There were many elements to Arsenal’s victory at Stamford Bridge worthy of a bigger lens. One of the key elements of the victory we won’t focus on here, for example, is the quality of the Arsenal press. Chelsea wanted to go from back to front as quickly as possible to try to get Alyssa Thompson’s pace behind the Gunners defence, the forwards worked tirelessly to press the Chelsea centre-backs to reduce the number of those long balls.
However, the part I want to focus on is how Arsenal found central overloads. Chelsea opted for three centre-backs in this game and when you play an extra centre-back, that inevitably comes at the cost of a midfielder and Slegers and her coaching staff were prepared for this. They consistently found superiority around the edge of the Chelsea penalty area.
Arseblog News asked Renee Slegers about this after the game. ‘When we then controlled it and we had controlled possession there was big spaces for us which we exploited well. I think with bringing one extra player into midfield which we could find several times.’ Let’s look at some examples.
Bronze plays a loose pass down the line here and McCabe doesn’t hesitate to send it into a central area.
Look at how much space Blackstenius has from a first time pass.
Chelsea’s midfield duo of Cuthbert and Kaptein are right on top of each other as Mead takes Stina’s pass. Beth Mead and Emily Fox drifted inside often during the game to outnumber Chelsea’s midfield.
Mead touches the ball to Russo who finds Fox. Again, just look at where the space is between the Chelsea defence and midfield. Mead is running into it, meanwhile Blackstenius is making a run to the right to create space. Sandy Baltimore is not a natural defender and you can see this in her stance, she is very much on her heels instead of her toes. Nothing really comes of this move but you can see where Chelsea are leaving space.
Arsenal positioned Emily Fox high and wide to push Sandy Baltimore back into areas where she is less comfortable. As Fox finds Little here, we can already see that Mariona is a) in space and b) she really knows it. She is already signalling for the ball before Little receives.
It comes to Mariona and look how far inside both Mead and Fox have drifted to create superiority.
Mead and Little are able to play a 1-2 here and that allows Mead to get a shot off that is blocked. But Arsenal work a chance by investing extra bodies into central spaces to outnumber Chelsea.
As Arsenal play out from the back here, look at McCabe who has drifted into midfield from left-back.
It takes a marker away from Mariona. With two central midfielders and Kerr and Thompson not being asked to do much off the ball work, Arsenal play out easily by outnumbering Chelsea again.
Mariona finds Catley, her ball forward is partially cleared by Girma but look where McCabe is to pick up the second ball. Arsenal consistently had greater numbers in midfield to pick up loose balls.
As Chelsea try to play out, Kaptein’s pass to Cuthbert is cut out by Russo and, again, just look at the numerical superiority Arsenal have here. Chelsea played three centre-backs and three forwards who were given little defensive responsibility, that left gaps that Arsenal exploited.
From this turnover, Mead finds Blackstenius and her cross is headed just wide by Russo.
This is a loose touch from Thompson by the touchline and just look at how much space there is in the centre of the pitch for Mariona to work with.
Mariona runs a good 30 yards unopposed and plays a slide rule pass for Foord and Millie Bright has to hyper extend with a last ditch tackle. Again, just look at how central Mead and Fox are in this image.
Here we see an attempted Hannah Hampton pass intercepted by Beth Mead. This illustrates both Arsenal;s willingness to close down but, again, just look at how bereft the centre of the pitch is of blue shirts.
Arsenal play out from the back here with Borbe to Kim Little and look at how much space Mariona is in. The gaps between the compartments of Chelsea’s team were nice and wide for Arsenal.
Arsenal get the ball from their goalkeeper to Emily Fox in this position in seven seconds, with every pass along the floor and not a sniff of a Chelsea challenge. Mariona follows the ball and, again, she is in a lot of space to Fox’s right.
Fox makes a clearance here and it just drops into an ocean of space for Mead to turn and consider her options.
Mead finds Russo and you can see Fox is leaving Baltimore in her wake.
Russo holds it up and switches the ball to the right where Mead and Fox are well ahead of Baltimore. Kaptein and Cuthbert are just not an active part of play throughout this move because they are outnumbered. Mead’s cross requires a last ditch clearance from Girma here.
As well as positioning Fox high and wide to get in behind Baltimore, they also inverted her into midfield to create numerical superiority.
Kerr and Cuthbert have to challenge her from behind; this should have been a free-kick to Arsenal.
But as Kerr and Cuthbert try to bring the ball clear, they are simply outnumbered again and Arsenal force a high turnover in a dangerous position.
Arsenal’s superiority of numbers centrally didn’t just have value in possession. Kaptein collects a pass from Carpenter here and Mariona is on her quickly.
Kaptein initially turns Mariona well but the Spaniard doesn’t give up and soon Russo is there to join her. The players combine to dispossess Kaptein, this happened time and again during the game.
We see it again here, an Arsenal attack breaks down and Cuthbert tries to bring the ball clear but look how many Arsenal bodies are around her.
Kaptein comes into help but Chelsea are still outnumbered. Arsenal win the ball back and Russo gets a shot on target saved by Hampton. These two images define the game for me, Chelsea overwhelmed by Arsenal’s numbers centrally.
And seconds later that pressure on the ball centrally pays off as Catley is tight to her international teammate Kerr from Girma’s pass.
Catley comes away with the ball and Arsenal have superiority of numbers again. Cuthbert is caught trying to mark too much space and Catley has options.
From here, Blackstenius is able to take Bright away with a central run leaving Mead free on the right to put Arsenal 1-0 up. This goal typified the performance, Arsenal swarmed Chelsea centrally out of possession and outnumbered them in possession.
Chelsea bring Keira Walsh on after the goal and you can immediately see the difference it makes in terms of the numbers Chelsea have centrally now. They look far more solid. However…
The second goal isn’t really about Arsenal outnumbering Chelsea. We can see that Walsh is looking after Russo. Cuthbert and Kaptein have gone to sleep here and have no idea they’ve left a huge space for Mariona on the edge of the area.
Russo makes a nice decoy run to take Walsh away. But Beth Mead has time to chop back onto her left foot, whip out her phone and have a scroll of Insta before finding Mariona in acres of space.
If you give Mariona that kind of space in the area you get what you deserve.
At this point, the game clearly changes. Chelsea make more changes and Arsenal have something to hang onto, so we don’t really see Arsenal bossing the centre of the pitch from this point because they don’t need to and because they don’t have the attacking numbers on the bench to refresh very much. Arsenal go into a mid-block and see out a famous victory. Given the lack of options for Slegers on the bench, it was important that her team had an advantage to hold onto in the last third of the game.