Nick Ware

Mon 22 March 2021 12:40, UK

Aaron Cresswell was heavily involved in three goals v Arsenal on Sunday but they all came against West Ham at the London Stadium.

The Irons raced into a three-goal lead but Tomas Soucek’s own-goal gave the visitors a lifeline before half-time.

Another own-goal, this time by Craig Dawson, brought the game to 3-2 before the Gunners forced a late equaliser and the one constant was Cresswell who was partly to blame for all three goals.

According to Wyscout Cresswell only won 47% of his duels [8/17] which is a sizeable downturn from his 60.5% season average.

He lost four defensive duels – he had only lost five in as many games before this.

Furthermore, he had only conceded one foul in this run but he doubled this in one game against Arsenal and picked up his second yellow card of the season for his troubles.

At West Ham Zone we analysed how Arsenal clawed their way back into the game by targeting Cresswell down our left-hand side.

This first example below did not result in a goal but highlights just how much trouble Bukayo Saka caused him.

With Saka starting to drift goal side of him the Irons defender should be covering around to plug the huge gap between himself and Dawson.

But he lets Saka go and it requires a last-ditch intervention from Lukasz Fabianski to prevent the Arsenal winger a clear sight on goal.

While that did not amount to anything the following examples certainly did.

Below is Arsenal’s first goal and this shows how passive Cresswell was in defence.

With Declan Rice and Said Benrahma unable to get across to the wing we would expect someone as experienced as Cresswell to recognise the urgency of the situation and close down Calum Chambers on the right-hand side.

However, he is more concerned with Saka in behind him and ends up giving Chambers an easy opportunity to pull the ball back for Alexandre Lacazette.

Incidentally, Cresswell also loses Saka and ends up in no-man’s land so his defensive contribution here was utterly futile.

The second goal shows just how overloaded the right-hand side of Arsenal’s attack was as they target Cresswell.

Benrahma has to take his fair share of the blame for a lack of defensive contribution but often he was caught high up the pitch because our midfield and attackers gave the ball away cheaply.

This meant we were on the backfoot from counter-attacks and needed our defence to stand up tall.

On this occasion, Cresswell is put in a difficult position but he chooses the worst option.

With Issa Diop in front of him, he should allow the 24-year-old to pick up Saka and he should be shuffling across to block Chambers’ cross.

But he gets nowhere near him and Chambers simply passes the ball across goal and Dawson turned it in for an unfortunate own-goal.

Arsenal’s equaliser once again highlighted how exposed Cresswell was but Benrahma was not even on the field for this one.

He has to make a choice as to whether to initiate a press on Martin Odegaard or track the run of Nicolas Pepe in behind.

He initially does the former but manages to fumble back to Pepe.

However once again he does not get close enough to block the cross and Pepe delivers for Lacazette to score.

Arsenal’s plan was clear – hit the left-hand side of our defence and wreak havoc.

Cresswell just could not cope with the demands placed on him and while blame can be apportioned to some of those in front of him he has to do better himself.

Maybe the years are catching up to him and he just does not have the athleticism to cope.

It is something that has to be addressed as we cannot give teams that much space on the wings to cross the ball into the box.

In other West Ham news, see our player ratings v Arsenal.