Arsène Wenger has so far built 3 distinct teams.
The first team 96-00 was built on the rubble left by George Graham. At the time he got great credit for rehabilitating and actually improving the side but then revisionists like Myles Palmer started to justify their own agendas by questioning his achievement declaring it to be a George Graham Built Side that won the double in ‘98. It wasn’t – Graham and Rioch had left a team of mentally weak, drunks and drug addicts who were running on empty – Wenger transformed them in to confident, arrogant top class modern players. That team was broken up over the raids on our club by the Spanish giants and Wenger set about replacing the older defenders and filling the holes caused by the departures.
The second team 00-05 was built on the same blueprint but had a superstar spine with Campbell, Vieira and Henry. Wenger built a squad of players to suit Henry (on and off the pitch), youngish, french(ish) and easy going- but Henry started doing tv ads and hanging out with Roger Federer and Tiger Woods and again the Spanish Giants came in and destabilized and broke up the team so Wenger went about building his third team.
Both the first two teams were built on attacking Pace and Power – there was no great defensive system just a collection of natural defenders who knew how to beat their man. Wenger doesn’t teach defensive systems. He teaches technique.
The next team was to be built on Possession and Craft, the defensive philosophy is the same, however the caliber of natural defender is not the same. This is a hard skill to spot – you have to somehow remove the defender from the defensive unit and imagine how he’d react with out a script.
The 05-11 iteration is a team built around perhaps our most naturally talented player ever, Cesc Fabregas but has never fully delivered. Oh how the Manager has indulged Fabregas and his friends (Hleb, Flamini, Nasri etc) in an attempt to unleash their potential. He has mostly shunned older, experienced players in the transfer window, so that Fabregas can always be the Alpha Male in his pack. Now Cesc and his crew believe that they are somehow not in the slightest bit responsible for themselves not winning medals. Cesc even said that to go to Barca is to win things… If I was Guardiola I would think twice about bringing that complacency to the club.
Wenger’s mistake was to treat Fabregas the same way as he had treated Henry. Henry was older and had done his time. His on field entourage (Pires, Lauren, Edu, Vieira) was older and had already been in the trenches. Bergkamp even lent himself to creating the “Henry” legend. Henry was also a more precious personality type who needed the “love”. Fabregas started out a much tougher character and the “love” has weakened him – Spoiled him. Look at the Cesc Fabregas Show on Sky a couple of years back – who does that? Who allows them?
Suddenly the Invincibles were gone and Fabregas is surrounded by his contemporaries in a youth team that relies on natural ability and a need to retain possession almost to the point that it borders on being an anal retentive fear of shooting.
Sure Wenger has his share of the blame. But in fairness to him, he was trying to compete in a world where he was building a new stadium in an economic collapse and the economy proof Spanish Giants were suddenly joined by newly rich Chelsea and “willing to take on huge debt” Manchester United who could buy players at any cost and forced Wenger into a different player recruitment strategy, The good news is I don’t think that Real, Barca, Man U, Man City or Chelsea care anymore about who we buy as they know they can let us take the risk and then buy the diamonds from us after we have sorted and polished them.
We need Wenger to analyze the current team in this light and build his last great team, to restore his legacy at least. He owes us this and as supporters, we owe him that. He can do it quickly, as can be seen by his rapid building for teams 1 and 2. Maybe we are better off without Fabregas or perhaps in an ideal world, Fabregas becomes the king maker (ala Bergkamp) rather than the king – If he stays, great but if he goes thats great too.
Arsenal’s crisis is Arsène’s opportunity. He has delivered great teams when faced with crisis before, he reacts better than he proacts. And this summer is a crisis in the full meaning of the word, but what a great opportunity to reinvent the team and restore Arsene’s Legacy.
