Declan Rice makes Arsenal's potential 3-Box-3 lethal - But don't sleep on City's Kovačić signing
The title race in England next season should be epic
Watching Arsenal under Mikel Arteta is like watching a younger version of Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City. Arteta who assisted Guardiola for three and a half seasons at City has taken some of the same tactical wrinkles from the maestro himself, and in beating City to Declan Rice this past, puts a potential one past his mentor (though I must qualify this by saying regularly Manchester City has been outbid for players recently, and most like Alexis Sanchez, Harry Maguire and Marc Cucarella haven’t exactly set the world on fire at the clubs they ended up at - but I believe Rice is different).
The four man “box” midfield was long a novelty that we occasionally saw in specific situations or as a one-off tactic to counter better possession-oriented sides. For years, we saw clubs experiment with a diamond midfield, but the box was never that common. Now both Manchester City and Arsenal appear to favor it.
In Manchester City’s setup, more recently it’s been John Stones, a centreback that’s played in a double-pivot next to Rodri when City is in possession. For Arsenal it’s Oleksandr Zinchenko, who learned to be an inverted fullback under Pep Guardiola at City. These two sides almost never setup defensively in a 4-man midfield, but the fluid nature of formations means, when in possession, both City and Arsenal seek to overwhelm the opposition with an extra ball-playing defender in midfield.
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