Arsenal season review 2014-15

When I wrote my season preview back in August, I suggested that Arsenal would need to improve markedly this season just to stay still. It was oddly prescient of a debate which has been playing out over the last few weeks over whether Arsenal did indeed improve over the course of 2014-15, compared to the previous season.

The argument that Arsenal didn’t improve runs something like this: in both seasons Arsenal won the FA Cup, reached the last 16 of the Champions League and were knocked out early in the League Cup. In 2013-14, Arsenal challenged for the League (at least until the end of March) and finished on 79 points, only nine points back from the Champions. In contrast, 2014-15 saw no title challenge, the team accruing only 75 points and finishing twelve points back from the League leaders.

Let me make one thing clear: the area where Arsenal definitely regressed was in the Champions League. Although it had an element of tragi-comedy about it, the 3-3 draw at home to Anderlecht was a throwback to the worst of Arsenal a few years back, and losing 3-1 to Monaco at the Emirates (despite bad luck) was, under the circumstances, the worst result in a very long time. Bizarrely though, that’s not the claim peddled by those who say Arsenal regressed. If it were, I’d have a lot more time for it - the Champions League is supposed to test Arsenal against the best teams in Europe and despite not playing anybody particularly good, the team struggled except for against Galatasaray. I’ll come back to this later when I look at how the team could improve.

In the FA Cup, there was no Hull-style early collapse in the cup final and there was an impressive win away at Old Trafford but the overall standard of teams beaten was lower. Call it scratch.

And so to the League campaign. The pure maths is somewhat misleading. It was notable to me how the team seemed to be playing with less intensity after the 0-0 draw against Chelsea, only beating a Hull team which was saving itself for a huge weekend game against Burnley and a disinterested West Brom on the final day of the season. This contrasts hugely with spring 2014, where only the last game was a dead rubber. Certainly, the dropped points against Sunderland and Swansea pushed the club down from 2nd to 3rd, but given neither of those involves a Champions League qualifier, there is little tangible difference in finishing a place higher.

That’s important insofar as had there been more on the line, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suggest that Arsenal would have beaten Swansea and Sunderland and improved on both points and distance to the champions compared to 2013/14.

So the final area where Arsenal might be said to have regressed was a lack of a title challenge. As I wrote in my season preview, for years the club has struggled when playing away after a Champions League game. Of ten Champions League games this season, eight were followed by away League games. In those eight games, Arsenal won just four (away to Villa, West Brom, Sunderland and Newcastle) and dropped some very disappointing points away to Leicester, Everton and Swansea.

First, this wasn’t a problem posed the previous season where far more Champions League games were followed by home games which is just a tangible benefit and a quirk of this year’s fixture list. But in addition - and this is why finishing third is so important and such an improvement - not only is the qualifier bad in of itself, it also has knock on effects on League form. One of the key reasons the club struggled to build momentum in the first half of the season compared to 2013/14 was this problem of playing away after Champions League games, something which was compounded by a lack of options to rotate, as a result of injuries.

The great irony is that the explosion in interest in tactics around 2010 coincided with what those in the stats community call the ‘enlightened era’: teams are generally better organised and more focused on retaining possession, leading to marked drop-off in shots per game, shots on target per game and this season, goals. In effect, since interest in tactics increased, stamina has become more important: it’s become less likely that a player is in a bad position because of organisation, and so being able to run more late in the game has a significant effect.

While it’s fashionable to talk about systems and formations, in reality, Arsenal’s lack of effective options to rotate into the team (particularly when playing twice a week, compared to opponents who had a full seven days to prepare) was something which had a significant effect, a problem exacerbated by a lack of a full pre-season for the World Cup stars.

In addition, and I appreciate this isn’t something which most people who go to matches care about, the start of 2013-14 was marked by unsustainable conversion rates from very few shots. In that sense, the drop-off in the second half of the season was simply regression to the mean. In contrast, the first three or four months of 2014-15 saw a freakishly high number of opposition shots going in, and it was always likely results would improve given the team was playing pretty well.

