By Merlion
October 9 2016

When Arsene Wenger arrived in September 22, 1996, Arsenal FC was a typical English team featuring ‘hard-tackling box-to-box one-footed midfielders’, and burly centre-halves and centre-forwards, one-dimensional and lacking versatility.  He started to build his first Arsenal team with the French Spine - Bergy, Vieira, Anelka, Henry, WIltord, Pires, Ljungberg, Overmars, Petit, Gilberto and Edu who all had the physique to cope with the frenzy of English football; and with the skills and vision to play Continental Football. Wenger Ball was born.  

It was 4-4-1-1 attacking football with Bergy as the shadow striker or the one and only “trequartista” in the Arsene Wenger Era at Arsenal FC Bergy’s role was to link play between midfield and attack, and being a fulcrum in attacking plays. Bergy would drift between the lines, setting up visionary passes that set co-striker and attacking midfielders free, and to be a goal threat himself. This unique collection of flair players developed harmony on and off the pitch and telepathic understanding on it. This team efficiency won three league titles and four FA Cups. In the period following this success Arsene Wenger was unable to find and develop any of his youngsters, including Fabregas, Jack Wilshere and Aaron Ramsey into another “trequartista”.

 Arsene Wenger built his second Arsenal team from 2005/06 to 2009/10 as a continuation of 4-4-1-1 WengerBall but with Fabregas as the fulcrum. It reached its zenith during 2007/08 with a balanced midfield of Rosicky-Flamini-Fabregas-Helb with forwards in Van Persie, Adebayor, Eduardo and a young Walcott. But Wenger was handicapped by:

#1 – Lacking funds to strengthen the squad and needed to develop limited players from within;

#2 – Injury-prone players;

#3 – Disloyal players or mercenary players like Adebayor, Hleb and Flamini (Ray Parlour claims that he knew that dressing room was very unsettled during this time. Fabregas would not talk to Gallas)

#4 – Substandard defenders and goal-keepers rendered midfield/defence vulnerable to counter-attacks.

 Arsene Wenger built his 3rd Arsenal Team from Post-Fabregas Era, 2010/11 to 2015/16, trying to emulate Tiki-Taka Football but ending up as Crab Football. The team was disjointed without coherence amongst the three lines, vulnerable to swift counter-attacks, a soft centre vulnerable to high crosses and lobs into the box, and autobahns at both flanks with full-backs caught high up the pitch, always being exposed to 2 or 3 opponents attacking down the flanks and literally cutting into our box.

 Wenger-Ball was an offshoot of Rinus Michels “Attacking Pressure Football World Cup 1974”, an evolution form 1970 Totaalvoetbal.  Rinus Michels “Team Building” [2001] explained it as follows:

                “The main aim of the attacking pressure football, the ‘hunt’, was: regaining possession as soon as possible after the ball was lost on the opponents’ half during an attack. The ‘trapping’ of the opponents on their own half is only then possible when all the lines are pushed up and play close together. This automatically means that you give away a lot of space on your own half and you are vulnerable for counter-attacks.”

 In Wenger-Ball, defending involves the entire team and places great demands on individual and team tactical awareness. But the most crucial element that Arsene Wenger failed from 2005/06 to 2015/16 is that he never had continuity and stability with a settled squad with excellent players to develop team tactical awareness. Rinus Michels said it all: “An absolute prerequisite, to master such a team tactical aspect, is that all the players possess a positive mentality, including the substitutes. It is a collective assignment. When the coach can convince the players of the need of this assignment, then the team tactical assignment also becomes an excellent bonding mechanism concerning the team spirit.”

 Guardiola Barcelona was able to play Tiki-Taka Football is due to the team building around Leo Messi with Xavi-Iniesta patiently building plays in support of Messi. Messi is a fantasisti; an attacking player in a free role due to his unpredictability across the final third, ability to create visionary pass, move and dribble brilliantly, and basically unplayable and penetrating defences easily. Will FC Barcelona achieve such high-level of successes playing Tiki-Taka Football without Leo Messi?

