A late Kai Havertz winner gave Arsenal an unexpected win in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final against Sporting CP.
The Gunners were clear favourites heading into the game, but struggled mightily against a well-structured opponent.
Mikel Arteta’s men had a few periods of ball dominance but couldn’t turn it into anything concrete – until stoppage time.
Second-half substitutes Kai Havertz and Gabriel Martinelli combined to give the Londoners a huge 1-0 away win going into next week’s second leg.
How did Arsenal beat Sporting CP against the run of play?
Sporting CP in full control
There are a few common trends in modern football. Switching from zonal to man-oriented press has become increasingly more populer in an attempt to frustrate the opposition build-up. A few managers even extend this strategy to the whole length of the pitch. Sporting’s Rui Borges nearly nullified Arsenal this way.
The Lions pressed high but with a -1 disadvantage. When Arsenal initiated build-up in a 3+1 set, the hosts only brought three players. When it was a 3+2, only four players – with exception from pressing triggers, back-passes in which they went all in to force long balls.
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Operating with a -1 gives you a +1 somewhere else on the pitch. In this case, it was Viktor Gyokeres who had to deal with Sporting’s two centre-backs at almost all times. This will be important later.
Not only did the Portuguese side frustrate Arsenal when they had the ball, but they also created good chances for themselves.
There was a clear strategy to start plays on the right and then switch to the left wing. Left-back Maxi Araujo defended like a full-back and attacked like a proper winger. Pedro Goncalves’ inside movement opened up the whole corridor for him and he nearly scored six minutes in. David Raya’s incredible fingertip save prevented his side from going 1-0 down early on as the ball hit the crossbar.
It was also ironic how centre-back Ousmane Diomande created a clear-cut goalscoring opportunity with an outside-of-the-foot through ball while Ben White, William Saliba and Gabriel passed it around with no threat whatsoever.
And there were plenty of other missed opportunities for the Lions to send Araujo through. He managed to catch both Noni Madueke and Ben White out of position and charge forward before they tracked back. And yet, his teammates hesitated to play long diagonal passes like the one that nearly got them the opener.
They also had great chances to score, aside from the crossbart hit early on. Raya made five saves overall and saved what could have been the winner by Luis Suarez just four minutes before Kai Havertz scored.
Arsenal’s creative struggles
Arteta set Arsenal up rather narrowly to start the game. But with the central corridor overloaded, Sporting’s man-marking made everything difficult for them.
The Spaniard quickly identified this and had White and Riccardo Calafiori sitting wider. It made the Gunners have longer passing sequences and access the wingers more often. None of that actually led to anything concrete, but helped them dictate the terms of the match and stop Sporting’s momentum.
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The Gunners leaned heavily on the right wing, with Madueke the only player getting the better of his man. Out of the other nine man-to-man battles across the pitch, the Lions kept winning nearly every single one.
And they needed wing work badly, since they missed Eberechi Eze’s central play dearly. Take-ons were the only way for them to create a domino effect on Sporting’s full-pitch man-marking and generate advantages elsewhere.
And even with Madueke winning seemingly every duel against Araujo, they couldn’t create anything dangerous as a team.
The only other way in which they created chances was set pieces. Other than that, just managed to access dangerous areas and nothing else.
One other factor that helped bring them back into the game after suffering in the first 10 minutes was pressure. Whenever they stepped up, Sporting couldn’t get out of their own half and often gave the ball away in open play.
It took Arteta 75 minutes to make a change and stop overloading Madueke with the responsibility of generating advantages. Leandro Trossard had basically no role and ended up staying long enough to pick up a knock, leaving the game with a calf issue.
Late subs to the rescue
However, as the saying goes, better late than never. Martinelli came off the bench to play just 15 minutes plus extra time. But he made a huge difference in the little time he had on the pitch.
Not only was he another wide option to take defenders on, but also understood what the match was asking. Dribbling is probably the most effective way to collapse man-marking and create openings elsewhere. But raw, pure movement can do that as well – it’s just a little harder.
The Brazilian faked a run on the touchline, inclinating his man that way, while shifting inside to receive with nobody in front of him. He took a shot off from outside the box and Rui Silva made a relatively easy save. But that ended a 20-minute period with no shots from Arsenal.
Six minutes later, he drew two defenders to himself and ran inside to engage a third one: midfielder Joao Braganca, who had just left Havertz. This meant that Gyokeres had just one man for himself, Goncalo Inacio, and then engaged the other centre-back (Diomande) to free up Havertz behind him.
And the German, smartly, instead of positioning himself in the same area that Martin Odegaard did with no success for 70 minutes, had joined the Swede inside the box as if he was a striker himself.
It was the only time in the whole 90 minutes that Sporting made a positional mistake in defence. And it cost them the match.
Hard to know whether it was the awareness by Martinelli and Havertz or an Arteta instruction that led to those adjustments. And it might have taken time, but it happened nonetheless.
It saved a very poor performance when Arsenal probably should have been behind and turned it into a precious away win. Now, they can play for a draw at the Emirates next week in a much more favourable scenario.