Arsene Wenger has stressed the importance of passing the ball out from the back and say he won’t ever stop despite being “punished” over it at Arsenal.

Passing out from the back is common place in football, but in the UK it’s still regarded with some suspicion. In their 4-3 win over Leicester last Friday, Arsenal ended up a conceding a goal after failing to play out from the back.

It was a loose sideways pass from Granit Xhaka that handed the ball straight to Marc Albrighton, whose cross found Jamie Vardy to put Leicester 2-1 ahead at the time.

Arsenal went on to win the game, and Arsene Wenger has defended his passing philosophy.

“For me it is important to build the game out from the back, sometimes I am punished for it but it has to be the basis of our game. If you want to play football you have to build the game out from the back,” Wenger said, reports Arsenal.com.

I believe our passing from the back has improved after the switch to the back three. The extra defender serves as an extra passing option and Premier League teams haven’t quite worked out how to press it yet.

However, there will come a time when teams do figure it out and Arsenal will have some difficulties playing out. But Wenger will rarely change that part of Arsenal’s game and it’ll put a lot of attention on the ball-playing skills of Arsenal’s defenders.

When it works, the results are often spectacular. At the same time, it can be incredibly frustrating to see the ball given away so close to our penalty area.