Neil A. Fry
In his BT Sport interview with Jake Humphreys ahead of the Liverpool match, with criticism mounting, Monsieur Wenger again bemoaned today’s society’s need for news, noting an inability to accept disappointment and urging a sense of perspective. A few days later in interview, the day before the Bayern Munich second leg, he angrily declared "I think I have built this club". Arsenal Audit has always taken a long-term view and has been cataloguing disappointments over the performance of the manager and Board over the post-Invincibles eras since 2011. In Part One we tidy up match loose-ends and examine the disastrous month through the portal of familiar longer-term Arsenal Audit themes and the many barriers to Arsenal’s winning the Premier League under Monsieur Wenger. One is Arsenal’s terrible record against key Premier League rivals. Arsenal have won away against Premier League Big Six clubs - Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool - just twice in 23 matches. The last was the well-organised, disciplined counter-attacking triumph at Manchester City in January 2015 – but that wasn’t to be the blueprint for difficult away matches many of us hoped it would be. In Part Two, we take up Monsieur Wenger’s (extraordinary) claim that he built the Club and examine his skills as Arsenal controller, architect and project manager over his three key projects over the last ten years - Project Youth, the British core and now his ‘Team of Men’.
Liverpool 3 – 1 Arsenal
Monsieur Wenger’s alternative solution for the month’s difficult opener at Anfield was to be less ‘passive’ and more ‘pro-active’ than when Arsenal were 1-0 up at Everton and Manchester City in December, but lost. The defeat at Chelsea, Monsieur Wenger told us, was due to unexplained special circumstances. Since the Invincibles, Arsenal have never done the double over Chelsea and last won at Stamford Bridge in 2011 (during Andre Villas-Boas’ brief tenure). There certainly were special circumstances at Anfield. Ahead of the match, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain said “Alexis is probably one of the strongest ones that will voice his opinions at all times. He is one of those that keeps demanding and trying to bring the best out of you." Monsieur Wenger repeatedly insisted the reason was a (bizarre) tactical ploy, “I wanted to play two players who are strong in the air, because we decided to go more direct.” Theo Walcott and Robert Pires confirmed that Alexis was dropped after a training ground incident. The Alexes certainly didn’t make up the slack. Iwobi in his first full-season continues to struggle to build on his excellent breakthrough season, but Oxlade-Chamberlain put in a shift and was one of the few to emerge with any credit. After another shocking first-half, Monsieur Wenger’s kindly paternalism went out the window and self-preservation took precedence. One for the collector’s album, he made a half-time tactical substitution. Off went an again-struggling Francis Coquelin, and on came the banished Alexis. Arsenal were immediately better and Danny Welbeck, starting at last, scored care of his assist on the counter-attack. Nevertheless, it wasn’t enough; the terrible record continued and Monsieur Wenger again lost out to the new breed of managers that employ the high press. As at Everton and Manchester City, and at home to Watford, Arsenal had again helped their struggling opponents out of terrible form going into the match.
Arsenal 1–5 Bayern Munich
Arsenal 2–10 Bayern Munich, R16 UEFA Champions League aggregate
After the 1–5 away-leg reverse, Monsieur Wenger needed a record-breaking score from his charges to prevent a seventh successive R16 exit. They duly delivered him one. Alexis made his inevitable starting return. Elsewhere, the Arsenal sick bay had a revolving door of short-term patients. Danny Welbeck was taken ill warming up and replaced by Olivier Giroud. Mesut Özil had recovered from his latest apparent illness to be well enough to be on the bench. The struggling Alex Iwobi was now said to be ill himself. Francis Coquelin was, understandably, withdrawn from the firing-line after his recent poor performances. Aaron Ramsey's return from his latest injury left Granit Xhaka likely to be a busy man in the trenches, a grenade waiting to go off, albeit without, according to his commander, a tackle in his armoury. Oxlade-Chamberlain seemed to be largely in central midfield in a nominal 4-3-3 (another for the collector’s album), but also did good work back on the flanks. Theo Walcott - included at the expense, yet again, of Lucas Perez - scored a good goal to offer some hope of respectability.
After the half-time break, Munich stepped up a gear and, as has been well documented, Arsenal hoisted the white flag aloft once Captain Koscielny was sent off. There was no offside. And, contrary to what Monsieur Wenger and many pundits (who rarely trouble themselves with the laws of the game) said, the sending-off was lawfully quite correct. 'Upper body' offences - described as "holding, pulling or pushing" fouls, or where "the offending player does not attempt to play the ball or there is no possibility for the player making the challenge to play the ball" - in the penalty area which deny a goal-scoring opportunity are red card offences, not yellow. Cue surrender. Monsieur Wenger’s biggest humiliation? There are other candidates. 2-8 at Old Trafford. 0-4 at Anfield within 20 minutes. 0-6 against Mourhino’s Chelsea in his 1,000th match. Surely 2-10 tops even those. Remarkably, after the following match, Monsieur Wenger disregarded the performance after Laurent Koscielny’s sending off and said “the team had performed well against Bayern”. Performed well? Playing with ten men can also strengthen a team’s resolve. Game management, keeping a defensive shape, defensive substitutions, holding-on or damage limitation are part and parcel of the game. Football matches have lasted 90 minutes long before the internet and social media – since 1877, 140 years ago.
