Arsenal Rewind : Tactical Evolution ai??i?? From W-M to 4-2-3-1 (Part III)

Read First Part ofAi??The Article Here

Read Second Part ofAi??The Article Here

Arsenal won the 1994 Cup Winnersai??i?? Cup beating Parma in the final 1-0. In fact, that was to be the last trophy won by George Graham as an Arsenal manager. Graham was sacked in February 1995 after he was found guilty of taking illegal payment from Norwegian agent Rune Hauge when Arsenal brought John Jensen in 1992.

George Graham after spending 9 years at the club left behind a legacy that seemed hard to emulate. Stewart Houston was appointed as the care taker manager till Bruce Rioch arrived at the club. Riochai??i??s short span at the club is remembered due to the famousAi??acquisitionAi??of a certain Dennis Bergkamp from Inter. Rioch was sacked just before the start of the season in 1996 following a dispute with the board regarding transfer funds. Stewart Houston was again appointed as the care taker manager. Houston resigned after just 6 matches in order to take over at QPR. Pat Rice, who was the youth team coach then, took up the reins at the club, before a lean, smart man, who was managing a Japanese side named Nagoya Grampus Eight, was appointed as manager of Arsenal football club.

ai???Arsene Who?ai??i??

Ai??

ai???’What does this Frenchman know about football? He wears glasses and looks more like a schoolteacher. Heai??i??s not going to be as good as George [Graham]. Does he even speak English properlyai??i???ai???

That was the first reaction of Mr. Arsenal, Tony Adams when Arsene Wenger was appointed as the manager. Wenger became the first non-British person to manage Arsenal. People in England had hardly heard his name; most of them thought that the board has lost it completely. The Evening StandardAi??newspaper welcomed his appointment with the now famous headline ‘Arsene Who?ai??i??. Soon they were about to know.

Even before officially joining the club, Wenger advised the club to bring in Patrick Viera, who would go on to become the lynchpin of Wengerai??i??s team. Arsene Wenger didnai??i??t make radical changes to the defense of the team which was so successful under George Graham. Arsenal finished 3^rd in the league, in his first season at the helm. In his second season, Wenger took big strides towards improving the squad he had. Wenger was busy in the transfer market, bringing in players like Emmanuel Petit, Marc Overmars and Nicolas Anelka.

Here we will take a look at the tactical evolution that Arsenal under went under monsieur Wenger. We can very well divide Wengerai??i??s reign into four phases.

The first was the pre-invincible era where he used a classical 4-4-2, that was quite rigid none the less. Rigidity was more to do with the personnel on the field than Wenger’s tactics itself.
The ai???Invincibleai??i?? era, where again Wenger used the 4-4-2 but this was different from the one used earlier. The team had great fluidity and great movement.
The Post-Arsenal era, when Fabregas became the fulcrum of the team. Wenger used a variation of 4-4-2, which was more close to being 4-2-2-2 and then it gradually changed to 4-3-3.
The present system, which evolved from last season, a 4-5-1/4-3-3 formation that gradually shifted to a 4-2-3-1 formation.

The Folklore Of 4-4-2

In 1997, Arsenal completed the double by winning the league and the FA cup after they beat Newcastle United in the final at Wembley.Ai?? Wenger combined the new foreign recruits with the existing old guards of the team to forge a winning combination. He implemented the 4-4-2 formation with great effect. In the final of the FA cup, Arsenal beat Newcastle 2-0. The back four that started this game was the same he inherited from George Graham. Nigel Winterburn, Martin Keown, Tony Adams and Lee Dixon formed the backbone of the team, with the ever reliable David Seaman at the goal. Emmanuel Petit, who normally played as a defender (Center Back or Left Back) at Monaco was deployed as a midfielder along with Patrick Viera. That turned out to be a master stroke from Le Professeur as they would complement each other very well and would go down as one of the best midfield pairing in the history of the club. Marc Overmars was deployed in the wings along with the ever reliable Ray Parlour. Nicolas Anelka, another new arrival that season paired up front with Christopher Wreh (Cousin of legendary George Weah).

