Information
This article is a CONSOLIDATED VERSION of the full article ‘The Real Arsenal 4-2-3-1′, found here: http://www.mantralux.com/the-real-arsenal-4-2-3-1/ – go there to read the article in its entirety!
Differences from Last Year’s 4-3-3
After the 2008/2009 season, Wenger decided to try something new. One reason was to finally conquer Europe, where Wenger tried a more exotic 4-5-1 to adapt more to continental tactics. Another reason was to create more freedom for Cesc Fabregas, letting him roam more without compromising on the numbers in midfield.
He took the best elements from the trusted 4-4-2 -> positional fluidity, inside cutting wide forwards, highly attacking full backs and a clever possession-based short passing approach, and created a 4-3-3 that worked quite well at first. The players definitely enjoyed it more, as it allowed them greater creative freedom and more passing options.
You can view the analysis of last years 4-3-3 here: http://www.mantralux.com/the-real-arsenal-4-3-3/
Connections to Total Football
The philosophy behind total football is to have a 100% fluid team. That’s the simple explanation. The more detailed explanation is that in total football, every player is expected to make positional decisions on his own, roaming into attacking or defensive positions as he wish….
Wenger has always been interested in total football, and has been using parts of the philosophy in all his tactics – most notably in the wide forward positions. Last year he experimented with a ‘floating core’, where almost half the team had license to roam, and the other half rigid.
This year he has abandoned the floating/solid core idea and gone for another approach that is more vague. Fabregas is the most obvious example of a player with full roaming instructions. He comes deep to get balls, he goes wide, he often ends up in FC positions, etc. The connection to total football here is that Wilshere and Song both covers for Fabregas to keep the formation intact, so when Cesc comes deep to get the ball, one of the midfielders will push up to the AMC slot…
…This makes the midfield “very fluid”
Match and Player Stats
On average, Arsenal has 60% possession, 86.8% pass completion rate and 494 passes per game. We won’t get that amount of passes per game in FM2011, due to it counting passes slightly different than the Guardian Chalkboards, but with the custom DS2 database you should definitely come close to the 60/40 possession and 86% pass completion rate:
Possession Much?
Another thing we have to do in order to re-create Arsenal’s style of play in FM is to figure out how and why Arsenal have so much ball possession. There are a couple of reasons:
1. Positional awareness – making yourself available for a pass. According to Wenger himself, a player should always have at least three clear passing options, at all times. The result is that Arsenal can keep possession for a long time (on a good day), since there is always an option to pass. Keyword being triangles.
2. Probing play – patience is key. Contrary to popular belief, Arsenal plays a short passing game, with some players allowed to be more direct if they think it’s necessary. They’d rather keep possession than take a gamble.
…Now the most important thing to note here is that the default 11.1 database will NOT get you realistic possession and pass completion results….
… So if you want realistic results; apply the DS2 database, which is a custom Arsenal database.
Results and Comparisons
All these are comparisons between real life stats and in-game stats, just a couple of examples:
As you can see, the results are very similar.
Download
There are two different downloads, a database and the tactic. As previously mentioned, you will get fairly good results with just the tactic, but you won’t get realistic possession and pass completion rates without applying the database.
The database has several features, like changing kits every season, real competition names (Champions League, etc), and so on.
To download and read more, visit the full article on mantralux.com: http://www.mantralux.com/the-real-arsenal-4-2-3-1/
For questions, follow either @mantralux or @JossBennett on Twitter, or just post questions in the discussion area at Mantralux.com =)
Credit to Mantralux at FM Fanboys for most of the hardwork! (If it wasn't clear already..)
I should also add that the blog looks significantly better than this.. This is a CONSOLIDATED version, the blog has things like hover class (pictures that change when you hover your mouse over them) and far far more information..
This article is a CONSOLIDATED VERSION of the full article ‘The Real Arsenal 4-2-3-1′, found here: http://www.mantralux.com/the-real-arsenal-4-2-3-1/ – go there to read the article in its entirety!
Differences from Last Year’s 4-3-3
After the 2008/2009 season, Wenger decided to try something new. One reason was to finally conquer Europe, where Wenger tried a more exotic 4-5-1 to adapt more to continental tactics. Another reason was to create more freedom for Cesc Fabregas, letting him roam more without compromising on the numbers in midfield.
He took the best elements from the trusted 4-4-2 -> positional fluidity, inside cutting wide forwards, highly attacking full backs and a clever possession-based short passing approach, and created a 4-3-3 that worked quite well at first. The players definitely enjoyed it more, as it allowed them greater creative freedom and more passing options.
You can view the analysis of last years 4-3-3 here: http://www.mantralux.com/the-real-arsenal-4-3-3/
Connections to Total Football
The philosophy behind total football is to have a 100% fluid team. That’s the simple explanation. The more detailed explanation is that in total football, every player is expected to make positional decisions on his own, roaming into attacking or defensive positions as he wish….
Wenger has always been interested in total football, and has been using parts of the philosophy in all his tactics – most notably in the wide forward positions. Last year he experimented with a ‘floating core’, where almost half the team had license to roam, and the other half rigid.
This year he has abandoned the floating/solid core idea and gone for another approach that is more vague. Fabregas is the most obvious example of a player with full roaming instructions. He comes deep to get balls, he goes wide, he often ends up in FC positions, etc. The connection to total football here is that Wilshere and Song both covers for Fabregas to keep the formation intact, so when Cesc comes deep to get the ball, one of the midfielders will push up to the AMC slot…
…This makes the midfield “very fluid”
Match and Player Stats
On average, Arsenal has 60% possession, 86.8% pass completion rate and 494 passes per game. We won’t get that amount of passes per game in FM2011, due to it counting passes slightly different than the Guardian Chalkboards, but with the custom DS2 database you should definitely come close to the 60/40 possession and 86% pass completion rate:
Possession Much?
Another thing we have to do in order to re-create Arsenal’s style of play in FM is to figure out how and why Arsenal have so much ball possession. There are a couple of reasons:
1. Positional awareness – making yourself available for a pass. According to Wenger himself, a player should always have at least three clear passing options, at all times. The result is that Arsenal can keep possession for a long time (on a good day), since there is always an option to pass. Keyword being triangles.
2. Probing play – patience is key. Contrary to popular belief, Arsenal plays a short passing game, with some players allowed to be more direct if they think it’s necessary. They’d rather keep possession than take a gamble.
…Now the most important thing to note here is that the default 11.1 database will NOT get you realistic possession and pass completion results….
… So if you want realistic results; apply the DS2 database, which is a custom Arsenal database.
Results and Comparisons
All these are comparisons between real life stats and in-game stats, just a couple of examples:
As you can see, the results are very similar.
Download
There are two different downloads, a database and the tactic. As previously mentioned, you will get fairly good results with just the tactic, but you won’t get realistic possession and pass completion rates without applying the database.
The database has several features, like changing kits every season, real competition names (Champions League, etc), and so on.
To download and read more, visit the full article on mantralux.com: http://www.mantralux.com/the-real-arsenal-4-2-3-1/
For questions, follow either @mantralux or @JossBennett on Twitter, or just post questions in the discussion area at Mantralux.com =)
Credit to Mantralux at FM Fanboys for most of the hardwork! (If it wasn't clear already..)
I should also add that the blog looks significantly better than this.. This is a CONSOLIDATED version, the blog has things like hover class (pictures that change when you hover your mouse over them) and far far more information..
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