In the first leg, the 35-year-old Xabi Alonso topped the pass-completion stats for the match, his 100 far exceeding those of Arsenal’s top-four completed passers - Xhaka, Sanchez, Gibbs and Özil. After the second leg, he announced his end-of-season retirement. In part 2 we again look beyond a 24-hour time frame and, starting in October 2009, revisit Monsieur Wenger’s ‘saving’ of Privates Diaby, Dennilson and Song and contrast their comparative careers with the Spaniard whom he didn’t want as a Gunner.
Arsenal 5–0 Lincoln City
The problem of insufficient rotation to keep players physically and mentally fresh has been a common theme in this season’s Arsenal Audits. Previously, injuries and insufficient players in key positions had needlessly made rotation problematic. With a bigger first-team squad and fewer injuries, Monsieur Wenger has only been prepared to rotate in the domestic cup competitions (the successful Basel away Champions League tie excepted). That was until this match, at home, against non-League opposition. Remarkably, there was only one unenforced change. Petr Cech replaced David Ospina who apparently had a ‘slight groin issue’. A musculoskeletal disorder after picking the ball out of the net ten times against Bayern would have been understandable. Kieran Gibbs was given another chance instead of Nacho Monreal. After the match, Monsieur Wenger explained “I didn’t want to gamble today because I knew that it was very important to win the game and I felt as well that the team had performed well against Bayern and I wanted to give them a chance to find their confidence back by winning the next game.” The performance was far from good; it was abject and failing players were once again rewarded. Just how much confidence can beating a non-league team at home give a player? How must poor Lucas Perez, the new Joel Campbell, and the young players - Holding, Maitland-Niles and Reine-Adelaide - who performed so well at Southampton in the previous round have felt to learn that their selection at home to a non-league team would have been a gamble?
West Bromwich Albion 3–1 Arsenal
The side that could be trusted against Lincoln continued, except for Kieran Gibbs (injured) and Olivier Giroud (replaced by Danny Welbeck). Aaron Ramsey made his 200th Premier League appearance, continuing in an increasingly ill-suited looking ‘2’ with Granit Xhaka (who picked out an unmarked Alexis for Arsenal’s goal). Another Arsenal Audit theme is the problem of away matches against overtly physical teams managed by Allardyce and Pulis. Monsieur Wenger’s pre-match scouting of the opposition identified the key threat of West Brom under Pulis scoring 47% of their goals from set-pieces. Pulis himself had identified the key opportunity in that Arsenal defend zonally with two blockers to stop the run and, if you beat the blockers, you’re in. At West Brom’s first corner, in the twelfth minute, Craig Dawson was allowed to run in unopposed as his blocker Aaron Ramsey’s efforts amounted to no more than a quick glance and look away and the centre-back was left in six yards of space.
Dawson did have two men to beat when he replicated the goal for the third. Unfortunately, they were both colleagues and Arsenal players were again yards away from all three. They trudged slowly back for the restart (Nacho Monreal excepted) in silence. The second goal had come in the 56th minute, with Arsenal again losing out in the 45 to 70-minute period, with substitute goalkeeper David Ospina leading the comedy. It is hard to imagine a Premier League goalkeeper less suited to face a team so adept at exploiting set-pieces in the air. Both the contre-presser and the pace-orientated game that saw Oliver Giroud relegated to Plan-B appear to have totally evaporated. Arsenal had 77% possession yet mustered just two shots on target and none after the 33rd minute.
Sources
Arsènal interviews:
http://news.arseblog.com/2017/03/video-arsene-wenger-speaks-to-bt-sport/
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/you-arrogant-deluded-man-piers-9976572
Aerial attack:
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20170304/boss-why-alexis-was-on-the-bench
Arsenal’s best:
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20170303/-alexis-brings-out-the-best-in-us-
Training ground clash:
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/football/594764/Arsenal-News-Theo-Walcott-Alexis-Sanchez-Arsene-Wenger-Training-ground-bust-up-AFC
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/alexis-sanchez-left-training-pitch-9984349
Rightful red:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/laurent-koscielnys-red-card-arsenal-9985763
Pretty Xabi:
http://news.arseblog.com/2017/02/bayern-munich-5-1-arsenal-by-the-numbers/
Performing well:
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20170312/boss-we-got-bayern-out-of-our-system
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20170311/-we-had-to-respond-that-s-what-we-did-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_association_football
