Losers:
Arsene Wenger
The performance
The temptation is to become accustomed to such shambolic big-game performances from Arsenal, and therefore less angry. Predictability is not something that typically provokes the strongest emotions.
Yet it is exactly this repetition that is most galling. Almost six years to the day of their 8-2 humbling at Old Trafford, Arsenal were just as rotten in a 4-0 defeat at Anfield. Nothing has changed and nothing will change, because nothing ever changes. Martin Keown called it “crisis” and Thierry Henry called in “unwatchable”; even Wenger’s disciples are sick of the dirge.
The same defensive incompetence was on show, as were the same weak-willed midfield displays and the same attack that barely even got a chance to make its mark and failed to impress in the brief moments of promise that did come its way. This was a greatest hits of Arsenal’s problems of the last six years in one 90-minute horror film. That it comes so soon after Wenger preached the benefits of continuity and his new contract should be embarrassing for all involved.
Arsenal’s away league record against Tottenham, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City and Manchester United over the last five years reads as follows: Played 24, Won 2, Drawn 6, Lost 16. Neither of those two wins have come in the last two-and-a-half years, and Arsenal have conceded three or more goals in half of their last ten away games against those five opponents. A wretched record gets worse, not better.
The team selection
After the defeat at Stoke nine days ago, Wenger spoke of a defensive incompetence that allowed the home side to score their winner. Virtually every Arsenal supporter pointed out that a system in which a right wing-back was at left wing-back, a midfielder was at right wing-back and two left-backs were in central defence might have contributed to that.
One of Wenger’s two defensive changes from that Stoke selection was to change the only natural central defender – and therefore only player in their natural position – for another. Shkodran Mustafi dropped out for Rob Holding, who was picked in exactly the same role that had caused him such trouble against Leicester City. Funnily enough, the same problems remained.
One of the most pleasing aspects of Antonio Conte’s management at Chelsea is a flexibility in shape and style to match his opponents. That is not an admission of weakness but demonstration of strength, an acceptance that different plans will work for different tests. Wenger is the opposite.
To take a side to Anfield and set up with two wing-backs who are invited to push forward, thus leaving Mane, Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino one-one-one with their opposite numbers, was suicide. Mane and Salah revelled in the wide spaces, dragging Nacho Monreal and Holding into places they didn’t want to be. Again, embarrassing.
Don’t forget the attacking selection too. Wenger actually decided to leave his new striker and record purchase on the bench for his team’s toughest assignment of the season so far. It’s as if Lacazette is not yet browbeaten enough to fit in at Arsenal, and so must have his belief punctured. Which brings us to…
The leavers
It’s one thing talking up the benefits of players wanting to leave the club and thus having a final season to push on and impress new suitors, but it is just another example of Wenger’s ‘head in the clouds’ mentality. The alternative take is that having key individuals wanting out causes a general de-motivation among other players in the squad.
Liverpool have chosen to omit their wantaway player despite insisting he will stay for the general happiness of the whole, and it showed. Wenger picked two key players (Alexis Sanchez and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain) who may still leave and another (Mesut Ozil) who quite obviously wants to but hasn’t attracted the offers he would like, and that showed too.
The selection of Oxlade-Chamberlain is most extraordinary, his selection causing the entire defence to be imbalanced for the sake of persuading a squad player not to join a rival. Instead, Arsene, why not ask why these players want to leave at all? Which segues nicely into…
The coaching
On commentary, an apoplectic Gary Neville remarked that Arsenal should “stick them all up on the transfer list. There aren’t many of them that would get a better club than where they are at.”
Neville’s anger was appropriate, but he is overlooking the impact of the coaching at Arsenal. These are not bad players, but good players being coached appallingly. That is the only explanation for a succession of teams who have failed to perform at a level greater than the sum of their parts. After Wenger signed his own two-year contract, he gave out similar deals to his coaching staff. For all the talk of changes in process at the club and the arrival of a director of football, the only real change was the arrival of Jens Lehmann.
The same is true of Neville’s other bugbear: the lack of obvious fight from Arsenal’s players. This is not fight as a synonym for aggression, but the determination to improve as players, and is where Arsenal are most lacking. Ozil and Petr Cech may have posted defiant social media messages after the match, but that is a show of PR, not fortitude.
Yet again, this is a top-down problem. How can you expect players to pull together in times of crisis when their manager is rewarded for stagnancy? How can you expect players to be highly motivated when their club preaches the message that treading water is acceptable? This is the direct result of having players who don’t want to be there managed by a coach who shouldn’t be. Which takes us, finally, to…
Arsenal’s hierarchy
They allowed this. They facilitated this decline. They invited this – and other – sh*tshows upon themselves. A club can only move forward if it is given a stable platform for progress. Arsenal’s hierarchy confused misplaced loyalty for that stable platform.
They rewarded failure, or worse still allowed a manager to reward himself for failure. They fed lines to the media about transfer budgets and warchests in a bid to shift season tickets, safe in the knowledge that it would never happen. They sat back when only one or two players were brought in and suddenly the benefits of “cohesion” were pledged. They allowed one man to be virtually omnipotent, and thus ensured that the entire club would be a mirror image of that man, for better and now for much worse.
Wenger is a huge part of the problem, but his addiction to the club stops him walking away. This is on those who allowed the situation to fester and thus rot. If everyone else could see it coming, so should they.
