“When we decided to build the stadium I wanted to anticipate the possibility of financial restrictions, so I concentrated on youth. I also felt the best way to create an identity with the way we play football, to get players integrated in our culture, with our beliefs… was to get them as young as possible to develop them together. I felt it would be an interesting experiment… It was an idealistic vision of the world of football.”
That was what Wenger told The Independent in August.
That’s why he refuses to sign experienced players and prefers to develop young ones. Or, at least, that’s what he says. It’s fairly plausible, as always, but far from the whole truth.
It’s true that skill and running power are vital components of a great team, and it’s also true that possession is a good defence. If you have the ball, the other team can’t score. If you play a short-passing game, and you lose the ball in the front third, or the middle third, you have young, quick players near the ball, so you can often win it back.
1. Arsenal can never be Ajax because 2008 is post-Bosman, not pre-Bosman. Players choose where they play and can leave clubs when they want, pretty much.
2. While you’re building your happy young dream-team, you’re not winning trophies, so your best players sometimes leave and you have to replace them with younger ones, which means you are even further away from winning a trophy. Flamini, born in 1984, was replaced by Denilson, born in 1988. So the team will always be too young to win a trophy. There is no trophy for artistic impression.
3. Kids learn from men, not from other kids.
In 1996, just before Wenger arrived at Arsenal, Manchester United introduced five kids who had grown up together: Phil Neville started 21 league games, Gary Neville started 30, Nicky Butt started 31, Paul Scholes started 16, and David Beckham started 26.
But the other half of the Manchester United team were big men who knew the game and the league. Peter Schmeichel and Gary Pallister were six foot four. Centre half Steve Bruce had played 300 games and 400 for Norwich and Gillingham before he signed for Manchester United in 1987. Eric Cantona had burnt his bridges at eight French clubs but played for Leeds United, so he wasn’t new to English football.
United had, in that classic cliche from every manager’s programme notes, ” a good blend of experience and youth” and the season ended thus :
Man Utd 82 points, Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle 78, Roy Evans’s Liverpool 71, Brian Little’s Aston Villa 63, with Bruce Rioch’s Arsenal finishing fifth on 63.
4. Most newly-built teams win a cup before they win the league.
That gives them confidence and keeps the fans onside.
If Wenger, the man who talks so much about “respect”, chucks the FA Cup again, I will not report that match here. Even now, he is probably praying for an away draw against a good Premier League team, so he can pick a jive eleven and lose, like he did by 4-0 at Old Trafford last season. Last season he thought he was bigger than the FA Cup and could win the league with a young team. But if he couldn’t win it in 2008 with Fabregas scoring goals and Flamini playing out of his skin, he sure ain’t gonna win it in 2009 .
Like Wenger, I think his youth policy is a fascinating experiment.
It does create a distinctive identity. It creates a young identity and that makes it easier to sign good young players like Aaron Ramsey. But I think it would be more appropriate to conduct this experiment at Monaco or Nagoya Grampus Eight.
However, at the recent AGM, which I missed because of jury service, the manager implied that he would continue with his present youth strategy for financial reasons.
That suggests another piece, which I can’t write now, as I’m off to Bond Street.