Graham Lister reflects on Arsenal’s season and Arsene Wenger’s footballing philosophy, and considers the implications for next season…
Arsenal’s results yesterday and last Tuesday confirmed that their quest for silverware will end empty-handed for a third consecutive season, and in the wake of those two gallant defeats the vultures have gathered to pick over the bones of the Gunners’ campaign, with scribes sharpening their quills to puncture the reputation of manager Arsene Wenger.
It is a truism that the line between victory and failure is a very fine one, and as the critics lace into Wenger for an alleged catalogue of errors and personality flaws, it is worth bearing in mind that his Arsenal side have just played two of the most compelling games of the season - against two other excellent teams - and come within a whisker of emerging triumphant from both.
Had they repelled Liverpool’s attack from the restart after Emmanuel Adebayor’s equaliser in the thrilling Champions League quarter-final second leg at Anfield last Tuesday, they would probably be preparing for a semi-final showdown with Chelsea. Instead they conceded a penalty and crashed out of the competition.
At Old Trafford on Sunday they out-played defending Premier League champions and current leaders Manchester United for large periods of the game with some scintillating football, took the lead but again conceded a daft penalty within minutes of going ahead, and finished up losing 2-1 and effectively consigning their title bid to the dustbin of heroic failures.
Had neither penalty been conceded, it is likely we would still be talking about Arsenal’s bid for a famous Double. But although that is a narrow margin of error, it is a significant one.
They did concede those penalties, and then lost the matches in heart-breaking fashion. But if there is anything positive, from Arsenal’s point of view, to come out of a traumatic week, it is firstly that they proved they are not only a good team but close to being a winning team; and secondly that their failure will hopefully force them to address their deficiencies.
‘If’ is a massive word in the world of sport, two letters that convey oceans of emotion and endless hand-wringing about what might have been. For Arsenal, the hard fact is that they came up just short in the final reckoning, but any criticism needs to be kept firmly in perspective.
Indeed, it would not be surprising to hear that Wenger has been contemplating Rudyard Kipling’s classic poem ‘If’ since the final whistle blew at Old Trafford.
‘If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too…’
Critics luxuriating in the benefit of hindsight are now pillorying Wenger for his season’s strategy which, until fairly recently, appeared to be well conceived and implemented.
His style of football - thrilling, attacking, entertaining football, which so illuminated the first two thirds of the campaign and also lit up Anfield and Old Trafford this week - is now being branded ‘naive’.
His emphasis on youth is being ridiculed and his reluctance either to pay inflated fees on ready-made ’stars’ in the summer or to panic-buy in a seller’s market in January has been taken down and used as evidence against him.
He is also being accused of ‘losing’ the Arsenal dressing room; and a further allegation, that he is using the need to be prudent - following Arsenal’s expenditure on Emirates Stadium - as an excuse for failing to match big-spending Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool, has also been hurled Wenger’s way.
There may be a grain of truth in each of these claims, but none is entirely fair.
There is nothing ‘naive’ about a fluent, fast-flowing passing game - football is, after all, entertainment. But it does need a clinical end-product, and to be built on a solid platform. That means sharper finishing and tighter defending than Wenger’s side have displayed since mid-February.
His scouting system, and ability to identify and nurture young talent, has been widely hailed within the UK and beyond these shores as exceptional, though the kids need some experienced heads around them, provided it is the right experience and backed by commensurate ability. Alan Hansen was famously proved wrong when he said “You’ll never win anything with kids;” but the Manchester United side that made him look foolish in 1995-96 also contained Schmeichel, Irwin, Pallister, Keane and Cantona.
As for his transfer market dealings, Wenger’s two main summer buys, Bacary Sagna and Eduardo, were widely regarded as among the shrewdest; but both suffered unfortunate injuries that forced them out of the crucial phase of the season. (His biggest buy of the previous summer, Tomas Rosicky, has also been in the treatment room since January). Should he have bought more players before the season started? Well, he did also buy Lassana Diarra, who looked good when he got the chance - mainly in Carling Cup games because Mathieu Flamini and Cesc Fabregas were playing so well in his position that his first-team opportunities were limited.
And that highlights another issue. Yes, it is a squad game now, and the bigger the squad the better. But it is one thing acquiring a large number of players and another one entirely to keep them all happy when only eleven can start any given game, and when players generally (and fans) dislike excessive ‘rotation.’
Diarra was not prepared to wait for his chance. He would rather play than sit around collecting good money but only rarely getting his track-suit off, so he left for Portsmouth at the first opportunity, which was January. He would have been useful to bring in during recent weeks, but he’d gone. Should Wenger have replaced him?
In January, there are few top class players on the market, and those that are tend to be cup-tied as far as the Champions League is concerned. There were few outstanding January deals - but even where good players were available, Arsenal did not look at that time as though they needed them. Given the catalogue of unanticipated injuries that disrupted the second-half of Arsenal’s campaign, more reinforcements would have been handy. Yes, every manager should budget for injuries, suspensions and the deprivations of the mid-season Africa Cup of Nations; but if Wenger had stocked up with squad players last summer he would have been wrestling with Diarra-like discontent among unhappy non-starters, which can damage morale.
On the question of team-spirit, there have been signs that all is not entirely harmonious in the Arsenal camp: the Adebayor-Bendtner spat at White Hart Lane, though that was apparently swiftly resolved; the sniping at his team-mates by Gallas; the frustration vented at certain lapses in concentration defensively; and Sunday morning’s ‘revelations’ that players were now questioning Wenger’s management.
The Frenchman’s dislike of confrontation with, or public criticism of, his players (manifest in his notorious myopia over controversial on-field incidents) is perhaps a weakness of the sort never associated with rival boss Sir Alex Ferguson; yet it has to be said there was little sign of de-motivated or dispirited Arsenal troops in Manchester, or of players pursuing their own agendas at the expense of the team.
