Hamza Ali Baksh
Some time ago I commented on a submission on this site saying “All I want is a team full of players who are effective and committed.”
Week after week, while watching us play, I’ve been constantly asking myself how effective the players at our beloved club are, and I keep coming up with a very disappointingly short list of those who can truly claim to be effective. You might notice that I’ve left out commitment… I’ll get to that in a bit.
So let’s start with the obvious statement that seems not to apply at the Arsenal of late: any football player takes his position in a team in order to help it attain its objective, which is usually one or more of the following three functions: to score a goal, create a goal, or to stop the opposition from doing one or both of the aforementioned. Occasionally, a player is in the team to advance its off-the-field position (perhaps a lesser team may sign a player to ‘buy’ the support of a certain market to advance its financials, or a player is placed in a team for a psychological advantage rather than his playing ability), but these cases are the exception rather than the rule. Most times, a defender is there to defend, a creative midfielder to create, and a striker to strike. Put plainly, the player needs to be effective in his designated role.
I have mentioned here previously that, having not worked half a day in football myself, I am not one to know the finer technical aspects of football, and living 10,000kms away from North London, I only get to watch Arsenal games on TV, so my analysis below is very much that of a layman couch fan. All the more reason, then, for anyone who DOES work in football to be seeing what I see with crystal clarity. With that in mind, let’s take a look through our first-teamers, from back to front, and examine their effectiveness.
Sczcesny: Prone to the occasional error, but has made up for those errors with a multitude of solid and confident performances. Verdict: EFFECTIVE
Fabianski/Almunia: Verdict: COMPLETELY INEFFECTIVE (no explanation necessary here)
Sagna: Solid in defence, solid in forward support. Verdict : EFFECTIVE
Jenkinson/Djourou: Verdict INEFFECTIVE (as of today, based on performances, not promise/talent)
Mertesacker: Shows many signs of being a solid defender, but as many signs of not being one. Verdict: INCONCLUSIVE
Koscielny: Shows many signs of being a solid defender. Has shown general improvement in recent times. But still is no Vermaelen. Verdict: EFFECTIVE-ish
Vermaelen: A real defender. Verdict: EFFECTIVE
Squillaci: Verdict: COMPLETELY INEFFECTIVE
Santos: Has put in a mixed bag of performances, as can be expected from a late signing and someone new to the Premier League. Verdict: INCONCLUSIVE
Gibbs: A young player not yet cemented into the first team. Not possible to judge effectiveness from performances to date. Verdict: INCONCLUSIVE
Song: Has shown almost linear improvement for most of the time since he’s been given the responsibility of being the first-choice holding midfielder. Verdict: EFFECTIVE
Frimpong: A young player not yet cemented into the first team. Not possible to judge effectiveness from performances to date. Verdict: INCONCLUSIVE
Diaby: Has been constantly assigned the “Vieira role”, to be the brute drive of the team with a touch of class, and has constantly failed. Verdict: INEFFECTIVE
Ramsey: Has had some good performances, but is still working his way into peak form. Has not been a force of creativity nor an immovable object in midfield (he has to be one or the other to be truly effective), nor has he scored many goals. Many will disagree but I say he’s not done enough. Verdict: INCONCLUSIVE
Arteta: New to the team, but has played well and shown both heart and skill. However, he has not scored many goals, nor has he been a true force of creativity. So here’s the one verdict many may shoot me down for. Verdict: INEFFECTIVE
Rosicky: Has not scored many goals, nor has he been a true force of creativity. And he’s been with the team for a long time. Verdict: INEFFECTIVE
Wilshere: We can’t bear the waiting to get him back. Sadly, the pressure on him will be immense (and the English media will multiply that as soon as he returns). We can only hope he can handle the pressure and use it to motivate him to the heights we believe that he is capable of. Verdict: EFFECTIVE
Arshavin: Only shows rare flashes of skill and then has long periods of flippancy. Verdict: INEFFECTIVE
Walcott: a winger that doesn’t/can’t/won’t cross. When he does, it’s rarely to an Arsenal head. His much famed pace has made little true impact in games when it’s needed. Verdict: INEFFECTIVE
Gervinho: Has great ability to take on a defender and win, but then he often doesn’t get much more value beyond that. Still new to the Premier League, so some leeway must be afforded to him. Verdict: INCONCLUSIVE
Chamakh: We can’t keep living on the memory of the good start he had when he was signed, but we also can’t really expect him to perform on demand without playing in the first team with any regularity. Something of a catch-22, but performances breed appearances and he has not performed when required. Verdict: INEFFECTIVE
van Persie: the star of the Arsenal show in 2011. Long may his goal-scoring form continue. Verdict: HIGHLY EFFECTIVE.
From the list above, there can be no doubting that a team with as many ineffective, or rarely-effective, players won’t and CAN’T put in a serious challenge for the league title (which is what the Arsenal should be aiming for EVERY year). Any football club that wants to win (indeed any company that wants to improve its performance) will most certainly look factually at the performances of its players (employees) continually to assess the effectiveness of their performances. This would then be used to identify the gaps and work on them with the player (employee) to improve the weak areas. And if all else fails, then you give up and get someone else. I don’t have the know-how to do this technical assessment of each player, or I might have done it myself and sent Arsenal FC the report. But they surely have people who’ve worked many days in football, and they surely must have done these assessments and they surely know what we know, and a heck of a lot more about these players.
Why then do we persist with ineffective players? And, quite importantly, what is the reason for these hugely talented players being so ineffective? This is where I get to commitment…
How does one judge a player’s commitment? Is there a quantitative method? And what impact does commitment have on effectiveness? There are some obvious players we can judge: We all can see that Arshavin’s on-the-field commitment is non-existent. Wilshere’s total commitment goes even beyond the field of play (the Spurs bet is a case in point). Frimpong has reportedly said they’d have to physically drag him out of the club if they ever sold him off… he’d cry and beg to say. That hasn’t exactly translated into him being the most effective player in his games, but he’s a young man who needs to learn to control his temper and his tackles. Perhaps, then, the link between commitment and effectiveness is not a directly proportional one, and it's just one of many, many factors that play a part. I have no doubt, though, that commitment MUST play a part in effectiveness and that this part is no small one.
To sum up my submission, then, I’d say the Arsenal has many talented players who just aren’t effective enough to have the right to remain as Arsenal players unless something changes. The change required may be that the management needs to find a trigger to drive up their commitment. In the quest for league titles, it’s only fitting we ask how ManU has done it time and again, and (apart from the cheating) they have almost always had a team that was brimming with committed players. Their effectiveness seemed then to stem from that commitment. It’s been a while since the Arsenal won something, and maybe that’s 'cos it’s been a while since we had a team full of effective and committed players.
