Club DNA, Emotions And An Unsettled Mind

Wenger's Innovation Versus Arteta's Corporation

Credit: Arsenal.com

The other day I was writing some comment about Gyökeres. I’d said that he is basically a pscyhe evaluation test to determine what fan personality you have. I’d said that Gyökeres is like a glass of water running about the pitch and whether he was half full or half empty was up to you. I’d said that statistics are pulled out to defend opinions but the opinions were never based on stats in the first place.

Basically I was trying to say that Gyökeres is a living, breathing reminder that football is a purely emotional and subjective experience and that the flowing nature of the game makes objectivity very difficult.

I think watching football is an experience of emotional volatility, fear, battling with feelings like fate and of psychological pressure, expectation and the gap between reality and projecting your desire. I think being a football fan is subjective and irrational and essentially about hopes and dreams.

Basically football is a reflection of life.

After the Manchester United loss, the first loss at home this season, I began wondering how much the experience of being a player is exactly the same as being a fan. I had always assumed it to be pretty different. Players are professionals and fans have a vested interest in a whole different way. But much like fans it seems even the best teams with the “objectively” most skilful players can at times, when facing their nemesis find themselves subject to the whims of their emotions, and their hopes and dreams.

Now here’s the thing. I’m not really a believer in club DNA. Sure, clubs tend to follow intangible philosophies and play certain ways (often driven by their very tangible finances). And it’s true that fans carry an idea about what their club represents, their on-pitch values and so on, but I’m not sure how true all this stuff actually is. Take Wenger’s Arsenal and Arteta’s Arsenal. How much DNA do they actually share? Not a huge amount.

I sometimes think of Wenger’s Arsenal as a kind of old school innovation company that tried to break up the usual patterns and introduce new dietary ideas and training regimes, play highly attacking football on the front foot aimed at outscoring the opponent and play with the handbrake off as they say. It wasn’t optimal to let four goals in but if you can score five who cares? It was Wenger’s Spectacle Attacking Football.

Now most would agree that’s not Arteta’s Arsenal at all. I sometimes think of Arteta’s Arsenal as a kind of corporation that went out and bought up Wenger’s innovation company and internalised some, but not all it’s ideas. Arteta has a more corporate approach with a huge squad designed to monopolise all aspects of the game and a powerful defence designed to eradicate goals scored by the opponent.

While Wenger’s Arsenal were made of individual swashbuckling pirates raiding the clubs of the land, Arteta’s Arsenal is more of a battleship with well drilled naval officers out muscling the opponent with a disciplined plan.

Photo by Ajay Meganathan on Unsplash

So, my point is this idea of Club DNA is debatable and certainly less factual than the narrative suggests. But my point is also that if football is a purely emotional and subjective experience then the narrative might well be much more important than fact.

The problem I have, and Arsenal as a club has, and the Arsenal players seem to have, is that for some reason Manchester United has got under out skin. OK, we all know the reason is the Ferguson Years when we had that bloodthirsty piratical rivalry. Some of my best and worst of footballing memories came during these skirmishes.

And for some reason they’ve managed to stay under our skin even though we’ve plainly been on different trajectories for years and years. Arsenal had our difficult times and troubles but we’ve been out of rehab for years and sorted ourselves out. We’ve got into a healthy relationship with a fine young manager and we’ve been climbing up the football rankings ever since.

United on the other hand is still on the hard stuff and has spent years stumbling and snarling about like a ravenous drunk in search of another bottle, a drunk that can’t even be bothered to keep up the appearance of sobriety, stability and civility. Arsenal should have beaten United quite easily by all accounts. But there’s something about that club that freaks us out. Something emotional. Something painful that makes us nervous. This season we’ve settled a lot of old scores, we’ve beaten teams that deserved some revenge. But with United we’ve only managed to scrape a win and then lose.

It’s annoying as hell. But even a disciplined defensive powerhouse like us can expect to lose to a team on the front foot once in a while. And yesterday it happened. But let’s put that to one side and remember the spirit and togetherness that brought us to where we are now can take us over the line. Now is not the time to start feeding the Narrative Zombies and unsettling the mind.

All this (unhelpful) talk of Mentality and Club DNA can only be squashed by calmly getting on with things and not freaking out. That means the fans and it means the players. We’re not 4 points clear by accident so let’s not let an accident derail us now.

And remember, the journey is as important as the destination, so enjoy the agony because it’ll only make the victories to come alll the more sweeter :)

Before I go, here’s a question I’ve been pondering recently. I rate Arteta as a coach. He has measurably improved most players. He sees a player’s skill set and coaches the best out of them. So when it comes to Gyökeres and to Eze I’ve got my hopes that they’ll both integrate into the team and start to sparkle. But with both of them it’s taking time. And I’m wondering why? I’m guessing it’s because in both of their previous teams they played a very different style and they were both The Guy, The Star, The Hotshot. Will Arteta be able to coach them into seeing themselves differently, playing differently and exceling in their roles? And maybe more importantly, will he be able to do that this season or are these guys nexts season’s revelations? I don’t know. I guess time will tell.

Thanks for reading Wonderland’s and have yourselves a great week. Hopefully we can get back to winning ways on Wednesday. Let’s hope Kai Havertz baits the trap to catch a Kairat. Oh dear, I’ll get my coat :)

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