last week defeat against Chelsea with a 5-2 win against high-flying Leicester, who was unbeaten before this match. The scoreline suggests a goal feast which was resulted from a very open game from both teams. Alexis Sanchez scored his first hat trick in Arsenal shirt, sandwiched from Walcott's equalizer and Giroud's injury time goal. 

There are few take out from this matches.

1. Arsenal's Goal-scoring ability Finally Arsenal scored a lot of goals! Arsenal only scored five goals from previous six league games, and despite the ability to create chances, we were unable to score more goals. From this game we can see that the Gunners' counter-attack ability is quite fearsome. With Walcott and Alexis supported by Cazorla and Ozil behind them, we scored four goals from well-crafted counter attack. A good sign that they have gelled together? They would still need to provide this kind of attack more consistently. We can't win the league with only scoring like this once a while. 

Walcott played much better than the Chelsea games as he got a lot of spaces due to Leicester high line, while Olivier Giroud missed another a great chance to mark his stamp on the line-up after coming in on the second half, but at least a goal under his name will undoubtedly boost his confidence. Alexis who started scoring might be seeing more goals in the future. Hope his hattrick would be the start of his goals collection!


2. Second half improvement.In the second half Arsenal played much better and was able to dominate the game to score three more goals. In the first half, Leicester was arguably the better team of the two sides, they scored once and denied twice by the crossbar. Strangely though, Shinji Okazaki was subbed off on the second half and that contributed to Arsenal's dominance in the second half.

Furthermore, we can see the importance of Aaron Ramsey on the side. Despite being criticized of not doing well on the right flank, he provides the stability on the team. He could run, tackle, and not losing the ball as compared to Chamberlain, who has more flair. Ramsey covered a lot of areas today and backed Bellerin on the flank.

3. Coquelin Effect.

It's been a long time since Arsenal played without Coquelin in the League. In this match we can see his effect on Arsenal's rigidity. Flamini could not provide the same coverage with Coquelin as we saw Leicester players bypassing Arsenal defence and dominating in the first half. Only when Arsenal settled their game, our defence looks better as we controlled the flow of the game.

Another thing is the leaky defence, despite the return of Per Mertesacker. Arsenal's defence was quite shaky to defend a pacey striker today. Next week a tougher game is waiting for the Gunners. League topper Manchester United is coming to Emirates, and they have Ashley Young and Anthony Martial, who have explosive pace.  

It would be a test of character for Arsenal, but I hope they could bring them down. COYG! VCC!