5. WHAT ELSE COULD I HAVE DONE? – TACTICAL APPROACHES, INJURIES AND OPERATIONAL TEAM

Tactical approaches

You have not had to suffer in matches against your major rivals as you did with the three big away defeats to Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City in the 2013 - 14 season.

How have you managed to tighten things up Arsène?
Historically, you had preferred to concentrate on Arsenal's game and not worry about the opposition's strengths and weaknesses. More recently, players have mentioned specific plans against your rivals, and they more often than not last season seemed to come off.

What has changed exactly and how did that come about?
Arsenal bought the football data analytics company StatDNA in December 2012 for £2.165m – an acquisition that Ivan Gazidis, Chief Executive, believed provided critical analytical insights in match preparation, post-match analysis, tactical insights, and scouting.

I know you stressed that the importance of human judgement remains, but how useful is analytics to you now Arsène?
Perhaps your greatest judgement as an Arsenal manager was in developing Thierry Henry from being a winger to be a centre-forward who also expertly worked the left channel in your then preferred 4-4-1-1 or 4-4-2 formation. Back in 2009 you also played Cesc Fabregas as an advanced midfielder behind a front two. With 4-2-3-1, Alexis Sanchez is by a very long way your best wide player, also operating the left channel – but not in a 2.

How can you be completely sure that he couldn't add even more to the team in a slightly different role and formation? Similarly, his predecessors Danny Welbeck and Lukas Podolski?

You appear wedded to 4-2-3-1 now - why do you favour it so?

Have you ever considered relying on a different formation?
You bemoaned your home results against the smaller teams who “played deeper and deeper against us”.

Surely, Arsène, your tactical predictability is a great asset to the opposition in preparing to set up against you?
Arsenal went to Anfield as Premier League leaders on 8 February 2014, but were blown away and 4–0 down after 20 minutes! Arsenal weren’t the only team they put to the sword offensively in the opening half.

Wasn’t a significant part of Liverpool’s unexpected Premier League title charge in 2014 that it was difficult to predict how they would set up so preparing properly for the match tactically was very difficult?
Mohammed Elneny has looked an even better signing pre-season. Even in his early games he managed to win Arsenal’s goal of the season competition with his strike on the very edge of the box at no lesser place than Barcelona’s Camp Nou.

What did you make of the goal Arsène?
Mohammed made his debut in the FA Cup fourth round home win against Burnley. He shot 5 times and tested the goalkeeper twice from outside the box. Nevertheless, he was more than happy to heed your advice to curtail his natural instincts. "I used to shoot a lot when I was at Basel but sometimes that doesn't suit our style here ... [Arsène Wenger] taught me to be more of a team player and to be intelligent in terms of when I shoot. I also paid attention to my teammates and took their advice. That has helped me to improve my performances already." You admitted that “most of the time, we are more a passing team, a team who are not great hitters from long distances.”

You don’t like your players shooting from outside the penalty area?
Other teams have found shots from outside the box very efficient Arsène – for example, Harry Kane's second at Tottenham after Per Mertesacker lumbered towards the corner flag and Dele Alli pulled the ball back? Or Jamie Vardy’s stylish on the one bounce 25 yard strike against Liverpool. Even Petr Cech has conceded from outside the penalty area – for instance, that opening defeat at home to West Ham and, more recently, the end of season draw at Man City.

What is so wrong about long shots Arsène? Why is multiple passing so much more preferable to you?
Moving on to tactical substitutions, other managers make first half substitutions, half-time substitutions, or even substitute their subs for underperforming. Mr Mourinho would be a ruthless, but very successful, example of all of these.

What do you think of such approaches?
You normally leave your tactical substitutions to until around 60 - 70 minutes.

Why do you always wait so long to make tactical substitutions yourself Arsène?

Injuries

Shad Forsyth joined Arsenal as your new head of athletic performance enhancement in July 2014. He had spent 10 years working with Germany and was a part of their operational team that had just won the World Cup.

That seems quite a coup and a good example of the Club’s staff behind the scenes moving forwards?

Is it too early to judge the rewards of the appointment or has there already been tangible progress?

Can you explain the relationship between Shad; Colin Lewin, Head of medical services and yourself and how as a team you set about minimising injuries?
You said Danny Welbeck was out for a long time, Santi Cazorla was out for five months, Francis Coquelin for four and Jack Wilshere for the whole season. You said that Arsenal had a lot of injuries during the season, and for the first time they were trauma injuries, not muscular ones, that you could not do a lot about.

But haven’t injuries been a recurring problem for you for season after season?
There have been long injury lay-offs, for Ramsey, Rosicky, Arteta, Wilshere and Walcott before and many other key players have had serious injuries before the last season – for example, Diaby, van Persie, Eduardo, Vermaelen, Podolski, Ozil, Giroud, Debuchy, Gibbs and Monreal. Indeed, Monreal was signed on the last day of the January 2013 transfer window after a defensive crisis of resources. Ironically, the situation was repeated when, Monreal, was forced into service as a centre back due to another defensive injury crisis which lead to the January purchase of Gabriel the season before last.

Why do you think last season was especially bad in terms of traumatic injuries Arsène?
You mentioned Leicester's advantage from largely being in one competition. Leicester certainly were committed to rest periods ensuring players had one 48 hour period off a week plus another 24 hours. They also data screened players throughout the week and had extensive drills to improve and safeguard hamstring strength. Given their intense counter-attacking style of play, this avoided injuries to their three key players Vardy, Mahrez and Kante.

A cutting edge approach?

Arsenal have their fair share of soft tissue injures last season as well as trauma injuries?
During the shocking performance at Sheffield Wednesday, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain pulled up after 4 minutes and Theo Walcott hastily replaced him, only to go off similarly after 19 minutes. They proved costly injuries, but not costly as that to Francis Coquelin in the defeat to Tony Pullis’s West Brom. After he returned from injury, he was on the subs bench in the second leg defeat at Barcelona. Mathieu Flamini was injured one minute before half-time – but rather than wait to after a proper warm up throughout half-time, you brought Francis on immediately without him warming up at all!