Today’s top team has size XL – Sport Langlesing

Four artists. Six gladiators.

That is the golden formula.

Among the three teams fighting for the Premier League title, Arsenal and Manchester City have the best defensive balance, with the fewest shots conceded. The two have long ruled matches with playful playmakers who outplay giddy rivals.

Now they have found that they need more than just finesse.

“The Wall”

We have never seen two teams in the Premier League with such a sophisticated passing game and enough muscle to give opponents a knock.

Before, a typical English team has had two big central defenders, and maybe a midfield warrior or a tank striker. The sidebacks were light and small enough to fly up the flanks, and the wings were quick dribblers. Most of them had “gladiators”, i.e. players strong in duels, but usually only three or four.

Today’s City has six gladiators with an average height of 187 centimeters.

Without injuries, the six gladiators are three centre-backs, plus Erling Braut Haaland, plus Rodri and John Stones, two heavy dueling players who strengthen the midfield. And yet City can have the ball 70% of the time.

They are not alone.

Arsenal play the same type of football and they can use four centre-backs at once: Ben White, Gabriel, William Saliba and Jakub Kiwior. At Arsenal’s stadium, an artist has https://twitter.com/northbanksyafc/status/1770947755323654424. The title of the painting is “The Wall”.

With Declan Rice as boss in midfield and Kai Havertz at the top, Arsenal can field six gladiators with an average height of 189 centimeters.

Heavy physicality has become part of Arsenal’s identity under coach Mikel Arteta.

But wait a minute… Isn’t it bad team that will play on physics?

Pep and Pulis

Of course it is.

Especially in England, it was long accepted that small teams were not technically good enough to play good football. Four centre-backs were typical of West Brom, a heavy and huge team which, under coach Tony Pulis, scored goals from free kicks and corners.

For big teams, the tactical inspiration has long been Barcelona, ​​coached by Pep Guardiola, who between 2008 and 2012 won everything with small artists such as Xavi, Andrés Iniesta and Lionel Messi. Barcelona were vulnerable at set pieces, but as Johan Cruyff said: You can’t concede a goal as long as you have the ball.

If you were to beat the small teams, you needed better technique. If you were going to beat the big guys, you had to fight them in low gear.

There were big teams with good physicality, but none played like Barcelona and the war as West Brom. The artists were small and light, the gladiators were large and heavy.

But now Guardiola and Arteta have understood that they can choose both.

Down in the mud

Or rather: They have understood that they must have both.

Guardiola has learned this the hard way.

The only mistake Guardiola has made in his career, says Manchester United coach Erik ten Hag, is that he underestimated the need for speed and strength in the Premier League. City finished a disappointing third in Guardiola’s first season in England, in 2016–17.

On the heaviest days, Guardiola’s silky football was fought into the mud.

Guardiola soon realized the mistake himself. In November that season, City struggled to beat bottom side Burnley at home, and Guardiola noted that Burnley hit long, that they looked for free-kicks and corners, and that they were taller than City. Teams like Burnley presented Guardiola with a different kind of challenge than he had in Spain and Germany.

– All teams in the Premier League are good at this, and we must improve, said Guardiola.

Chelsea won the title that season with three stoppers and two duelists just up front, a system similar to what City have today.

The next season, Guardiola spent almost his entire budget on four defenders and a goalkeeper. He had learned a lesson.

But how would City become robust and technically good at once?

Away with the slopes

Guardiola has solved that problem.

Guardiola has found that City do not need one full-back and one winger to hold the width on either side. It is sufficient to have only one wing as a width holder.

He has pretty much stopped using sidebacks. He has brought in three stoppers and two defensive midfielders, leaving the edges to each wing. When City have the ball, they often line up in a 3-2-4-1.

This gives City six gladiators at both ends of the pitch, where crosses and long passes are played. The technical artists operate in a four on the midfield, where the spaces are small, where you have to make three short passes through joints. This formula shows how much Guardiola has adapted to English football.

Before, Guardiola’s midfield duo was Xavi and Iniesta. Now it’s Rodri and John Stones.

This is how City won the treble last year.

The system has been copied by Arteta, who was Guardiola’s assistant between 2016 and 2019. With great players up front and behind, Arsenal have room for “lesser” technicians such as Martin Ødegaard, Bukayo Saka and Jorginho.

Arsenal are now the best defensively and best at set pieces in the Premier League.

No weaknesses

This combination of technique and strength points towards what English top teams must look like.

The alternative is to have clear weaknesses that are exploited more than ever.

All teams now have large groups of analysts who scrutinize the next opponent for weaknesses. If a left-back is at 95% of full capacity instead of 100%, it can decide a game. If a team struggles at set pieces, the rivals are ready with their own specialists who drill in traps and blocking moves. Chelsea recently signed Brentford’s set piece coach Bernardo Cueva for NOK 135 million.

So for City and Arsenal to lose games on physicality becomes too easy, and it seems that Guardiola and Arteta have realized that more and more.

– We have tried to build a team that has everything, Arteta said last year.

Now Arsenal can roll the ball and wars.

They are a bit Barcelona and a bit West Brom.