“In life it’s important to meet someone who will give you a chance, and when I can do this in football, I do it. I like to be the guy who believes in people, and stands up for them.” – so said Arsene Wenger to a group of Malaysian businessmen back in the summer of 2011.
This is the cornerstone of Arsene Wenger’s management bible and it continues to infuriate, delight and split the Arsenal fan base in equal measures. Wenger’s perpetual vision of the future can strike an uneasy chemistry with the result oriented demands of top level sport. Especially as football’s echo chamber of critics swells. In tinkering with last season’s formation, Wenger is basically trying to accommodate as many of his playmakers as he can into the same team.
During the last international break, Wenger confessed as much when taken to task upon his decision to station Mesut Özil from the flank.
“Somebody had to go out there. Is it Wilshere, Ozil or Ramsey… nobody is really natural out wide. So you keep good players out or you try to get them together. It is [ambitious], but without ambition you cannot progress. We have that desire to play well altogether and I think we can really achieve it.”
It has been something of a bumpy ride so far integrating this tactical tweak. Arsenal’s most convincing league performance of the season so far came at Villa Park when they reverted to last season’s blueprint. Most of Arsenal’s attacking midfielders / wide forwards have suffered in the nascent throes of this campaign. Santi Cazorla has been a substitute five times this season. Alexis Sanchez’s tendency towards surrendering possession has seen him left out of Arsenal’s last two Premier League games.
Mesut Özil’s form has been expounded upon most notably. I’m struck by a quote from Jose Mourinho last summer upon Arsenal’s capture of Özil. He suggested that, “Özil is the player that immediately completes the puzzle of your team.” Yet in the framework of this tactical jiggery-pokery, Arsenal have managed to turn the German into the team’s biggest enigma. Meanwhile, we haven’t been able to get Aaron Ramsey and Jack Wilshere to perform well simultaneously because both players like to occupy the same positions.
Ramsey and Wilshere have been Newton’s third law made flesh. A good performance from one leads to an equal and opposite performance from the other. Ramsey’s recent hamstring twang is a gift horse Wilshere ought not to look in the mouth. I’ve the impression a number of these strategic tweaks have been made for his benefit. With Ramsey likely to be absent for a few weeks, Wilshere should get a run in his favoured position without the Welshman crossing his path, like a black cat on a driveway.
A run of form similar to that which Ramsey was able to conjure last autumn would make things very interesting. But there again it does not resolve that eternal struggle between the long and short term when Ramsey returns. If the manager is convinced he can play Wilshere and Ramsey together, Aaron’s absence is unlikely to help establish chemistry between the two. One thing that is certain in my view is that Wilshere’s performances are improving and in that respect, he’s been the only true beneficiary of this new system. So far anyway.
Supporters, by their nature, are cautious about their teams. We’re emotionally invested and this makes us uptight and by extension, conservative. Nothing makes you more conservative than fear. We want a defender brought on to protect that lead with ten minutes left. We want the ball to be cradled next to the corner flag at every opportunity. We want the ball hoofed clear from the penalty area. Managers generally have to try and rise above emotive logic and do what’s best for their teams. As such, any sort of tactical transition that doesn’t yield immediate results is likely to meet opposition.
This is the debate that has been central to the Wenger reign. Arsenal probably surrendered some points in the short term by chiselling an under-performing Aaron Ramsey onto the left flank in 2012. But in the long run, we managed to coax out the world class midfield player that eventually scored the winning goal in an FA Cup Final. Was developing Ramsey, and say, Szczesny and even Fabregas worth the short term pain? Responses and impressions are likely to be mixed.
It could be that Arsenal will be better off with this new system in the long term. It’s not at all unlikely that Wenger will make it work and eventually, we’ll have the likes of Wilshere, Ramsey, Alexis, Cazorla and Özil simultaneously firing in the same starting XI, which would make us one of the league’s most dangerous teams. Especially when you factor the likes of Walcott, Welbeck and Oxlade-Chamberlain into the fringes of the equation. Maybe in a few months time, we will all be delighted with this new strategy.
Wenger has tactically changed tack before with more immediate results. Most notably in March 2013 following a defeat to Tottenham Hotspur that left our top 4 aspirations hanging by a thread. Wenger reconfigured the defence and made his team more secure with instant rewards. He did something very similar in the spring of 2009 with Arsenal trailing Aston Villa in 4th and ruing an injury to Cesc Fabregas. He began to play two defensive midfielders in Denilson and Alex Song and the Arsenal ship anchored in the Champions League bay once more.
However, it’s easier to make more conservative strategies cement. Reconfiguring the attack ordinarily requires time to ‘click.’ The question is whether Wenger has made a mistake in trying to implement a new style at this juncture? I think we’ve certainly surrendered some points as a result and should Arsenal lose to Chelsea on Sunday, they will trail Mourinho’s men by 9 points. It’s hard to see the Gunners forging a title challenge from those ashes. With such a short pre season, the adjustment always likely to be fraught with issues.
Though he’s been a very productive and exciting addition so far, it’s made Alexis Sanchez’s acclimatisation a little more protracted. He has been parachuted into an attack that doesn’t yet know its identity. There’s also a question of momentum surrendered. The impetus of May’s FA Cup win, of the capture of Sanchez, even of the Teutonic trio’s World Cup win, all seem to have fizzled out in this fug of transition.
Most Arsenal fans and doubtless players too were looking at a roster that featured Sanchez, Özil, three World Cup winners, a blossoming Aaron Ramsey and a returning Theo Walcott as title challengers. It didn’t feel like we needed to wait for jam tomorrow anymore. But now, unwittingly, we find ourselves in a kind of transition period again. Of course, Wenger may well turn out to be right in the long run. (There again, it may never work and he may prove to be totally wrong).
Maybe if we’d persisted with last season’s model we’d have been doomed to fall just short continuously. Maybe this alteration will be the one step back that facilitates the last leap forward. I, for one, promise to link this blog again if we are crowned champions in 2015-16. But for now, in the short term, it feels a little bit like the jam is being put back onto the top shelf, out of reach. At least until we’ve grown a couple more inches. LD.
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