PART 2 WENGER'S CIRCULATION FOOTBALL AND THE SEASON AHEAD

Arsene Wenger’s “Circulation Football” A belief that a championship side can be nurtured by building a core group of youngsters from Hale End Academy to a senior team playing together,  and develop a telepathic understanding and “special togetherness” that is so vital in modern football.  Arsene Wenger is determined to impose his “Circulation Football” philosophy onto the team; and he started a major and massive re-structuring with HIS players and not inherited players from 1996. Nor did he buy ready-made players. That is, a combination of Ajax youth system and Barcelona’s policy of scouting the global market to sign-up the best youths for his academy. Arsene Wenger’s ambition is to build his 3rd and greatest Arsenal team from ground level starting at Hale End Academy.

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In 2007/08 season, Arsene Wenger was on the cusp of fulfilling his vision of Arsenal’s “3^rd and greatest team” with a midfield of Rosicky-Fabregas-Flamini-Hleb, playing harmoniously together, friends on-and-off-the-pitch, and a potent strike force in Van Persie, Adebayor, Eduardo and Walcott coming along nicely.

The guile and ball-holding ability of Hleb with the darting runs of Rosicky would tear any defence to shreds. And there is Fabregas’ deep-ball playing ability, that vision to spot an opening a split second ahead of his opponents, working in the centre with a terrier-like tenacity of Flamini providing the muscle and ball-winning ability in MIDFIELD.

Not forgetting that Adebayor was that tenacious hard-running forward that covered every blades of grass on the pitch, instantly hounding the opponents whenever he lost the balls and tracking back right to the box until he was exhausted and needed to be substituted during 70^th minute!

That was “Circulation Football” at its best; till it all imploded at BRUM in February 2008, which I suspected that this current team never recovered from. And like Groundhog Day, the 2010/11 team repeated the same feat and collapsed shamefully in February 2011.

2011/12 Season?

We have only one playmaker – Fabregas. But after WC2010, he was carrying chronic injuries and just a pale shadow of himself of previous seasons. Worse, mentally, he was not ready to play for Arsenal with his failed transfer to FC Barcelona.

Our bright start of last season was not due to a “brilliant” team, but to our title contenders being out of sorts, plenty of their own internal problems, ageing players, etc. and when they got their acts together in the New Year, they simply accelerated away from Arsenal, showing us as a charlatan of a title contender.

Nasri? 

How many assists had he got for the last season? One or two?

Arshavin? 

Hardly a starter is he?

I suspect he has problem getting physical fit to play attacking 4-3-3 and his bout of homesickness was affecting his performances.

Form is temporary, but class is permanent.

Rosicky? 

Just returned after a 18-month injury layoff and hardly developed an understanding with his new teammates. This season is his “Last Chance Saloon” to show his class with Euro2012 around the corner.

Diaby? 

Injury-prone and hardly a starter.

He is simply not that “Vieira’-type of player, lacking that “football brain” and peripheral vision to spot an opening in an instant and make that through pass or play “give-and-go” or “one-two” to bypass a wall of defenders. He dwells on the ball too much, over-dribbles and slows down any quick counter-attacks.

Walcott? 

No doubt he is improving and had plenty of assists. But hey, he is neither an attacking midfielder nor an outside forward, but Walcott is simply a pacy central striker and needs to play off a tall and ball-winning centre forward in the typical English style.

Wilshere?

Our only major bright spot last season, but open verdict this season as he may very well suffered from that dreaded “2^nd Season Syndrome”.

But is he that deep-lying playmaker that we need to complement the playmaking ability of Fabregas higher up the pitch?

Are Fabregas and Wilshere playing in the same space as deep-lying playmaker?

And Fabregas will very much like to play as a deep-lying playmaker like his hero, Pep Guardiola. Last season, what was missing was that Fabregas’ ability to come in from deep to join in the attack as a goal-scoring threat. The team missed Fabregas’ ability to recognise the correct moment to push forward and that knack of spotting an opening to spray his accurate long passes to the flanks or into the centre.

Bergy’s Hole

Arsene Wenger’s 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 will not work as he simply does not have an attacking midfielder to support Van Persie. We can see he is highly individualistic and he has developed an understanding with Fabregas only. Perhaps this summer pre-season training will remedy this defect in this Arsenal team.

What is missing is the second (fake) forward – Number 10 – as the deep playing playmaker, function in the role of “creator of the attack”. He is the target player who is played a deep pass to his feet. Such a player has the technical and tactical qualities of a playmaker, however he operates in smaller spaces than the classical number 10 (attacking midfielder). He is a player who can dribble, give chip-passes, play give-and-goes (one-two) and shoot on goal. This creator of the attack wants to receive the ball while coming toward the midfield.

The other variation of the second forward is a player who correctly times his runs and turns up deep. He does this in combination with the actions of striker and the actions made via the flanks. In contrast with the function of the “creator of the attack”, the task of this player is to receive the ball behind the defence [read Fabregas and why Nasri wanted to play this role as attacking midfielder cum deep forward].

This places high demands on recognising the correct moment to sprint deep in combination with the actions made by the other attackers. Such players score goals on a regular basis because their actions surprise the defenders of the opponent.

2011/12 Team?

Arsene Wenger is not daft and knew exactly what ails the team and how to remedy it. August 31 is still 45 days away and we must all have blind faith in him to get this team right and to turn a bunch of 2010/11 bottlers into title-winning contender this season.

But can he do it and fulfill his belief that “his team’s destiny is to win the title”?

Like he said his team can go unbeaten in 2002, got laughed out of the room in 2003 with Manchester printing “Comical Ali” T-shirts? Guess who got the last laugh in 2004?

But is his present stubbornness to retain unhappy players who do not wish to play for Arsenal and who have lost faith in Arsenal ever winning anything, within their career, good for his rebuilding programme?

Finally to return to Rinus Michels:

In conclusion, no matter how effective the performance of the team may be or how well the tasks, functions and strategies are executed, everything rises and falls with the individual qualities of the players. I cannot repeat this enough. His technical, tactical, physical and mental baggages are the determining factors. This is the golden rule.

The team building process is not the only important factor to achieve success. However, it does provide the team with a good dose of stability, so they are able to handle set-backs on and off the field. This optimally developed resistance against setbacks must be supported by a strong match mentality for each player.

The elements of match mentality are:

- Conviction and willingness to be a winner;

- Courage, self-confidence and controlled fear to lose;

- Controlled aggressiveness, stamina and physical fitness;

- Ability to handle losing;

- Take and demand responsibility;

- Team discipline and team spirit;

- Responsibility for the team.

The match mentality is pliable and can be developed in nuances and patterns. Naturally, a ball virtuoso will not become a fighter in duels with the opponent. The controlled fear to lose also has its limits, a true goal scorer will not get thrown off balance by shooting a ball in the bleachers or when he misses a goal scoring opportunity. However, another player might be too scared to shoot or play the long ball. It is this solidarity and the effect players have on each other that will have a positive influence on their match mentality. To be responsible and feel responsible for achieving a collective performance is the most important tool for the coach to influence the individual match mentality.

It is obvious that every coach should always be alert to the atmosphere in his working environment. This is not an easy assignment, and there is no recipe for it.

And the above conclusion explains the shameful collapses we have experienced for the past two seasons, namely 2009/10 and 2010/11 – match mentality.

Come August 13, 2011, what kind of 2011/12 team will we be seeing?

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