 Thursday, 29th Mar 2012 09:00 by Clive Whittingham Since the rest of English football cottoned onto Arsene Wenger’s revolutionary methods of team preparation Arsenal haven’t won a trophy. So, LFW wonders, what now? OverviewOccasionally somebody will say to me; “have you seen the latest Brad Pitt film?” And I treat that question much the same as when I’m asked if I’ve emptied the cat litter tray yet – no, and as long as I can find something else to do instead that situation isn’t likely to change. However, faced with a nine hour long haul flight to Miami in January and with my initial plans to pop four sleeping pills and forget about the whole sorry experience scuppered by insomnia so powerful it can even defeat medical science I decided, through a haze of drugs and free scones with a pot of jam, that I would give his latest movie Moneyball a try. That I’m now reading the Michael Lewis book it was based on should tell you immediately how good I thought it was. For those unfamiliar with Lewis’ work, Pitt’s film or baseball in general allow me to try and summarise this as quickly as possible so I can start drawing Arsenal comparisons. Billy Beane was a high school baseball player who the traditional scouts of the sport believed had all the potential and assets to be a Major League player. They made him big promises and persuaded him to turn his back on his preferred option of Stanford University to sign for the New York Mets where he flopped. The reason for his failure when so many people expected so much of him mystified Beane, ate him up inside and forced him into early retirement whereupon he immediately moved into scouting and, later, general managing of baseball teams himself. Here, backed by an army of maths graduates and statisticians who knew little about baseball, he revolutionised the sport. Beane found that traditional scouts were judging young players on looks, body shape, speed and other things totally irrelevant to becoming a successful baseball player. Coaches, pundits and the league itself judged its hitters on their batting average as if baseball were an individual sport, rather than the on base percentage which was of more benefit to the team as a whole. By ignoring what players looked like or how old they were, and paying attention to their on-base percentage when nobody else cared about it Beane was able to assemble a team of, essentially, fat blokes with odd backgrounds that no other team wanted that then went out and beat traditionally assembled squads built on four times as much money. The Oakland Athletics, a team with one of baseball’s lowest annual salaries, thereby became one of the sport’s great overachievers. The film ends with Beane (Pitt) reporting to Boston Red Sox owner, and now Liverpool chairman, John W Henry who makes him an unbelievable offer to perform the same miracle at Fenway Park. He refuses and returns to Oakland to continue his work, happily ever after. The problem Beane has had since then is Boston, and every other team in the sport, adopted his methods. Now everybody looks at on base percentage rather than if a player has “the good face” and that previous advantage Oakland and Beane had of realising something before everybody else did has gone. While books have been written and films made, Oakland’s performances have declined. Which brings me onto Arsene Wenger. Here we had a man who walked into the most traditional football club in a country that considers itself to be the motherland of the sport at a time when the dressing room was dominated by big name, long serving, old fashioned, set in their ways professional players: David Seaman, Lee Dixon, Nigel Winterburn, Tony Adams, Martin Keown, Ian Wright and so on. This was a team that had been together for a very long time indeed and here was a studious Frenchman in small glasses arriving from the Japanese J-League to tell them that, in fact, they’ve been doing things wrong for all those years. It remains something of a surprise that he wasn’t laughed out of the marble halls in the same way Roy Hodgson was at Liverpool – perhaps in the present day where player power dominates he might well have been.
