Arsenal: Per Mertesacker ‘philosophy’ more like scientific formula

Arsenal’s soon to be academy coach Per Mertesacker has himself a philosophy. But it’s so layered in truths it might as well be a scientific formula.

Arsenal has a budding crop of young talent at the academy level and they are going to need someone intelligent and well-versed in the ‘Arsenal way’ to impart knowledge and guidance on these younglings. Thankfully, we have Per Mertesacker.

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With Mertesacker set to become the academy coach at the end of this year, he is starting to put together his own school of thought, which includes the BFG philosophy. And a portion of it goes something like this (as quoted by Arsenal.com):

"Talent means nothing to me, it’s all about hard work. I put the emphasis in that they’re not told how talented they are too much. Talent is what you make of it."

At first, I was ready to talk about how this philosophy doesn’t apply to everyone. But the more I read it, the more I realized that the German wasn’t necessarily saying what the first sentence seems to hint at.

You see, there are certain limitations to hard work, unfortunately. I see it like a blade. If you have an iron blade, you can sharpen it as much as you damn well want, it will never be as sharp as a finally sharpened steel blade. That’s just the way life is.

You have to have a base level of talent to hone or all of your hard work is going to make you just a hard worker. Which, again, is a great thing. You can never fault a player that constantly works hard.

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But if that player doesn’t have the level of sharpened skill that can make him of Arsenal quality, then he just doesn’t. And no level of hard work is going to turn his iron into steel. He will be a peripheral player.

But Mertesacker expanded and seemed to hit at the real point here. That he would rather have a purely hard-working player than a purely talented player – again, to a certain extent.

Think about it this way, would you rather have Danny Welbeck or Mario Balotelli? Balotelli has all the talent in the world but lacks the hard work to sharpen his blade. Welbeck, however, has all the work ethic you could ever ask for, but not as much talent.

Obviously, you’d rather have Welbeck. So would the entirety of the footballing world.

It’s when you get players like Alexis Sanchez that you see the extent of what can happen when when you have the best of both worlds. Alexis would be – literally – half the player he is today without one or the other components.

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As such, I don’t see Mertesacker’s thought as a philosophy, but a scientific formula. It’s great to know that this is the thought that is going to guide the academy. Hard work alone can get you to the peripherals of a top level club. Talent alone can’t. But if you can impart the right work ethic on a talented player, then you end up with something special.