Alex Song perfects the art of the lofted through-pass
Sandro Mazzola is talking about Andrea Pirlo. The former Internazionale forward, who played exclusively for the club between 1960-1977, spotted Pirlo as a teenager at Brescia (and not Mircea Lucescu as Wikipedia states) and convinced the club to sign him. The midfielder, he says, is the greatest passer in today’s game and in particular, he is talking about the lofted, weighted pass. “Pirlo’s footballing intelligence exploits angles and avenues others just don’t see,” Mazzola tells Champions Magazine. “Then his exceptional technique enables him to flight the pass brilliantly over distance, and to weight every delivery even when under pressure.”
This season, it’s been Alex Song who has joined him in mastering the art of the lofted pass. But while Mazzola may be talking about the high pass as a means of switching the emphasis of play, usually from side to side – after all, he did start his Inter career under Helenio Herrera where the short, lateral pass which pervades the modern game, was scorned and saw West Germany dominate through the accurate, long passing of Günter Netzer and then Wolfgang Overath — there’s arguably a greater skill Song and Pirlo have perfected; that of the lofted through-pass.
This season, both players have made 24 assists between them and are among the highest exponents of the through-ball in Europe. Yet, while it may be expected of Pirlo, it’s not so much of Song who has come to the fore for Arsenal with his defence splitting passes in the absence of Cesc Fàbregas. ”He has improved his technique of transmission,” said Arsène Wenger. “When he arrived here, the passing of his longer balls was not the best. But he was worked on that, improved on that and now he can combine vision with technique.”
There are three passes of Song that stand out; his assist against Everton in December which made everyone - neutrals that is – take note of his special ability and he repeated the trick against their Merseyside rivals, Liverpool, with another deft pass. Both were finished emphatically by Robin van Persie. The third one against Blackburn, though, is not an assist but it demonstrated perfectly, just how much of a weapon he’s been to Arsenal in opening up defences as he floated the ball onto path of Theo Walcott to cross. Nevertheless, he managed to produce a carbon copy of that pass in the 3-0 win over Aston Villa which directly did lead to a goal.
Song’s not all about chipped passes though. His best assist is probably neither of the above. That came against Borussia Dortmund when, looking as if he had run into a cul-de-sac with three defenders converging on him, he deployed another little unbeknownst weapon in his armoury, clever footwork to jinx between them. His cross after was perfect as van Persie (again) guided a header in. And he’s shown he can keep it on the ground too; he played a sumptuous pass between a trio of perplexed Blackburn defenders to find Gervinho in the 4-3 defeat and did well to ignore him away to Norwich City, instead threading it to van Persie. The other five of his eleven league assists have come against Tottenham (a left footed cross to Aaron Ramsey), Chelsea and West Bromwich Albion (both to Andre Santos), Wolverhampton Wanderers and Norwich at home. (Note: he also floated the pass that led to Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s first goal for Arsenal in the Champions League but for a ricochet off a defender as he dribbled with it, it might not stand as Song’s assist).
Alex Song might nominally play as the enforcer but last season, he showed he’s becoming the complete link between the defence and attack for Arsenal.
Filed under: Players
Tagged: Song
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Just what I was discussing with a fellow gooner about a week ago. Same comparison – the deep lying, pass spraying midfielder that Song can be. Not many teams have this, and we would do well to try and get the most out of this rare skill.
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The problem is many arsenal fans see him as a defensive midfielder, so however good he is at sending through balls, they will always his defensive jobs such as sitting deep in front of defenders and marking the ‘hole’.
He can of course perform as DM, but AW seems to prefer a fluid midfield trio where each of the midfielders can go forward in turns.
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D Reply:
May 22nd, 2012 at 11:10 am
@novicegooner, I think the perception from Arsenal fans is slowly changing. I think the majority realise that he is not a DM, but more of your classic box-to-box midfielder. Wenger has moved to the pivot, Wilshere and Song shared the responsiblities very well last season (2010/11) so hopefully we can get back to that.
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I would LOVE to see that fluid midfield. It would be sort of a return to our “tiki-taka” passing we used to be able to do.
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Song is good footballer but he’ll never be as good as Vieira or Petit in the middle of park. He’s passing is improving this season, it’s just with more focus on creating chances, he just forgets about protecting the defence on so many occasions. We need to be more disciplined as a unit. Easier said than done.
It’s a bit scary what Chelsea will be doing this summer now that they just won the CL. Expect to see Chelsea spending on M’Villa and Hummels in the summer.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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@JOHN
Agree with you mate.
If only the heading of this post was to read “Alex Song perfects the art of defensive midfield play”, we wouldn’t be leaking so many goals, and losing so many points. Defense begins with the defensive midfield role.
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Woolwich Peripatetic Reply:
June 1st, 2012 at 3:43 pm
@Big Al, Koh Samui, Thailand,
“Defense begins with the defensive midfield role”, yeah maybe in 2004-2008, we’re in 2012 now. Defense begins with the guy in the #9 shirt and the whole team has to be part of the defensive organisation.
Focusing on Song being out of position is ignoring the fact that someone ought to have been dropping into his position to cover for him.
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You are very correct. There is an observation though that would definitely make his game more complete – taking shots. Song is perhaps the best positioned midfielder to take shots at goal around the edge of the box but kept on looking for who to pass to. Much as the passes are good, he has become predictable. Unexpected shots can thread thru defence (when defence is looking to mark others to pass to) can be deflected and thus confuse the Goal Keeper or can even go in directly since bodies in the box may have blocked the view of the GK. It is unimaginable to think that he can not take shot or afraid to do so at this level of his game – unbelievable!
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Those criticizing Song do not understand anything about football. If your “creative” advanced central midfielder Ramsey has been able to create anything, Song would not need to move into advanced positions.
Plus Song is not a defensive midfielder like De Jong or Makelele. He is one of the two pivot box-to-box midfielders (the other is Arteta) in a fluid 4-3-3. In other words, Arsenal’s system is not a 4-1-3-2 or 4-1-4-1. Therefore those expecting Song to remain in front of the defense at all times are ill-informed.
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[...] Source __spr_config = { pid: '4f714a31396cef1920000014', title: 'FC Barcelona – Alex Song Coming or [...]
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