Like Beane, the sermons Wenger preached weren’t exactly revelatory. Ten pints of Carling Black Label and a nose full of coke on the Thursday night followed by a large fried breakfast on game day is not ideal preparation for a football match – no shit Sherlock. But baseball had existed for years believing you took good looking boys from high school who could hit rather than squat kids from college that could get on base without questioning it, and English footballers behaved like this because they simply always had. It needed somebody like Wenger to come in and not only try to alter that culture but to be successful with his own idea for things to change for good. Wenger took players people said were almost finished, like Adams, players that other teams apparently had no use for, like Patrick Viera, and players he felt other teams weren’t using correctly, like Thierry Henry, and he showed them how they should prepare for games and eat at mealtimes. In 2003/04 they won the Premiership for the third time under Wenger without losing a single league game in the entire season – they were rightly called the invincibles. Wenger has since been lauded as one of the greatest managers the country has ever seen, and a standard to judge others by. But slowly in recent times an unhappy statistic has crept up on him to the point now where it hangs over him and the club like an omnipresent storm cloud – Arsenal haven’t won a trophy of any sorts for almost seven years now. What makes this extra strange is that, like Oakland, Wenger’s initial ideals enabled Arsenal to defeat clubs like Manchester United who had vastly superior resources because they played in a huge home ground while the Gunners were stuck at 38,000 capacity Highbury. That has since been rectified, with Arsenal moving to a tailor made stadium of more than twice that size closer to the railway tracks in that particular part of north London – Wenger even had input on the design. But the methods used to bring success against the odds now aren’t bringing pots when they’re expected. The problem is everybody saw what Wenger did and copied it. Now everybody eats like Arsenal players, takes the same supplements as Arsenal players, trains like Arsenal players – they’re like the gold standard, but if everybody is doing it it sort of renders the advantage gained by it useless. You’ll be punished if you don’t adapt these attitudes, but you won’t be rewarded if you do because everybody else already has. Wenger has compounded the situation somewhat by going away from the experienced, physical side he used to have with added magic from the likes of Dennis Bergkamp and Marc Overmars, in favour of a bizarre set up where the squad is dominated by little, tippy tappy, easily bullied, attacking midfield players. Arsenal have been crying out for one nasty centre forward, one nasty central midfielder and one nasty centre half throughout the seven years trophy drought and they’re still waiting. How frustrating it must be to watch a team who know is only two players away from genuine greatness every single season. If Wenger is to stay beyond this season, and there have been suggestions that he won’t, then once again he needs to find something that nobody else has spotted and remorselessly exploit it. InterviewFor the second time this season, and in all likelihood the final time for a quite a while, we welcome Arsenal fan David Hatchard back to LFW for his point of view on the Gunners ahead of this weekend’s game. Seven wins in a row, I suppose the big shame is that the run started once you were out of contention for the major trophies. What do you put that turnaround down to? I don't think it is a coincidence that our change in fortune has coincided with our injury list shortening considerably. For the first time this season we have been able to field our first choice defence on a consistent basis. You could argue that the pressure is off the team now that they are out of the hunt for any trophies but I think that would be harsh as there is plenty of pressure on finishing in the top four. Arsenal. One man team. Discuss/defend/agree I would definitely agree that without RVP things could have been a lot worse for Arsenal this season. When I spoke to you in December I said that if he got injured Arsenal wouldn't have much chance of finishing in the top four but if he stayed fit, then we would have a chance. So far, thankfully, he has stayed fit. However, I do feel that this Arsenal team would have adapted without RVP. No, we would not currently be sitting third in the table but I do still think we would have been at least challenging for a top four spot. Are we seeing a new dawn here or is it just papering over cracks that will re-emerge next season if not dealt with? Over the last few weeks it has been very encouraging for Arsenal fans to see the improvement that has been made this season. The start to the season was disastrous