Zhan Yingjun smiled elegantly and said: "The presence of Tan Xibi ensures that the Gunners have a wall at the front of the penalty area, but Burnley's tactical play is destined to make it difficult for Tan Xibi to play the interception and grab points when defending frontally, and I noticed that he almost never fights for the header, so he is probably more responsible for filling in and grabbing the second point on the defensive end." Judging from Tan Xibi's first few games, at first I thought he was a pure midfielder, dedicated to defence, but from the first game against Manchester City to the north London derby, I found that he improved every game, and this improvement was mainly reflected in the attacking end. ”

Zhang Heilu's eyes flashed, and he said: "Pirlo-style long pass scheduling and assists." ”

Zhan Yingjun nodded and said with a smile: "Teacher Zhang is an expert in Serie A, and he can see that Tan Xibi's long pass is very Pirlo's style, maybe he is learning Pirlo's long passing technique." Originally, Arsenal had a long pass expert Xhaka in the team, but from the beginning of the Manchester City game, Xhaka fell out of favor, Wenger's double back seems to be fixed as a combination of Tan Xibi and Ramsey, I thought this would sacrifice Xhaka's long pass scheduling, but what I didn't expect was that Tan Xibi brought us a surprise of a strengthened version of Xhaka, his long and short pass hit rate and defensive ability are better than Xhaka. ”

Zhang Heilu: "With Tan Xibi here, I'm not very worried about Arsenal's defense, I think how he will help Arsenal solve the problem of the opponent's dense defense on the offensive side will be a key for Tan Xibi to sit in the main position of Arsenal." ”

Zhan Yingjun: "When it comes to breaking dense defenses, in fact, in addition to the individual blasting and aerial strikes I mentioned earlier, set-pieces and long-range shots are also weapons to break the bus, but the success efficiency of these two methods is too low, and it needs to be based on more shots and luck. Sometimes you don't get a goal from a corner, a set-piece, a long-range shot, and sometimes you can hit a goal with a few long-range shots, and this gambling style doesn't become a regular weapon. However, you should find that Tan Xibi's goals were all scored through long-range shots, which shows that his long-range shooting ability is very strong, especially the long-range hat trick against Manchester City. If Tan Xibi can break the deadlock with a long-range shot in this game, this game is basically won by Arsenal. ”

Speaking of Burnley's start, Zhan Yingjun's opinion is: "With the main goalkeeper Heaton's long-term injury and suspension, Burnley can win three in a row and not concede a goal, mainly relying on the overall defense. Although Pope has conceded six goals in nine league games, the opponents who have kept a clean sheet are not strong, relying more on a solid defence. Burnley continued to field a starting framework since three wins in a row, with the exception of a single striker option that oscillated between Barnes and Wood. However, the two are not much different in terms of functional positioning, and they are both fortress-type players who charge forward and use them to contain the defense more than to substantively advance the attack, so they are the same for everyone. With such a stable start, Arsenal had a very difficult game. ”

……

As Zhan Yingjun said, under Burnley's tight defense, Arsenal soon found themselves in the attacking quagmire that could be expected before the game, and the home stadium of the Red Wine Army was indeed very difficult to play.

Burnley's strict defence is reflected in their aggressive support to form a siege on the side of the ball, and in the attacking hinterland, the accurate prediction of the Burnley defence and the accumulation of players in the midfield are difficult for the Gunners to rely on wide transfers to pull the defensive line.

Over time, the situation has emerged that the Gunners have seen in the past few seasons: frequent passing, dominance of possession, but very few attempts to push the attack into the opposition box.

The result of this situation is that Alexandre Lacazette has not won the ball in the box once so far as a lone striker, which is a staggering statistic as a striker.

The reason for this is simple: the strategy of relying on passing to penetrate has largely failed under Burnley's dense defence.

Tan Xibi's long pass direction is mainly on the left and right, but unfortunately it can't achieve the purpose of pulling the opponent's defense, as for the good long-range shot, Burnley's extremely smart positioning and Nick Pope's full preparation, Tan Xibi hit the goal with two long shots, one kicked on the opponent, and the other was easily defused by the opponent's goalkeeper, which was extremely rare in the past.

Seeing that the long-range shot had no effect, Tan Xibi no longer chose this inefficient shooting method without being sure, but patiently organized and dispatched in the midfield, waiting for the opportunity to appear.

Burnley put up a stubborn stance and used a wide range of long passes to feed the single arrows up front with a well-established routine.

Fortunately, Arsenal's defensive system is in full swing, coupled with Tan Xibi's strong defensive ability to assist in defense and grab the second point, the opponent's surprise attack and high-altitude bombing can only do useless work in the face of sighing.

Regardless of Tan Xibi's lack of headers, the tacit understanding between him and his defensive team-mates is getting stronger, whether it is Schkodland Mustafi or Laurent Koscielny, when they press forward to the top, Tan Xibi will withdraw to their position to make up for the defense, and use excellent anticipation to grab the second point, so that Burnley cannot organize a second attack in the opposition's threat zone.

Combined with the flanks of Héctor Bellerin and Seyard Kolasinac on the flanks doing their best to assist the three centre-backs in defence, Burnley's monotonous attacking routine can only complete a handful of shots, and there are very few creative attacks or shots that can really threaten Peter Cech.

Looking at Arsenal's attack, the bogged down Gunners are also at a loss to break through Burnley's city, even if they try the strategy of the last game against Tottenham Hotspur, through the tandem of Alex Sanchez and Kolasinac on the left flank, combined with the connection of Aaron Ramsey to advance the vertical attack, so as to attract the Burnley defence to make room for the right side to attack, and then move a large area to find Bellerin on the right, who continues to play the role of attacking playmaker on this side to complete the next stage of the attack, but it is a pityBurnley's defence is clearly different from Tottenham's last game.

A back four plus five midfielders ensure that there are always players on the flanks to seal off the flanks, and by the time Bellerin gets the ball on the flanks, the Burnley defenders are already in front of them, rather than needing to drop back to the flanks in a hurry like Tottenham, so that Bellerin has very limited time to adjust.

At the same time, Alex Iwobi and Aaron Ramsey in midfield were equally well marked, with the entire Burnley penalty area overcrowded, and the idea of penetrating through the rib space was simply out of the question.

At this time, some people will miss Mesut Ozil, who is good at finding space to make threatening passes, but they seem to forget that the German pie feeder also needs space, and without space, Ozil's lethal pass cannot be launched.

In the first half, no one could break anyone's wall.