Newcastle played in a 4-4-1-1 formation and they defended with a very high line. Viera and Petit dominated the midfield while Overmars and Parlour troubled the Newcastle wing backs throughout the match. In the end, Newcastleai??i??s high line at the back caused their downfall as Ray Parlour (Man of the match) produced two lovely through balls over the top, firstly for Overmars and then for Anelka to race clear of the defense and score.

Arsenal's formation in the 1998 FA Cup final against Newcastle United (4-4-2) (Dotted lines are defensive runs made by the players and complete lines are attacking runs made by the players)

From the above formation, it is apparent that the team was primarily set up for counter-attacks. The full-backs made very few adventurous runs forward, while most of the attacking was done by the wingers. Parlour would drift inside occasionally while Viera and Petit in particular shielded the defense. Anelka and Wreh (Wright was the substitute in this match) were very quick and made good runs behind the defense.

After his successful second season at the club, Arsenal went through a lean period after this. The Gunners came close in numerous occasions, finishing runners-up thrice from 1998 till 2001 in the league.Ai?? During this period, players like Overmars, Petit and Anelka left the club, while the famous back four was nearing the end of their careers. By then Wenger had started to re-build the Arsenal side with new recruitment like Ljunberg, Robert Pires, Wiltord and Thierry Henry. To shore up the defense he signed Sol Campbell, Lauren and promoted Ashley Cole from the youth ranks. A French revolution was taking place at Highbury.

The Invincibles

Arsenal won back the league in 2001-2002 season, beating Liverpool to the title by seven points. They completed the double that season by beating Chelsea in the final of the FA Cup. Only four out of the starting eleven were present in the team when Arsenal won the trophy the last time. In 2002, Arsenal retained the FA cup but missed out narrowly on retaining the league title as well despite dominating for most of the season.

The 2003-2004 season saw the ai???Invinciblesai??i?? arrive on stage. Arsenals went through the entire season unbeaten, and were only the second ever English team to do so after Nottingham Forest. That team cannot be described in using one particular formation. They were poetry in motion, loved by the purist, and marveled by the scholastic. They played expansive attacking football, yet to found the grit and determination to remain unbeaten an entire season, that was stuff of immortals. The team sheet that was put out on every match day put them together in a 4-4-2 formation, but that 4-4-2 was an enigma.

The back four consisted of Ashley Cole, Sol Campbell, Kolo Toure/Martin Keown and Lauren. A very interesting fact about this back four was that none of them were natural defenders. Ashley Cole played as a forward in Arsenal youth ranks and Lauren, who was signed from Mallorca in 2000, played as a midfielder for his former team. Sol Campbell started his career as a striker eventually moving down the field to play as a center back. Finally, we come to Kolo Toure, who was a very versatile player and could have played as a midfielder as well. Who can forget those charging runs through the midfield made by him? Yet, they made up an Arsenal defense which was arguably its second best in history. That is after the famous back four of George Graham. David Seaman who left the club in 2003 was replaced in goal by the German international Jens Lehmann.

The midfield was an assemblage of maestros. Patrick Viera and Gilberto Silva was a conjugation of fire and steel, with generous seasoning of class. Gilberto was the invisible shield in front of the back four, withAi??Viera the quintessential midfielder. Viera had too much ability to label him just as a ai???defensiveai??i?? midfielder. Ljunberg and Pires were the two wonders on the wing, usually Pires played on the left and Ljunberg played on the right. The word ai???usuallyai??i?? must be stressed upon as because in that Arsenal team, only the positions of Seaman to Viera were fixed, the rest were unspecified. Ljunberg and Pires made more diagonal runs into the box than to the by-line. These movements were in sync with the various positions that Henry and Bergkamp took up. Henry, who was a winger during early days of his career, usually drifted wide left dragging central defenders along with him. This created space for Pires and Ljunberg to exploit. The wing backs of the opponents were pinged back into their own half, due to the forward movements of Ashley Cole and Lauren. The left hand side of Arsenal were said to be their strongest with Cole, Pires and Henry creating havoc down that side.