There are those who argue that this is a problem of mentality and that the players can only do it when there’s no pressure on. But this is counter-intuitive given that when you’re a team expected to challenge and you’re 6th or 7th at Christmas, that actually puts more pressure on.

Regardless of all this data-crunching (as I always say, it’s supposed to be fun following a football team), in terms of transitions and movement off the ball, the team is playing far better now, with several individuals hugely improved (Olivier Giroud especially) and more players who you think can ‘make something happen’ when a game seems tight. Perhaps some of the issues of the first half of the season were systemic, but more broadly it was a question of a (im)perfect storm of a tough fixture list, bad injury list (particularly defensively) and bad luck.

Moreover, the team seems more balanced, with a more sensible approach to big away games which has yielded much improved results. And yet, in terms of where the team goes next season, I have to disagree with my friend @RoamingLibero.

He says the problem against Monaco was one of panicking when going a goal behind, and that proper on-pitch management would be sufficient to fix this.

While clearly this would go a long way to counteracting the issue, it overlooks the root cause of the problem, that the specific players being picked make Arsenal play in a certain way. It was definitely an issue in the first leg that the team was overcommitted in attack after going behind; but it was a much more telling issue because of the personnel in the team lacking the mobility to play a higher line, leaving huge gaps for the opposition to exploit on the counter-attack, or alternatively, leaving Per Mertesacker engaged in a pace battle he could never win and therefore committing to a tackle.

But it also affects how the team attacks. Go back to the second leg against Monaco, a game which most observers thought Arsenal were very good in, and the problems were still on show there.

When Arsenal were attacking, the team had to sit far too deep to counteract a lack of pace of both Per Mertesacker and David Ospina. Had it been possible to push the centre backs up, so that Francis Coquelin could win the first ball out of the opposition box, rather than midfielders like Santi Cazorla and Mesut Ozil challenging for it, there would have been far greater attacking impetus, and the stronger Coquelin is also more likely to win these duels.

To me, it’s self-evident that not pushing the team up the pitch is a result of Mertesacker (and to a lesser extent) Ospina’s lack of pace. Not only that, but this also has a knock-on effect on the shape of the rest of the team: quite a few times, Hector Bellerin received the ball with Nacho Monreal quite advanced on the left. He didn’t want to pass to Coquelin because of Coquelin’s limitations on the ball; he didn’t want to pass to Cazorla because Cazorla was too far left for him to safely reach; and so, because of the positions Mertesacker necessarily must take up, when Bellerin passes to him the ball goes a long way back.

Given Mertesacker’s fondness for passing laterally to Laurent Koscielny, this means Koscielny has to sprint back to get the ball, and Monreal tries to cover for him in case he doesn’t get it easily and to offer a passing option by also dropping back.

The effect of this is to create a sort of split in the team which hampers the attacking harmony, allows Monaco to regain their shape and makes breaking them down significantly harder. And while needing to win 3-0 away is an anomaly, struggling to break down well-organised opponents is hardly something particularly rare for Arsenal.

Clearly, the organisation Mertesacker lends the team is enormously beneficial and he is an exceptionally good centre back. But he does require the team to play in a certain way to mitigate his weaknesses.

The problem with changing this next season is that Koscielny definitely cannot organise effectively, and it’s unlikely that Gabriel Paulista can, particularly while he’s still picking up the language. Definitely, part of the problem is mitigated by picking a goalkeeper like Wojciech Szczesny who isn’t afraid to come off his line, particularly when the alternative is Ospina. In addition, a better defensive midfielder than Coquelin would do a lot more to help organise the team effectively, lessening the chance of an effective opposition counter-attack and allowing the team to push up a bit more, even with Mertesacker. That’s where I’d prioritise improving the team over the summer and it should leave the team strong enough to challenge for the League title.