but there are signs that these players could be a success. There is a quality core to the team but we always seem to be one injury away from a crisis and that is how it has been for the last five or six years. An injury to RVP, Vermaelen or Szczesny would no doubt in my mind lead to a dip in form unless we can bolster the team with some quality replacements. I'm afraid Chamakh/Park, Djourou and Fabianski are not adequate replacements for any Premiership team. What three things do Arsenal need to do to start winning trophies again? One obvious step (which we failed with last year) is to make sure we tie down our best players with new contracts i.e. Van Persie. What sort of message would it send out if we sold him as well this summer? A couple of quality signings is also needed as well as selling some of the fringe players. Easier said than done I know but it would be nice to have a quality backup striker for when Van Persie is inevitably injured/sold. A decent backup keeper as well as a better replacement for Djourou would be good too. The last thing we need is a bit of luck on the injury front please. Let’s hope we don't have any of our best players injured all of next season - I'm thinking of Wilshere by the way. If Arsene Wenger were to leave this summer, as has been rumoured, would you be that upset? Who would you replace him with? I would be disappointed if Wenger left in the summer. I think he feels as though he has unfinished business with the club. After his initial success with Arsenal I think he would like to get at least one more trophy before he leaves. At the moment I cannot see another manager who could do a better job. I certainly think the recipe for success is to stick with managers and not to sack them as soon as there is a slightly bad run. Apart from Van Persie, who have been the stand out players this season? And who have been the weak links? Chamberlain has excited the fans despite not actually making many appearances this season. He certainly seems to have the quality to make a big impact in the future. Koscielny has been one of the unsung heroes this season after an average first season in the Premiership and Szczesny has proved to be an accomplished goalkeeper who will stick around for many years to come. Rosicky after a poor first half to the season has been amazing over the last twp months and Walcott has been as inconsistent as ever; brilliant one moment, terrible the next. The main weak links in the Arsenal squad don't seem to be playing at the moment which is probably why we have gone on a good run. Arshavin has left on loan, hopefully never to return, Djourou is only making brief appearances and Santos has been out injured. ManagerCriticising Arsene Wenger for his work at Arsenal is like criticising Winston Churchill for not winning the war quicker. When you look at the club he arrived at in 1996 and compare it to the Arsenal of today it’s scarcely recognisable – and almost everything has changed for the better. But trophies are needed, and Arsenal just don’t look like winning one. Wenger was a mediocre footballer in his day, retiring early after six years at Strasbourg to complete his studies at the city’s university. Initially he wasn’t much cop as a manager either, relegated with Nancy-Lorraine in 1987, but he made his name at Monaco in the early 1990s by guiding them to a league title, three runners up spots and the Cup Winners Cup final. It would have been better, had their main rivals of the time Marseille not been beating them to titles and cups by way of bribes and illegal financial payments. In Japan he won the League Cup and Super Cup with Grampus and was named J League Manager of the Year before moving to Arsenal in 1996. His appointment at Highbury was a curious one. Few had ever really heard of him but Arsenal were so keen to get their man they waited several months while he completed his duties in the Far East and he only arrived in September of the 1996/97 season. He had become friends with the chairman David Dein, apparently after meeting first of all at a match between Arsenal and QPR in 1988, and between them they changed the entire direction and ethos of a famous but somewhat tired old club. Arsenal won a league title under George Graham 1991, famously beating Liverpool 2-0 at Anfield with a crucial last minute Michael Thomas goal to seal it, but they’d since been left behind by Manchester United and others as the new Premiership era dawned. Graham became involved in dodgy transfer practises, taking back handers from agent Rune Hauge in exchange for signing his clients like John Jensen, and in the 1994-95 season they lost 3-1 twice to Queens Park Rangers. While United signed Andrei Kanchelskis, Eric Cantona and others Arsenal signed John Hartson and Chris Kiwomya. Despite memorable runs in the European Cup Winners Cup (winners in 1994, finalists in 1995) they were unmistakably also-rans in the league.
