Arsenal: ‘Wenger-Ball’ had quietly left, but it’s back with a bang
Arsenal have always been known for playing lovely attacking football. But, in all honesty, ‘Wenger-ball’ has been missing for some time. Well, in Saturday’s 5-1 win over Everton, it returned with an almighty bang.
Arsene Wenger is a revolutionary. While it was Sir Alex Ferguson who gradually evolved with the times, adapting and conquering his new-found landscapes, it was Wenger who shaping them. The success may not be the same; the impact is far, far greater.
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Perhaps his most long-lasting shaping was the way in which his teams played. ‘Wenger-ball’, it was called, colloquially, at least, and it relied upon a combination of pace and precision, allied with an overawing dominance of possession, suffocating and suppressing the life of the opposition. But for many years, while the narrative of Arsenal’s sensual style has remained, the reality on the pitch has been a stark disparity.
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Possession, yes, but without the same intent and deliberate nature of before. It was slow and methodical; it was aimless, directionless, missing the tempo and drive that former midfields instilled. Sometimes, though rarely, it would burst, fleetingly, with a zip and a fizz. But, for the most part, it laboured, lethargic in its nature, lacking in its production. That is until Saturday evening.
Buoyed by the adulation of new signings, new signings that, by the way, came with a pedigree and an expectation that has rarely been seen in North London, Arsenal proceeded to carve open their visitors with same rip-roaring speed, force and finesse as in the early years. The accuracy of their passing united with the intelligence, fluidity and speed of their movement blistered Everton at the seams. They were uncontainable.
The cohesiveness of the performance was very much reminiscent of those great Wenger teams. Every player had his role, but there was a freedom and a license within that role to improvise and experiment. And because of the unpredictability of their responsibility, and thereby their action, confusion and chaos ensued, something that Arsenal thrived off.
The roaming nature of Mesut Ozil, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, and Alex Iwobi, for instance, intertwined their play beautifully. They were from static or stationary, stagnant, even, as so many Arsenal midfields have looked in the past. Dynamism; explosiveness; a deliberate attempt to play without prior planning, but with an innate understanding, and subsequently an entrenched and deep-rooted confidence, of one another’s game, identifying the need or the opportunity and then reacting accordingly.
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It was wonderful to watch. I couldn’t help but be dragged into it, fully immersed in its poetically rhythmic manner. I was taken back to the days where Wenger was innovative, refreshing, different, and revolutionary. I was taken back to when ‘Wenger-ball’ changed football in this country. I was taken back to when the landscape was defined by Arsenal. Maybe, just maybe, I saw a glimpse of that once more.