TACTICAL ANALYSIS: CHELSEA 2-2 ARSENAL | POCHETTINO VS ARTETA

Pochettino surprised Arteta pressing in a 4-4-2 mid-block with Gallagher and Palmer in the first line & block Arsenal’s central progression.

Arteta’s men tried to progress with different build-ups, inverting Zinchenko, with Rice close to Martinelli, overloading the left wing, but the visitors couldn’t find solutions due to the low technical level showed in the first half.

Against Arsenal’s right wing, Cucurella played a great game defending Saka, preventing him from playing comfortably until the final stretch.

This is the play that starts Chelsea’s second goal, Cucurella helped by 2 players, great defensive work to win the ball back and in the transition Mudryk sees that David Raya is out of position to defend the cross, leaving his goal unprotected, in a mistake common by the Spanish goalkeeper.

In possession, surely Pochettino saw how well Saliba and Gabriel defended Haaland, so he opted for 2 10’s who created different problems than playing with a target man.

When Chelsea broke Arsenal’s high press it was common to see these superiorities, since the centre-backs didn’t chase the forwards when they dropped down to receive, being able to progress easily.

With a 2-goal advantage, Chelsea made the mistake of being too passive. Low block in the second half, with Arteta switching to a 3-4-3, Chelsea began to concede situations like this one from Martinelli cutting inside.

The trigger for the comeback was this error in the distribution with a ball from Robert Sánchez to Enzo Fernández. Horrible pass and Declan Rice anticipates to score a great goal.

Another key to the comeback was the substitution of the forward. With Havertz as a target, Arsenal began to win more duels, such as in the equalizer, in which Saka managed to have one of his few good plays in the entire match, assisting Trossard with a perfect cross.

Great match between Chelsea and Arsenal in which mistakes were decisive.