Wenger changed everything: attitude, diet, style of play, mentality, the training ground, the stadium and the ethos. He changed the British game in many ways as other clubs sought to instil his methods and ideals in their own squads. When Wenger arrived in the UK managers like Peter Reid had top flight jobs, now even the likes of Sam Allardyce have turned to sports science and vast backroom staffs to support their teams. The days of light ales on Thursday nights, fried breakfasts on Saturday mornings and screaming in players’ faces if things weren’t going well was over. Arsenal won the league title in 1998, 2002 and 2004 – the latter was achieved with an unbeaten 38 game season. They were runners up in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2005. Wenger has won the FA Cup four times and been to the finals of the UEFA Cup and Champions League. He took players like Patrick Viera and Thierry Henry from foreign reserve teams at bargain prices and made them international stars. He not only prolonged the careers of the ageing pros he found at Highbury such as Tony Adams but he made them better players – 20 year veterans somehow found an extra level of performance under Wenger. That it needed a Frenchman to come in and suggest to the English players that perhaps ten pints and a nose full of coke wasn’t ideal pre-match preparation is ludicrous, but sadly true. He is rightly hailed as one of the all time great managers, of both Arsenal and in English football in general. Arsenal, a club that was managed by Bruce Rioch and regularly selected Andy Linighan and Glenn Helder to a club that has made the Champions League for ten consecutive seasons. But there is a feeling that his time at the club may be coming to an end. Without a trophy in seven years can the professor fight his way back to the cutting edge and bring silverware back to Arsenal or is it time for somebody new to come and take advantage of his excellent work? Scout ReportThe LFW Scouting File for the 2011/12 season was, until recently, pretty scathing of Arsenal. Each report reads like a long list of problems and faults with the team that were often covered up in the games I watched by the fact that Robin Van Persie was playing in attack. I’d say the key to beating Arsenal is to stop Van Persie play, but then that would be in the ITV pundits’ field of stating the bleeding obvious. He has 37 goals in 45 appearances this season in all competitions which suggests that, presuming everybody has noticed he’s quite good and tried to do something about it, it’s not actually that easy to bring him to a halt. The difficult thing about the Dutchman is he is a scorer of all kinds of goals – tap ins, long range shots, poacher’s efforts, individual pieces of brilliance and so on. Les Ferdinand was very much like this in his prime, scoring as many from 33 yards as he did from three, and it makes a defender’s life impossible. Go close and he’ll turn you with pace, stand off and he’ll skin you with tricks, keep him to shooting from long range and he’ll probably score anyway. The other bad news is that all the other weaknesses around him are starting to dry up somewhat. Arsenal have now won seven games in a row and players like Theo Walcott and Thomas Rosicky, who two months ago both looked like they’d scarcely played the game before, are suddenly in the form of their lives. In Walcott’s case it’s a confidence thing – I saw him push a ball past a full back into open grass and try and burn him for pace recently, like he used to do two years ago but rarely bothers to even try these days. Arsenal now have threats from all manner of areas and given that QPR still lost to them back at Christmas when they were totally reliant on Van Persie that doesn’t bode well.
I watched them recently against Newcastle where I thought they were fortunate to win with a last minute goal. Not for the first time this season I’m forced to concede that Alan Pardew probably laid down a pretty handy blueprint for potential success against our future opponents which we would do well to follow. Arsenal made life relatively simple for the Magpies that night by attacking almost exclusively down the right flank with Walcott – he didn’t have a bad game, but it became easy for Newcastle to predict where the ball was going. And Newcastle enjoyed success early by playing a very high defensive line and five man midfield which squeezed the space in the middle of the pitch that Arsenal love to play killer passes around in. But such a high tempo, high pressing game is difficult to maintain for 90 minutes and by stoppage time they were so out on their feet that Vermaelen was able to bag a late winner. Another positive is the Arsenal defence will always give you a chance. They’ve had well documented problems with injuries back there this season, especially at full back, but personally I’m rarely impressed with whoever they pick at centre half – Vermaelen, Koscielny, Mertersacker and others all leave a lot to be desired. Against Newcastle they looked likely to concede against a team with one up front and duly did, against Spurs in victory they were all over the place at the back all day and eventually settled for the Kevin Keegan method of defending which is just to pile forward in ever greater numbers. Mediocre teams playing poorly have still found goals easy to come by against Arsenal this season. I’ve repeatedly noted on Arsenal’s sheet this season that Vermaelen, Mertersacker and Koscielny look vulnerable to any ball played in behind them. Against Sunderland at home and Marseille away in the Champions League I again found myself repeatedly noting that any sort of speed in behind or ball into the channel was causing them a problem – in France I felt Koscielny actually covered Mertesacker and got him out of jail a few times in what was otherwise a fine team performance and notable victory. But the clear and present danger of Robin van Persie is obviously the main concern overall. Links >>> Official Website >>> Travel Guide >>> Arse Blog >>> Arsenal Mania Forum >>> Gooners World Forum >>> Online Arsenal Forum >>> Gunning Hawk Blog >>> Arsenal Land Blog Tweet @loftforwords Pictures – Action Images Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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