Then there was the mysterious case of Dennis Bergkamp. He was listed as a striker, but most of the goal scoring was done by Henry, goals from the godly gifted feet of the Dutch master became less with years as did paucity of hair on his head. But there was always more to Dennis Bergkamp than just goals and hair. He was the orchestrator, the Kapellmeister of the band. He dropped deep and found spaces in between the line of the defense and midfielders and with the ball in his feet he could pick out passes like Messi wins Ballon d’or now a days. Again, his assist count would always be overwhelmed by his ai???Pre-Assistai??i?? count. Invariably it would be Bergkamp who would start off a move with an eye-of-a-needle pass. So, essentially when on attack, the Arsenal formation would represent something similar to self portrait drawn by a 2-year-old kid. Let us take a look at the two possible formations for Arsenal during the ai???Invincible Eraai??i??.

Ai??The Starting FormationAi??

Arsenal's formation and their movements (4-4-2) (Dotted lines are defensive runs made by the players and complete lines are attacking runs made by the players)

Ai??FormationAi??While Attacking

Arsenal's formation while they attack (Dotted lines are defensive runs made by the players and complete lines are attacking runs made by the players)

The above formation shows a hypothetical situation of a typical Arsenal attack. Henry drifts wide and Bergkamp drops deep, while Pires and Ljunberg makes run into the box. The width of the team is maintained by the two on rushing fullback in the form of Cole and Lauren. Viera charges up field while Gilberto drops back to cover the two center backs. So, essentially at times, Arsenal would play without a proper forward or target man in the box. Few teams keptAi??possessionAi??as well as Arsenal did, they would be patient and draw the defenders out of their comfort zone, then with a suddenAi??accelerationAi??of pace and an inch perfect through ball would open up the defense and they would score.

Counter Attack

If Arsenal were sublime in attacking, they were irresistibleAi??at counter-attacking. The above pictorial representation of a swift break away move wasAi??orchestrated against Aston Villa in a league game. When Henry collected the ball on the right there didn’t seem much danger to behold, but the Frenchman with the help of some Godly skills skipped past two defenders and passed the ball on to the left to Bergkamp. The Dutchman produced another one of his masterclass first touch pass right on the path of on rushing Ashley Cole, who finished with an aplomb. Brilliant!

Below is the Ashley Cole goal discussed above.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVP-_o69OAI&w=420&h=315]

Due to their counter attacking prowess at times it seemed opponents feared to attack them, as they would be vulnerable at the back. In a blink of an eye, from defending at one end, Wengerai??i??s army would be racing down the field to score at the other end. With pace to burn and Vision aplenty the Gunners could have ripped apart any side on their day.

In the following season, Arsenal failed to retain the title as they fell apart psychologically after their record-breaking 49 matches unbeaten run was ended at the hands of Manchester United. They managed to win the FA cup that season, beating Manchester United in the final through penalties.

You can enjoy the 49 Games Unbeaten Run here.

“In Wenger we trust”

Wenger had an eye for talent like no other and his degree in economics certainly helped him getting those talents at bargain price. He took Arsenal to the next level, changing the evolution that started under George Graham into a revolution. He had his own philosophy about how the game is ought to be played and he followed it religiously. The ai???Boring boring Arsenalai??i?? taunt that were heard from the stands during the later part of George Grahamai??i??s reign, quickly changed into incredulous gasps. Wenger added a touch of French art to the often crude game of English football.

Flashback

Ai??Arsenal Vs Middlesbrough – 2004

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7Cxcuv4Tt4&w=420&h=315]

We shall continue to look into the tactical changes that Arsenal went through once the ‘Invincibles’ left in our fourth part of this series.

A note of thanks to @SounakAi??for his inputs on this article. Follow him on Twitter.

Continued in Part IV ai??i?? Tactical Evolution under Arsene Wenger.

Arsenal Rewind : Tactical Evolution ai??i?? From W-M to 4-2-3-1 (Part III)

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