In the end, it was hard not to think that the match hinged on Jack Wilshere. Arsenal’s 2-1 defeat to Manchester United on Saturday might have had a more promising end had Wilshere buried one of his two good chances after an energetic start, instead the match turned after his injury, fouled after bearing down on goal again. A minute after he had departed, United went down the other end and scored. It was a poor goal for Arsenal to concede with Wojciech Szczesny culpable, though perhaps what was most concerning was that it happened after a stoppage in play where Arsenal had to maintain focus. Instead, as they have been wont to do this season, they shot themselves in the foot when dominating, through profligacy or a lack of concentration.
That the game arguably turned on Jack Wilshere’s miss probably excuses the finishing of Arsenal’s main goal-getter, Danny Welbeck, or who should be, but I’ll get return to that later. But back to Jack Wilshere; ah, what a curiously talented player you are.
He’s immensely gifted, that much is obvious, but Wilshere seems get through matches, not by an advanced game intelligence or a guided sense of intuition, but rather, his idiosyncrasies. He’s not confident enough yet to pick up the ball with his back to play, deep in his own half. Therefore it’s hard to see him becoming, in the immediate future, a controlling midfielder of the elite quality. Then there is his constant need to run with the ball, something which Arsene Wenger tried to get the most out of in an advanced position. His missed chance, though, was a bit of a surprise, not particularly because he’s an adept finisher, but considering how good he is with the front of his foot – something it is predicted we will see more of in the future.
Of course, watching Wilshere bear down on goal, you would have noticed his other idiosyncrasy, his tendency to delay, to wait for the moment for the opponent to blink, before quickly shifting the ball away. In this case, David de Gea did blink first, falling on the floor when Wilshere perhaps should have shot. But at that fraction of a second, Wilshere took his eye off the ball and could only tamely shoot the ball straight at the United keeper.
A lack of cutting edge was a large part of the story of why Arsenal failed to get a result from this match, with Welbeck the other player most culpable. His two league goals in nine matches is a poor return for a striker of the highest level, though at the same time, it was expected that there would be some bedding in period. Nevertheless, Welbeck has been under pressure to settle quickly yet, there is a dormant feeling that he is just too nice for a top-level striker.
Arsene Wenger says that it is no wonder that the best strikers in the world are South American at the moment, because there is a hardened edge they have acquired growing up close to abject poverty or in unfavourable conditions. Even non-South Americans with a known killer instinct have been brought up in harsh upbringings: Wayne Rooney and Zlatan Ibrahimovic to name two. Welbeck, growing up in a community where everybody more or less knew each other, perhaps is not conducive to that hunger.
Still, what is most frustrating about Welbeck is that he has all the tools to become a high-class striker except, as of yet, the forcefulness that the best possess. It’s a difficult thing to describe; it’s like a sort of sorcery that the top strikers have to bend defenders to the will. Consider Welbeck’s closing down from the front: he frequently puts defenders under pressure with his presence, but tends to let himself down with the next action. Forcefulness too, is implied by his pass success rate, which at 85% stands out for a striker, but at the same time, it highlights the lack of risks he’s willing to take because forcing things to happen, instigating forward momentum, is a large part of a striker’s game.
My simple theory of why he hasn’t quite made the step up so to speak – not necessarily in terms of United to Arsenal but from squad player to starter – is because of the lack of space he has. When people say that strikers from lower down with good goalscoring records should easily make the step up because the quality of service is better, I actually think that’s the not the case; rather, it’s the lack of space to manoeuvre which is the key thing to master. It’s the opposite for defenders who generally will have to defend larger spaces now that they move to a bigger club, be it bringing the ball our or playing a higher line. Goalkeepers too, who have, not just less action to face, but most of it is three or four yards off their goal-line.
Taking advantage of space better is how Wenger proposes Welbeck to improve, invoking comparisons to Thierry Henry. He says: “With Manchester United, he was playing on the left-hand side. I noticed he had the same qualities as Thierry Henry and I thought that I should play him as a striker. He is quick, young and knows how to score goals, and I thought he could success as a striker. He scores like Henry and his is starting to operate the channels. You know the first quality of a striker is to go into these empty spaces where you can be dangerous and he still needs to improve that.”
Thierry Henry himself probably puts it best though, when he says in Lonely at the Top by Philippe Auclair: “I’d say 40 per cent of my game is [based on instinct]. But I always know where my team-mates are before I receive the ball. If you can win time on the pitch – have a look before you receive the ball, see things before everyone else – that’s the difference between an average player and a player who illuminates the game.”
Against United, it wasn’t that there was a lack of space per se. Louis van Gaal’s team played compactly but not necessarily that deep except towards the end where last-ditch defending was required. Instead, there was space to be exploited between the channels, in between the two wide centre-backs and the wing-backs, which Arsenal in the first-half continued to probe. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Alexis Sanchez were superb as creators, with the latter testing the backline with diagonal passes and Oxlade-Chamberlain relentlessly running at Tyler Blackett.
Welbeck, though, perhaps got in the most promising positions of the forwards, often 1v1 with Paddy McNair but lacking that killer edge. He went round McNair once and forced De Gea into a neat stop, and in the first-half, twisted and turned the defender three times before his cross eventually led to Wilshere’s spat with Fellaini. It was, though, Welbeck’s two more difficult chances that highlighted his rough edges; an Henry-like backheeled effort against Charlton which was everything but for the execution, as it harmlessly spun wide, and a scuffed effort when put through in between the channels which he should have done better with.
When United scored their second goal, it exposed again familiar problems. Wenger at the end said he didn’t know why there was only one defender back for the counter-attack, but if not merely tactical, it indicates a psychological factor why Arsenal are so susceptible to the counter. Because so much of Arsenal’s play is predicated on passing the ball well and playing attractive football, thus creating a perception of superiority that is often enough to overwhelm teams lower down.
But against the top sides the players (and the manager) seem so anxious to make a stylistic impression that when things are not going their way, confidence can sap away very quickly, culminating in inexplicable collapses. Even Arteta alluded to such after the game: “When you are inside the box, and you cannot manage to score in that many situations, you cannot expect to win a football game,” he said. “On another day, we would have won the game very comfortably. We cannot forget that [what we have done well] because it creates a lack of belief and confidence if you take a lot of negatives.”
At times, Arsenal’s solution was to pass the ball faster, and to find another gear when it seemed impossible to find one. Indeed, there is an interview with Louis van Gaal in his time at AZ Alkmaar which says that to play dominant football it’s not about how fast the ball moves but that it moves from side to side so that gaps can open.
At the end of the match, Wenger concurred, saying Arsenal should have been more patient. The added benefit is that patience perhaps would have guarded Arsenal on the counter better but with space to exploit, it was hard to resist the temptation not to play the killer ball. Alexis Sanchez ended up with a 70% pass completion rate (29/41 passes) though nearly all were passes attempting to transplant tempo in the final third. More alarming perhaps is the form of Aaron Ramsey who tried to bring serenity to his play by curbing his runs but clearly he is a player lacking in confidence.
At the moment, he and Wilshere are letting Arsenal down because they symbolise the team so much with their promise. So far this season, it’s frustrating that it’s been unfulfilled.
