Cardiff v Arsenal, Sky Sports Premier League, 12.30pm, Sunday
Friday 31 August 2018 10:33, UK
Arsenal will be hoping to make it two wins in a row when they travel to Cardiff on Sunday - but their new style under Unai Emery could leave them exposed in defence, warns Danny Higginbotham.
Emery has employed an intense pressing approach at Arsenal. It led to problems in defeats to Manchester City and Chelsea at the start of the campaign and while Arsenal got their first win of the season against West Ham last time out, their London rivals had opportunities.
While a high press can be effective, Arsenal must ensure their backline is better positioned, Higginbotham told Sky Sports News.
"West Ham should have won the game," said Higginbotham. "They should have been out of sight by half-time but they missed a lot of chances.
"In the average position map, there's too much space, there's too much space down the side of Arsenal's centre-backs. It caused a lot of problems against West Ham.
"Arsenal wanted to be on the front foot but West Ham were able to quickly turn defence into attack."
With right-back Hector Bellerin eager to get forward, Arsenal's centre-backs were too often drawn out to wide areas to cover.
This left the Spaniard having to sprint back and cover central areas - meaning the Arsenal backline was out of position and out of shape.
While Sunday's opponents Cardiff are known for their physical approach, the pace they have on the wings and the likes of Josh Murphy means they could have success running at Arsenal's covering centre-backs.
"The last thing a centre-back wants to have to do is to come outside the width of the 18-yard box," said Higginbotham. "Bellerin is ending up a centre-back. It's all over the place.
"It's ok saying you want to press high but you have to have your back four comfortable and set otherwise you're going to have problems and teams will take advantage of it.
"You want your centre-backs in that area more often than not - otherwise it makes the recovery runs very difficult.
"When you are pressing so high, the back four has a real issue. If you don't press up with your midfield, there will be spaces. But if you do there will be spaces in behind.
"We know Cardiff are a physical team but they do have players with good pace.
"Murphy is very quick, very direct. If he's running at the centre back because Bellerin is out of position the team becomes disjointed.
"Against Bournemouth and Huddersfield, when the ball went to the Cardiff wide players it was the full-backs that are facing them up. That might not be the situation Arsenal find themselves in. And that could be a problem."