‘If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same…’
Has Wenger suddenly become a bad manager? Or his Arsenal side a bad team? Obviously not, though both have taken a series of hard knocks lately and will need to re-group, maintain their unity of purpose and be prepared to prove their critics conclusively wrong next season.
Things nearly went right this season, and if they had, the very faults that Wenger is now accused of would have been trumpeted by the media as virtues that identify him as a winner.
And let’s not forget that Wenger is a winner - a highly successful manager. He is about to complete his twelfth season as Arsenal manager, and every one has seen the Gunners finish in the top four. In eight of those campaigns they were in the top two, winning three Premier League titles. Wenger has also steered them to four FA Cup triumphs and four other major finals. Furthermore, his success has been achieved with highly entertaining, attack-minded sides. In each of the last nine seasons, the lowest number of goals Arsenal have scored has been 96; they have scored more than one hundred in six of those campaigns. By way of contrast, they had past the century mark just once in the 32 seasons before Wenger was appointed.
But success in football is measured by trophies, and Arsenal are about to conclude their third consecutive campaign without one, which is a cause for concern among all Arsenal fans.
However, Wenger has made it clear that, whatever the outcome of any particular season, and however near the near-misses may be, he will not compromise his principles. He will, indeed, treat those two impostors just the same. But that does not mean he won’t learn from this season’s mistakes.
Wenger’s team is not broken, but it does need fine-tuning. Certain weaknesses in the mechanism need strengthening during the summer if the Gunners are to roar back with a challenge for honours that they can sustain to the bitter end next time around:
Defence
Manuel Almunia has had a decent season as Arsenal’s number one despite the constant brooding and sulky presence of the man he displaced, Jens Lehmann. That potentially destabilising factor should be banished with the likely departure of the German keeper this summer, but while both Almunia and Lehmann are good keepers, neither is from the top drawer. Neither is a Seaman, a Schmeichel or a Cech, so perhaps it is worth investing in a mature goalkeeper of real stature, someone who can guarantee a clutch of points every season and inspire the defenders in front of him with confidence.
Those defenders need to sharpen their concentration and improve their organisation as a unit. And they certainly need to work on defending set-pieces. So many goals have been conceded from corners, free-kicks and penalties this season - including four of the last six they’ve let in. Overall, Arsenal have kept just 12 clean sheets all season in the Premier League; Manchester United have kept 20.
The weakness in the centre is the most pressing concern. Kolo Toure and William Gallas looked an effective partnership earlier in the season, but Toure has looked a shadow of his usual self since returning from the Africa Cup of Nations, while Gallas has been strangely inconsistent and temperamentally suspect in recent weeks. Is he the ideal on-field leader for Wenger, or should the Arsenal boss be looking for a new captain? Certainly Gallas lacks the stature, as skipper, of a Tony Adams, Patrick Vieira or Frank McLintock - even of a Pat Rice or a Kenny Sansom.
The injury to Sagna has forced Toure to be switched to right-back in the last few crucial games, which hasn’t helped either Toure or the team. Phillipe Senderos remains error-prone, and those errors proved costly at Anfield, so it will be a major surprise if Wenger doesn’t target a top class central defender this summer. For such a key position, experience would be a huge asset (though few Arsenal fans would complain if he managed to bring Micah Richards to North London).
Midfield
In midfield, Cesc Fabregas has had to carry an increasingly heavy burden and looked to be running on empty during much of March and April. He needs help. Will Mathieu Flamini be there next season? Impossible to say just yet, but certainly Arsenal need that type of player to complement Fabregas. They also need Alex Hleb, if he stays, to be more assertive and to boost his goals tally. Hleb is a gem of a player, an absolute joy to watch when he’s in possession; but ten goals in three seasons is a poor return considering that Robert Pires averaged 14 a season over six seasons in an Arsenal shirt.
Wenger could also do with a fully fit Rosicky, whose link-up play with Hleb and Fabregas earlier in the season was an outstanding feature of Arsenal’s dominant campaign up to February.
Perhaps too it is time to accept that Emmanuel Eboue is an attacking right-back (and as such a deputy for Sagna) but not a midfielder; leaving Theo Walcott on the bench in favour of the unreliable Ivorian has almost become a case of stubbornness triumphing over common sense.
Attack
Up front Wenger has undoubtedly been severely hampered this season. It was bad luck to lose Robin van Persie, who had missed the second half of last season with a broken foot, to a knee injury sustained on Holland international duty in early in October. He has not put in a 90 minute shift since as other injuries have dogged him, and that has been a big loss.
At least Wenger had Eduardo, who began to blossom as the season unfolded, until that fateful tackle by Martin Taylor three minutes into the Gunners’ visit to St Andrews. That was a pivotal moment in Arsenal’s season. They never seemed to recover, mentally, from seeing the Brazilian-born Croatian’s leg so horrendously rearranged. They should have done, but they didn’t, and the season began to slip away from them at that point. Given that Eduardo will be out at least until Christmas, surely Wenger must enter the transfer market in the summer to buy a proven goalscorer?
The statistical bones of Arsenal’s season make stark reading: in all competitions, the Gunners won twelve and drew one of their first 13 matches. Of the most recent 13, they’ve managed only two wins, drawing seven and losing four. A clear enough case of running out of fuel – and fresh players.
Wenger will be more aware of the problems than anyone, and surely has his own ideas about the solutions. I would not presume to do his job for him, but those who believe that his brand of football and his philosophy on the game deserve to be rewarded with trophies, will hope he can make the adjustments necessary to ensure that when next season kicks off, Arsenal will be challenging at the top again - not just during the Autumn, but for the long haul.
Graham Lister
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