Bayern Munich 1-0 Arsenal: The Debrief

Arsenal go out of the Champions League

Straight into things without a preamble.

Bayern Munich 1-0 Arsenal: The Graphics

Bayern Munich 1-0 Arsenal: Instant Reaction

8 - Shots for Arsenal in this match (there was an offside shot from Jesus at 80’ and it is excluded from this but is shown in my graphics)

2 - Shots in the second half for Arsenal

0 - Shots from the 47th minute to the 88th minute

6% - Arsenal’s average shot quality in this match

1 - Shot that had an xG value of 10% or higher

In this match, Arsenal looked to follow their Manchester City gameplan. Looking to limit mistakes and hope to capitalize on any mistakes from the opponent. The latter part didn’t happen for Arsenal and Bayern had one good chance and turned it into a goal.

This did mean that Arsenal produced one of their worst attacking performances of the season here, even if it was probably by design.

This also meant that Bayern had one of their worst attacking days of the Champions League and season overall.

The idea of keeping it tight almost worked for the full game and on another day the first half is enough to see Arsenal through things.

They held Bayern to the following in the first half:

4 - Shots

0.25 - xG

0 - Big Chances

18 - Final third entries

8 - Touches in the box

It was a good performance that just couldn’t be capitalized upon. It was also a bit inevitable that at some point at the Allianz Arena Bayern would get going and they finally did to start the second half turning the momentum in their favor.

It wasn’t right away but Bayern did start getting more of the ball into dangerous locations after about 55 minutes and that is also when they started to limit what Arsenal could do with the ball.

What happened after the goal I thought was even more impressive from Bayern. They showed exquisite game management, they seemed aware that right after conceding Arsenal would be pumped to try and get right back into it and just put their foot on Arsenal’s neck sapping their energy and killing the clock.

In the 20 minutes that followed their goal:

63% - Possession for Bayern

84% - Pass completion percentage for Bayern, 74% for Arsenal

68% - Field tilt for Bayern

11 - Touches in the box for Bayern, to 1 from Arsenal

7 - Shots for Bayern, to 0 for Arsenal

Overall Bayern ended up as the better team over the two legs and deserved to go through. Based on the chances over both legs Bayern win this a bit over 60% of the time. The mistakes Arsenal made just hurt them too much.

It isn’t all negative tho, it did feel heartening to see Arsenal go up against them and not look out of place on the stage. I am still very positive on the prospects for this team and what is possible. It was a great learning experience and something that can help the team use for the future.

The Tomiyasu Trade-off doesn’t Pay off

Coming into the match there were a couple of big questions about the lineup. The biggest one was who would be left back and how would they be deployed.

This was the move I wanted to see, I wanted to see Arsenal make it tough on this side of the field and to try and challenge Bayern with a stingy defense. I have to admit it didn’t work here, with not enough defensive stability, nor was there close to enough thrust in possession.

His positioning was very much a role that looked like what Arsenal have done often with him. He tucks into midfield making a two, but he is often not a player that they look to actually progress the ball through.

1 - Progressive pass completed. On my more strict measure he had one, on FBref’s he had 6 but if you look at the pass map most of those “progressive” passes are not really balls that move Arsenal closer to the goal, only further up the field but in the classic horseshoe around the block type passing.

His passing was secure, misplaying just one pass that ended in the defensive or middle third but it did come with his passing adding very little value overall.

This doesn’t surprise me, this is not supposed to be his strength but it does disappoint me a bit. He isn’t a plus passer on the field for his ball progression but he has shown the ability to do more in the past and he looked timid on the ball and that he had turned the risk/reward nob too far towards safety first.

0 - “Quick” passes attempted by Tomiyasu. A quick pass here is a pass that takes one second or less from the time it is received to the time the next pass is made.

The lack of quick passing was a problem for the team as a whole, especially in the second half but it seemed to be something especially true of Tomiyasu. He would receive the ball and it often looked like he needed to survey before moving the ball around again. Maybe this is part of the instruction that was given to him to keep it secure but it did have the effect of making the defending from Bayern easier.

On the other side of the ball he should add more value but I think this was again not nearly as good as we would have hoped, especially with him in the game to beef up this part of the game for the trade-off in possession.

Bayern Munich was not worried about the matchup that Takehiro Tomiyasu posed against Leroy Sané, Leon Goretzka, or Joshua Kimmich targeting this side over and over again and getting the majority of their threat from these zones, both directly from passing and as spot to aim back post crosses at.

It is a tough matchup against these players so it’s not super fair to slate him for not shutting them down but if he is on the field to make it so this area isn’t where the danger comes from it is fair to ask questions if it worked and I don’t think it did here.

This isn’t laying the blame on him, Arsenal came out to play a tight game where they hoped the few chances would fall on their side and it didn’t but it was perhaps part of the problem that Arsenal didn’t have as many of those chances with his in-possession game.