Arsenal – When’s it Time to Rough it with the Riff Raff?
Arsenal, the team for the neutral viewer, are one of the most unique football team’s in Europe. Bursting with elegance, their fast-paced attacking style is a pleasure to watch. But as results suffer and their place in the title race slips into oblivion, I can’t help but wonder - Can beautiful, attack-minded football ever go hand-in-hand with championships and trophies?
The ugliness of Eduardo’s injury is enough to scar anyone but when it happens to a team that play the game in the elegant, graceful style of the Gunners, perhaps it’s no wonder their season seems to have gone a bit to pot.
While their adopted, free flowing style of play is without doubt easier on the eye than half time cheerleaders, it has since been rather elusive to a winning formula. Granted when faced with a team who too prefer attacking play than sitting back and shutting up shop, chances heavily fall in Arsenal’s favour. Likewise, if their opposition allows them time and space on the ball, odds are several Gunners will be lining up to find the back of the net and all three points.
Guts and Graft
But time and time again, particularly in the latter stages of the season, we’ve seen teams opt to batten down the hatches, get men behind the ball and make up for what they lack in flair with plain, old guts and graft; something Arsene and his young guns appear unequipped to one) deal with and two) overcome.
This was abundantly clear in both part une and deux of their Liverpool trilogy. The stats don’t lie; having 61% of the possession, Arsenal were utterly dominant, just a momentary lapse allowing them to concede that costly away goal. Likewise on Saturday, Arsenal enjoyed the larger share of possession, exhibited a stronger pass rate but where they fell short was the territorial advantage - 47.8% compared to Liverpool’s 52.2%. So just where is the killer instinct?
Nice or Naïve?
I always find it heart warming when a player opts to leave a bigger club for a smaller one, usually taking a pay cut with it, just so they can get more first team action. So when hearing Robin van Persie once say he will always play for a team where he earns less money but plays fantastic football rather than a team where he can earn lots of money and who win every week 1-0, 2-0 but play in a defensive style, I give credit where credit’s due. Here is a footballer who simply loves to play football.
But on second glance, is this attitude actually the key to Arsenal’s downfall? Cesc Fabregas described Arsenal, “We want to play football and attack. Just because the other team refuses to play, we don’t have to do the same thing.” In a perfect world maybe but in this cut throat business of Premiership football, putting out a memorising performance just isn’t good enough.
These boys just want to have fun but it is the Arsenal fans who are left ruing missed opportunities and days a decade prior brought. The days where the team was rife with players like Vieria, Bergkamp, Overmars and Petit; players that could grab a game by the scruff of the neck when things weren’t going right, dig deep and churn out a result. In these days there was always someone to step up and make the difference.
As I’m not an Arsenal fan, I can enjoy their weekly showboat displays but that said I get my sleep no matter the result. At the end of the day, would Gunners fans prefer to get a result or view a spectacle? I think I know but why don’t you tell me all the same.
Tags: Arsenal, Arsene Wenger, Premiership Football, the Gunners
