Bodo/Glimt manager Kjetil Knutsen has praised Arsenal’s playing style but claims he has fleshed out their approach and is “not worried” about the Gunners quitting on Thursday night.
Arsenal take on the Norwegian side at the Emirates in their second Europa League group match, in which their game against PSV Eindhoven has been postponed after the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
On the same day Her Majesty passed away, Arsenal were in Switzerland to face FC Zurich and Knutsen says he was impressed by the patterns of play he saw from Mikel Arteta’s side in that match.
However, after seeing more of the Gunners, he believes he has figured out how to stop them and says Tottenham took the completely wrong approach when they lined up to counter in the north. London Derby.
Knutsen explained: “I started watching Arsenal against Zurich to analyze Zurich, but my concentration and my gaze went to Arsenal because I thought, ‘What the hell are they doing?!”
“There are a lot of rotations, so you have to take them apart and see where the players are who are fairly stable in their roles and where the players are who rotate a lot.
“It’s just extremely high-level, high-intensity football with extremely high individual qualities.”
He continued: ‘But when you get to see it over time, it’s not very complicated.
“They have some rotations with the left back and central midfielder, who has a lot of freedom, but on their right side it’s a lot less.
“But the way we defend doesn’t matter that much” [which opposition] players run where because we are very zone oriented in the way we defend.
“If we were to play a man-to-man system, we would face a huge challenge, but we are on the other side of the scale. [in terms of approach] so that’s probably the least of my worries.’
He added: “They attack with a lot of people, they are patient and then suddenly they have that eruption in the last third.
‘But they also leave behind space that we have to use. We have to be aggressive in the low block, high intensity in the high press, and we have to control the ball. Tottenham defended alone, Zurich defended alone – if you do that, you don’t stand a chance against them.’
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