Analysis: Villa Press to impress against Arsenal’s ball progression issues

After Arsenal’s 5-1 win at West Ham a few weeks ago, Renee Slegers said, ‘That’s why we get this result today, because we are so on top of everything, because we knew we had to, because we know that last season, yes, we had a fantastic high performance against Barcelona and the whole Champions League journey, but we also saw those moments in the season where we didn’t and that’s why these type of games are so important for us right now.’

After Saturday’s disappointing 1-1 draw with Aston Villa, she said, ‘I just don’t think we have the intensity and urgency in and around the box to kill the game, because we get an early goal.’ That tells you, in my view, that she sees a psychological element to a poor second half performance, that Arsenal eased off due to their early goal. But there were other issues too.

Without Leah Williamson in defence, Arsenal are having some issues progressing the ball, particularly with the way Aston Villa pressed. Arsenal simply did not have the option to go over the top of the Villa press as they might have had they had Williamson or even Wubben-Moy, who is a good long and diagonal passer, in defence. Let’s look at some examples.

Arsenal win the ball back here from a Villa throw in and Little passes to Mead. We can see that Villa have a good press set here.

Mead and Smith play some good passes and Little has the ball here but Villa are still in an aggressive shape.

But Arsenal are still struggling to get away from Villa’s press with a series of along the ground passes.

Eventually McCabe is pressed against the touchline and Chastity Grant takes the ball off her. Arsenal spent far too much of the second half playing in these areas of the pitch where they couldn’t hurt Villa.

Arsenal get a free kick on the edge of their own box and the ball comes to Catley.

Mead goes back to Katie Reid.

Catley simply doesn’t have enough options and opts for a hopeful ball up the line which is easily cut out.

Arsenal do win the ball back and with Mariona and Kim Little well marked, Reid takes on the Villa attacker and beats her.

But Arsenal just can’t play through that Villa pressure.

Arsenal just cannot play past that wall of Villa pressure and van Domselaar ends up standing on the ball for a while.

Eventually she plays a long, straight ball to Russo which she can’t quite gather and Villa have it back.

Once again here, van Domselaar assesses her options. In Williamson’s absence, Arsenal have been relying on long and diagonal distribution from the goalkeeper. She plays a long, flighted ball to Mead.

It’s a good pass but it just takes a couple of seconds for Mead to set and try to turn.

And Villa harry Mead and McCabe back to the goalkeeper and where they started. Kim Little has pulled over to right back and wants the ball here too.

After the ball goes back to van Domselaar, Arsenal still just can’t get through the Villa midfield.

Van Domselaar gets the pass to Catley wrong and Villa can break. These issues dogged Arsenal for the whole second half.

Once again, van Domselaar can’t see a way through the Villa press from this goal kick so she opts for a long diagonal.

But the pass goes straight out of play. Arsenal really miss Williamson’s ball progression from centre-half. Arsenal averaged 48.3 passes into the final third per 90 last season. So far this season, Arsenal are averaging 40.5.

Arsenal brought Victoria Pelova on, I presume to try to help with those ball progression issues. Van Domselaar finds Reid here.

Pelova is more inclined to drop and collect than Frida Maanum and she gives Reid an out ball here.

But Pelova is smothered by Villa’s press and the away side win the ball back. Arsenal only created 0.5XG in the second half and that was largely because they just couldn’t get the ball into Villa’s defensive third.

Villa press Arsenal back into their own territory again, Arsenal win a throw and McCabe takes it quickly to Russo before the Villa press can reset.

But Anna Patten is all over Russo like a rash.

The ball ricochets between Russo and Little before falling for Kirsty Hanson who shoots inches wide from this position.

Even when Villa weren’t forcing high turnovers, they just stopped Arsenal playing into dangerous areas. Van Domselaar finds Catley here and Baijings is all over Catley.

Catley finds her compatriot but because Villa play with three centre-halves, they can commit one of them to come and press. We saw it in an earlier example with Patten and Russo, here it’s Wilms who can leave her station with plenty behind her and win the ball back from Foord.

McCabe finds Mariona here and we see Villa’s press in action again. Look at the bottom corner of the screen and how tight Wilms is to Foord and Bo Kearns is to Little.

Mariona gets hounded into a cul-de-sac and ends up conceding a free-kick.

Villa’s stoppage time dagger has its origins in quality pressure once more. Catley finds Hinds here who looks for Mariona and you can see how little space there is to operate in.

Grant robs Mariona, which then produces a duel between Little and Bo Kearns. It’s a generous free-kick award, admittedly. But van Domselaar tips Wilms’ free-kick over the bar and Villa score from the corner.

Ultimately Arsenal created very little in the second half because they could not play through Villa’s press. Villa get their equaliser because Arsenal are playing in areas too close to their own goal and Natalie Arroyo’s side punish Arsenal. As much as Arsenal did not progress the ball well enough, you have to give credit to Arroyo and Villa, they had a very good game plan and executed it very well.

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