But there’s a part of me which is dubious that despite having an exceptionally high quality attack, Arsenal can challenge for the Champions League with Mertesacker at centre back. At any rate, an exciting summer awaits.

Keep the faith.

It Ain't So Bad

A couple of years back Arsenal had a Dutchman playing up front who scored lots and lots of goals. So people drew up pointless League tables showing “Arsenal without Van Persie” to show the team’s dependency on him.

In case you were in any doubt, this was an immensely stupid thing to do. Because - here’s something amazing - if Arsenal hadn’t played Van Persie, they would have played somebody else in his place. In fact, the sheer ridiculousness of this so-called thought experiment was born out the following season when Arsenal were indeed without Van Persie but finished fourth, rather than the fifteenth the tables indicated. Funny that.

I mention this because the latest one was this weekend people tweeting that not only were Arsenal doing worse than last season but “imagine where we’d be without the late goals against Everton and Palace”. Apart from anything else, this is a facile thing to tweet because it doesn’t require much imagination.

But much more importantly, football matches last 90 minutes. It’s a drum I’ve banged relentlessly but to reiterate, having good stamina is something incredibly valuable in football. Arsenal scored those late goals because they were fitter than the other teams. Which was partly a consequence of tactics in the Everton game, despite those tactics being feverishly criticised, probably by the same people.

If you watch the closing act of Ben Jonson’s “The Alchemist” on its own, it’s impossible to suspend your disbelief and enjoy the farce ongoing. Watch the whole play and it sort of makes sense. At risk of a very stretched analogy, most of the discussion around Arsenal has reached the point where people are so determined to be ‘proved correct’ that they stretch the bounds of logic to breaking point and beyond, and it is just a constant farce.

To be clear, it hasn’t been brilliant so far this season. But the way idiots come out of hiding with the slightest sign of a bad result is ludicrous. The other one so far this season (back, in case you’d missed it since April) is that “Wenger is done at the top level”. The evidence for this seems to be that Arsenal took a bit of a shellacking against Dortmund.

This was then coupled with the untruth that Arsenal had consistently struggled in the biggest European games to ‘prove’ some sort of point.

But here’s the problem: on matchday one of this year’s Champions League, ten home teams won. One away team out of sixteen won, and they played against ten men for 75 minutes. All PSG’s money couldn’t get them a win away to Ajax. Atletico Madrid (with the manager many seem to want for Arsenal) lost away to Olympiakos. And yes, Arsenal lost to Dortmund.

But if you want to spot the odd one out, it’s that Dortmund are much better than Ajax or Olympiakos. And that this result was a rare aberration: Arsenal have consistently had an excellent away record over the last three seasons, roughly the life-span of the current team - seven wins, three draws, and four defeats, two of which came in dead games in Athens. It doesn’t exactly strike of being done at the highest level.

For all Arsenal’s relative lack of success in the Champions League, you’d be hard-pressed to claim Arsenal had been knocked out by an inferior team since 2007. Since 2005, only three poorer clubs have reached the Champions League final: Liverpool, Atletico Madrid and Dortmund. Liverpool have since endured four years outside the Champions League and now appear to have a manager who isn’t much cop at signing players. Dortmund have done well in big games but struggled to beat smaller teams - I think Klopp is an excellent manager but struggling to beat Mainz (etc) is an issue for a top manager. Diego Simeone has done brilliantly so far but is also batshit crazy.

But it’s also a bit of a moot point - I think very few people would deny that there are some managers who are tactically better than Arsene Wenger. It doesn’t mean he’s completely useless, or anywhere close to it.

And here’s the key point - Arsenal haven’t changed their system this season just so that Wenger could save some money and not buy a defensive midfielder. That’s the argument of the people who genuinely think the manager gets a bonus for not spending money and is desperate to wallpaper his downstairs toilet with fifty pound notes.

