Bodo/Glimt manager Kjetil Knutsen admits he knows how to beat Arsenal with Mikel Arteta’s tactics “not very complicated”.
The Norwegian outfit are looking to become just the second team to beat the Gunners this season, with Arsenal coming into the game off a huge morale-boosting victory over rivals Tottenham.
Knutsen watched both the north London derby and Arsenal’s win over FC Zurich last month, and feels both teams failed to do the basics required to beat Arteta’s side.
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He said:
“I started watching Arsenal against Zurich to analyse Zurich.
But my concentration and my gaze went towards Arsenal because I was thinking, ‘What the hell are they actually doing?!’
It’s just extremely high-level, high-intensity football with extremely high-level individual qualities.
But when you get to see it over time, it’s not very complicated.”
“The way we defend, it doesn’t matter too much [which opposition] players run where because we are very zone-orientated in the way we defend.
If we played a man-to-man system we would have a huge challenge to face, but we are at the other end of the scale [in terms of approach] so that’s probably the least of my worries.
“They attack with a lot of people, they’re patient and then suddenly they have that burst in the final third.
But they also leave space in behind them which we will have to exploit.
“We need to be aggressive in the low block, high intensity in the high press.
And we will have to control the ball. Tottenham only defended, Zurich only defended – if you do that you won’t stand a chance against them.”
