CL QF Miniature Preview: Arsenal v Bayern
I know this doesn’t live up to some of the brawny, comprehensive previews the devoted readers of this site and my past work have come to know and love, so you’ve been warned in the title. I find my enjoyment of the games is massively enhanced when I have at least a few tidbits to focus on going in, so I hope yours will be as well.
Bookies say: Arsenal 60% to advance
Can Bayern get out and run?
The 2nd most transitions created in the Champions League so far with the 2nd most production to go along with it. Sane was one of the key outlets for the running game and he will be out, but Musiala, Müller and Kane have all featured highly in this as well.
Arsenal’s defensive control is set up to stop transitions. They often don’t really take too many chances offensively where they are out of position. Only Man City have allowed less on transition than Arsenal.
Will Arsenal play with the handbrake on?
Against Porto in the Round of 16, Arsenal put together a truly poor performance that we essentially have never seen from them in the league. Over the 2 legs they managed 37.4 deep completions, significantly lower than any 2 consecutive games in the Premier League this season. This seemed to be almost completely manager-driven, Arsenal played terrified and with a defensive and conservative lineup and wound up heading to a coin-toss shootout after generating an anemic 1.3 xG over 2 legs against a team they should blow off the pitch like a Brentford.
Maybe that was due to the fear of losing to an inferior opponent and playing Bayern will free them up, but this total freeze they had vs Porto is the biggest worry for this match. It was about as clear of a “choke” you will see in fast-moving sports, but it won’t be remembered as one because they won.
I think the telling sign here will be whether Zinchenko (#3 progressor and #1 in efficiency for Arsenal in the CL so far) plays at left back to give Arsenal more attacking impetus or Kiwior is there for more stability.
Will Bayern’s hands-off defense give us a dull game?
Pass clusters here come from using k-means clustering to bunch all pass types into 100 different passes, then finding a z score to see how often a team plays that type of pass. Combining Arsenal’s attacking and Bayern’s defending pass types here gives us this map
Bayern want to let you have and hold the ball in meaningless areas far from their goal but don’t want you to have the ball in the center of the pitch in their half playing short passes. They want to have bodies back to block shots and clog those central areas (6th highest block rate in the CL).
Arsenal have tended to push wide players high up and overload the opposition that way in recent matches, which could be effective against Bayern but I kind of think Arteta will be too scared to do this early on. I think we could see a lot of Arsenal possession early as this sort of mentally beaten Bayern team won’t match Arsenal’s intensity and focus but Arsenal might still be a bit too hesitant to pounce and truly destroy a Bayern team there for the taking.
Will the Leroy Sane injury ease the pressure on the Arsenal left hand side defensively?
Bayern like to dominate the right hand side, of course without Leroy Sane that will be much harder. I rated Sane the best player in the Bundesliga in the first half of the season but now he is out. Still with Gnabry, Musiala, Müller up there they could still pressurize the left where Arsenal have been poorer at building up from.
Sane is 2nd for Bayern in receiving, 2nd in buildups, 2nd in deep receptions, 2nd in deep completions in the Champions League. It is an enormous loss.
Can Arsenal turn Bayern into crossers?
No team in the CL has forced opponents into a higher cross rate than Arsenal. Almost 17% of opponents final third passes are crosses, 2nd place in Man City. Both teams do an incredible job of stifling opponents options: top 2 in limiting transitions and force low danger crosses into capable aerial center backs.
Will Bayern’s right sided “weakness” matter all that much?
It’s not exactly a weakness per se, but it has not been as strong as the rest of the defense throughout the CL campaign.
We all know Arsenal are one of the more right side dominant teams* out there, that’s where Bayern have been really strong so it could be strength vs strength and weakness vs weakness down the flanks.
*51% of Arsenal’s buildup in attacking third comes from their right side, 3rd highest among CL knockout teams, only behind Atletico and Bayern.
With Gabriel Jesus out left though, that
The Raw Numbers
Arsenal are 5th in Fields Gained ratio, 6th in deep completions ratio and 5th in xGD.
Bayern are 4th in Fields Gained, 3rd in deep completions ratio and 7th in xGD.
These are teams that are basically dead even in statistical performance in the CL but the reason we see Arsenal favored is twofold
1: Arsenal have shown they have elite attacking in the tank in the Premier League, in the CL they have played with the handbrake on due to essentially bad managing and thinking Europe is some tougher thing than the Premier League
2: Bayern’s mentality seemingly going into freefall. Manager is out, players seem basically over it and they just blew a 2-0 lead to Heidenheim to lose. They conceded the title prematurely, haven’t fought hard and everyone seems more concerned with which players will be back, who will be the new coach, etc. While Arsenal are just absolutely on fire right now locked into every match.
Soft factors for sure, but I believe in them. I also believe Arteta will probably hurt his team by not trying to blow Bayern away. Arsenal I think should comfortably get 2 xG against Bayern. Darmstadt and Heidenheim have gotten 1.3 on average in recent games, but if we see a tentative start that could give Bayern confidence, even without Sane and the teams do not differ that much in their underlying talent level.
Gut Call
I think Arsenal will sort of back into an even match instead of coming out and levelling Bayern. I don’t think Bayern can deal with an all out assault right now, but if Arsenal go easy on them like they did Porto that we could have a very tight tie.