The reality is that on a base level, Arsenal’s system last season went against the manager’s principles. It was, truth be told, a little boring. And so by playing a 4-3-3, Arsenal have greater fluidity, greater attacking purpose, and more bodies who can pile forward. Ignoring the Dortmund game as a freak game (the team was knackered from playing City), the stats show the team having more shots and more possession. Exactly the sort of stats you look for as positives. As it happens, I think Santi Cazorla needs to play more to give us greater defensive balance higher up the pitch, but in general there’s a lot to be optimistic about.

Because here’s the key thing: without playing particularly well (except for in patches against City), Arsenal are still fourth in the table. The only people who are really down are those who expected Arsenal to win the League this season. I was never one of those.

Keep the faith.

Five thoughts on Arsenal's form

Theo Walcott's importance to this team misses the point...
Anybody who knows me or who has read this blog knows that I am far from a Theo Walcott fanboy. Yet even I, in the giddy aftermath of the North London Derby was moved to declare that he had improved a great deal.

This is true. He is playing at a consistently higher level than ever before. He has also hit a purple patch of form and been particularly good for the past couple of months. Even so, it only takes those of us with a memory longer than eight weeks to remember just how appalling he was in his substitute appearance vs Chelsea.

But the truth is he's been good. The issue is he's been no more than that; his importance to the team is more an indictment on our general attacking play. So sure, give him a new contract - but that shouldn't be mutually exclusive with serious attacking reinforcements. And if it is a choice of one or the other, I would choose the new signings; even in his purple patch, Theo has continued to be a flat-track bully with his poorer performances coming against the better teams we've faced.

There's a legitimate case for Arsène Wenger to go…
But unfortunately, it's being made by the wrong people. And in the wrong way.

That Arsenal did not win anything between 2005 and 2011 is of very little bearing to me. I did not believe Arsene Wenger should go then because the team was competitive. So banging a drum about how we've won nothing for seven years and therefore he should go is absurd.

At the beginning of 2007/08, we went on a 22 game unbeaten run. We were a win at Old Trafford away from winning the Premier League and a couple of very dodgy decisions away from a winnable Champions League semi-final against a Chelsea side managed by Avram Grant. That team wasn't rubbish; that team didn't merit the sack.

Even as recently as April 2011, it's worth questioning what happens if Eboue doesn't bundle Lucas over in the 101st minute? Would we have gone on to win the title? Probably not, but maybe. So I don't accept the idea that Wenger's failings are long-term.

The current team is pretty bad. Since Clichy, Fabregas, Nasri and latterly Van Persie left, we are quite clearly a much weaker team. I'm inclined to agree with the manager that third was about as well as the team could hope to have done last season - but I'm also quite happy to hold him responsible for that. He signed the players; the poverty of the squad is largely his fault. I think he's slightly unlikely that the current generation of youngsters (Jack apart) aren't up to much, but he should probably have done something to counter-act that.

As far as I'm concerned, he should stay because no manager could make drastic changes to the playing staff until the summer - but then his position should be seriously considered.

What to say about the lack of saves from our keepers?
It is very hard to work out exactly what is going on in goal. When you concede a lot of shots from outside the box, is it fair to criticise the goalkeeper, the defence, or both? And if both, to what extent is each culpable?

I'm prepared to believe that the skill of our defence means that opposition chances (when they do occur) are of a higher quality because they come from a mistake by one of our players - but that does not excuse our keepers saving nothing.

When there was speculation a couple of years back about Szczesny's contract, everyone wondered what Wenger's issue was; it's pretty obvious now.

It's pretty much impossible to win with substitutions…
I remember when I used to complain when Wenger used to bring on striker after striker in search of victory that it was a move bereft of any real tactical nous, and doesn't really help if you're trying to create chances.

But then, if you bring on a winger for a winger, it's termed 'like for like' and therefore not changing the game. And, if heaven forbid you bring on a defensive player when chasing the game, you are clearly a complete buffoon who hasn't got a clue.