 The 2010 CL Cup semi-final took another tactical evolution with Inter beating FC Barcelona by playing Negative Football. Mourinho instructed his team to defend deep, ceding possession to F C Barcelona and beat them with counter-attacks.

 Luis Enrique had evolved Guardiola Tiki-Taka Football into Messi-Suarez-Neymar or M.S.N. 4-3-3 Attacking Football. Both Neymar and Suarez agreed to play as seconda punta (second/support striker)/winger) in support of Messi with their fluid movement and interchanging with Messi as the conductor. The sheer individual brilliancy of this Trio has the ability to counter Negative Football, i.e. on their day, they are unplayable.

 Copying M.S.N. Attacking Football, Arsene Wenger deployed Alexis Sanchez as his fantastisti. This is his 4th Arsenal Team playing with flair, but with a greater ability to always pressurise opponents in ‘hunting’ for the ball. Arsene Wenger got a massive stroke of luck with the emergence of Alex Iwobi and a resurrected Theo Walcott so ably supporting Alexis Sanchez as seconda punta.

 In another twist, Arsene Wenger injected unpredictability into his attacks with the holding midfielder in Coquelin given the license to roam forward to join the attack, and Cazorla sitting deep as the holding player. The pace of Cazorla complements his fine reading of the game to snub all counter-attacks, to anticipate and breaking-up counter-attacks. The emergence of Mustafi helped too as his dynamism in stepping smoothly into midfield helps out Cazorla in midfield. But it is still work in-progress and still vulnerable to counter-attacks. E.g. Hull City bypassed our entire midfield with quick hoof-balls out of defence leaving centre-backs to deal with a quick and physical forward.

 Arsene Wenger was most successful against Basel and Chelsea playing an open attacking football with our Forward-3 finding spaces for their intricate quick and short passing game. They cannot cope with the movements of our Forward-3 cutting at will into their box.

 But more defensive-oriented and tactically-astute managers like Raineri and Dyche found the weakness in our embryonic Iwobi-Alexis-Walcott or I.A.W. Attacking Football. They realised these two glaring vulnerabilities in Arsene Wenger 4th Team:

#1 – Negative Football with two banks of players in the 20-yard box will effectively nullify Arsenal quick-passing game;

#2 – Arsenal is still vulnerable to Route 101 Football counter-attacks as demonstrated by Hull City and even Burnley.

 Raineri Leicester City always deploy three banks of 4-4-2 in their own half when they lost the ball. All three banks are within 20 yards of each other, effectively squeezed the playing space for Arsenal to play their passing game. Leicester City players, with forwards and midfielders always the first line of defence to harass Arsenal attacking down the flanks and the full-back commanding the space and pick-up the loose balls.

 Similarly, attacking down the middle will need to pass through three banks of players, who are staying within 20 yards of each other, commanding the space to prevent Arsenal from getting into the rhythm of their passing game.

 Footballers are trained with greater endurance and muscle aerobics to go box-to-box for 90+ minutes or more. It is no more like 2007/08 season where we passed the ball to death and ran our opponents ragged such that by the 80th minute, they would be mentally and physically exhausted, unable to command the space as before. Hence, we won the majority of our games during 1st half of season by 1-0, scoring late goal and usually after 80th minute.In the Euro 2016 Final, French Flair was no match for Portuguese Box-to-Box athletics. Even during extra-time, those Portuguese full-backs can still run box-to-box.

 The other aspect is premiership managers are no more your typical ’up-and-at-them‘ English manager but managers (both British and foreign) who are well-schooled in modern European football tactics, in no small part contributed by the arrival of Arsene Wenger in 1996. These modern premiership managers had coached spatial awareness into their players to command space and to deny space for passing teams like Arsenal FC from playing.

 Early days yet but Arsenal are fast emerging as a serious title-contender that can go the distance with the players playing quicker passes, ‘quick of thought’ and being coached into spatial awareness, the ability to command space and deny it to opponents. Plus, we have that knack of champion – the ability to play badly and win ugly games with a large dose of luck in scoring late winners at the very last kick of the game.