The truth about substitutions is that unless the substitute quite clearly wins the game, it's very hard to evaluate them. In pretty much all football analysis, the importance given to them is grossly disproportionate to their actual importance.

The great irony in all this…
Is that after the press went on and on and on and on about how we've won nothing for seven years, we're 2/1 to win the Carling Cup with this team. If Thomas does lift the trophy, no doubt we'll hear about how it's not a real trophy. Them's the breaks.

Keep the faith.

Seven conclusions from Liverpool 0 Arsenal 2

Liverpool 0 Arsenal 2

1) If we insist - rightly - on giving new signings a chance, then it's pretty inconsistent to jump to extensive conclusions too quickly. Have Arsenal looked better defensively in the first three games of the season? Yeah, absolutely.

But to argue that this mean we now have the best defence in the League is not so much over-egging the point as scrambling it (if you'll forgive the terrible metaphor).

On two counts it seems a little presumptuous. First, Sunderland didn't even attempt to attack, and yet Szczesny had to save us early on from arguably the clearest chance of the game. Against Liverpool, we conceded 15 shots on goal - one fewer than in the corresponding fixture last season, when we were completely outplayed. Granted Borini did seem to want to shoot from any position, but even so those are high numbers.

On top of the number of shots conceded, some of the distribution in the opening half an hour from Mertesacker and Jenkinson was truly calamitous. I'm not saying the team is poor defensively - it's not; but equally, we shouldn't rest on our laurels.

And this hints at the second point: let's wait until we play a strong attacking team before getting too excited.

2) Talking of Liverpool's attack, it can't be long before attention turns to Luis Suarez, again. His goalscoring record isn't bad - one every three games - but his chance conversion rates are absolutely dire. He's been protected from criticism for his footballing performances by Andy Carroll's price-tag, but Suarez was signed for a hefty 23 million pounds, and really needs to deliver more. The chance he missed late on - while unlikely to have changed the result - was really one he should have taken.

3) Considering how often I complain about decisions going against us, it's worth emphasising how lucky we were not to concede a penalty early in the second half. Yeah, Suarez has a reputation for going over easily but Mertesacker was all over him in the box. On another day, Liverpool would have had a penalty and it might have been a completely different result. Football rests on these small margins.

4) As obvious a point as this is, Abou Diaby was absolutely outstanding yesterday. There are few finer sights in football than watching him stride forward imperiously with the football, and he had ample opportunity to do this, creating several chances in a man of the match display.

Raphael Honigstein tweeted last night that three years ago Wenger said Diaby was the most talented player in the squad. That might be an exaggeration, but I'm still delighted to have Abou back and playing like he can.

5) What next for Theo Walcott? It's hard to believe that Arsenal kept him unless he will sign a new contract, but can the increased terms really be countenanced? His record last season was inflated by playing with a striker as good as Van Persie, and few would suggest picking him currently ahead of Chamberlain or, dare I say it, Gervinho.

I've long failed to 'get' Walcott, and while he's clearly a useful player, I certainly don't think he should be one of - if not the - highest paid players at the club.

Also, as long as Sagna remains injured, Jenkinson doesn't provide the overlap Theo desperately needs to take on a full-back - which could deter Arsene from picking Walcott in the short-term. It's certainly a situation I'll watch with interest.

6) A couple of weeks ago, I thought that Liverpool looked like they could challenge for the top four if they kept their squad and brought in some attacking talent. Instead, they let Andy Carroll go, signed nobody, and look bereft of ideas. Good news for Arsenal in the race for fourth place.

7) Outside Anfield, there is a statue of Marouane Chamakh - the invisible man. When the other two senior strikers at the club start and Chamakh can't even get in the match squad, I do wonder what that says about Wenger's appraisal of Chamakh's talents. And yet, surely, we'll need him to play 15 games this season. Distinctly odd.