Experimentation Or Orthodoxy?
Arteta and the courage of his convictions
As the dog and I were traversing the forest on an early Autumn morning, I began to think of my deep connection with this fine animal as the result of a kind of Stone Age bioengineering. The dog is a Stone Age drone, an extension of myself, a gatherer of information I cannot harvest alone. Together the dog and I are greater than the sum of our parts, we complement each other, we’re a powerful combination in the forest. By roaming with the dog I’m an extended being, a more robust being. I have greater reach and deeper knowledge thanks to my silent partner.
Thankfully, some 30,000 years ago the relationship between man and wolf evolved because someone took a chance and tried something new. Which, naturally put me in mind Arsenal and Arteta’s experimentation during the early stages of this season.
So, when I got back I wrote this for you. I hope you enjoy it, especially after the (strange) absence of Arsenal Wonderland last week (apologies, I was buffeted by the winds of life. But here we are, back on dry land, so to speak).
Life is always a tense balance. Our lives take place in that fleeting moment between the past and the future, fragile as the surface tension on a pond, an ephemeral twinkling. Life is an emotional experience, much as we pretend to be rational, we are, in fact, driven by those same ancient evolutionary forces that drove our ancestors. We are curious minds embedded in powerful feelings.
I mention this because I’ve been thinking about the relationship we Arsenal fans have with our evolving team in the ever-changing football landscape. Here too we have a strange tension between wanting to evolve and wanting to stay exactly the same. In the early stages of this season Mikel Arteta, an agent of change if ever there was one, is attempting to anticipate and manage oncoming challenges by experimenting with the team.
Arteta knows full well that Arsenal are operating in a shifting and fluctuating world. He knows there are 19 other Premier League managers all working to outwit him and his players. But when he works (as he should) to introduce change he’s met with a chorus of voices all claiming that it worked fine last year so let’s keep it that way.
Besides the “realpolitik” point that we have absolutely no choice but to adopt to the flow of life, the more salient point is that because Arsenal operates within an ever changing tactical environment where you either generate change or you respond to changes around you (I wonder if it’s true that successful teams over the decades have all been change-makers, whilst the medium teams have all been responders to those changes?). And here again this strange tension is revealed, because we fans want to witness evolution and consequent success, but we want it without risk. Yep. I know, ridiculous but true.
Think about the job of a football manager for a moment. Could you fulfil the role? Imagine the job description; You’ll need patient parenting skills, the insight of a psychologist, the tenacity and broad view of a business manager, brand expertise, negotiator skills and a willingness to enter into discussions you’d rather avoid. You’re expected to create and maintain authority. You’ll need to read the room and know at any moment what each player requires to bring out their best. You should be able to manage all your fellow trainers, all your colleagues, the media and the fans. You’ll need to be a supreme and subtle communicator able to speak in clear and quotable language, explaining everything whilst revealing nothing. You’re expected to win all your matches with style and ease and read the opposition so as to make adjustments to counter their plan whilst holding fast to your own. You’ll need to exhibit the tendencies of a lone wolf, making the hard decisions, whilst also being a herd animal and keeping in step with the sensitivity and mood of the flock. And while you prove yourself to be equal to that insanely wide band of expectations, you’ll need to creatively reinvent football itself by developing a new tactical approach that should bamboozle your opposite every single week. Yep. No problem.
Managers also have to be an artists, creating a weekly masterpiece, a moving sculpture with players as material. They need to asses each individual player and tally in their possible match winning potential and then try and coax out that potential on a weekly basis. Mikel Arteta has to do all this in the glare of the media whilst an army of Zombie Narratives are following him about.
Often accused of being a Mini-Pep and slavishly following the Guardiola template, Arteta gracefully ignores this stupefying simplification of his footballing evolution because he knows that (like every other manager) he stands on the shoulders of giants and "discovers truth by building on previous discoveries”. Old ideas that were once new innovations, like total football, False 9’s, Tiki Taka, inverted defenders, right-footers on the left flank of defence (the list goes on), at some point all these ideas were brazenly strolling through the football villages of the past causing fear in opposition fans and teams. And that’s the point. That the opposition is left twitching their curtains in fear and trepidation.
Mikel Arteta’s curtains aren’t twitching though, he’s got his front door wide open. He’s opened the Cava. The future is welcome at Casa Arteta.
And then the weekend finally comes and all the preparation, all the thinking and observing are put to the test, all the systematic plans and structures practiced, all the micro-management of players from their demeanour off the pitch to their body positions on it, all the tactical principles planned so Arsenal can attack space, split defences and infiltrate the block. Even the plan to draw in the opposition players with foot-on-the-ball Brighton-style is assessed and attempted.
And what happens? We witness a difficult, torturous match where 75% possession can amount to one single beautiful move and a goal from a corner. We see an injury and watch Martinelli being taken off to be replaced by Trossard (Ah, remember the Mudryk Affair? The recriminations and disappointment? Risk and reward eh! You just never really know). We experience a few white-knuckle moments where the lack of playing time for some and the occasionally fragile team cohesion is apparent. And then we take home the three points anyway.
But we also learn Arteta’s experimentation is exactly the right thing to do and hopefully the rotation will continue. This evolution should be encouraged. Arsenal hasn’t won at Goodison Park since 2017. This game was frustrating and a little disjointed, sometimes ugly, sometimes beautiful, like the disjointed memory of a boozy celebration. But in the end we got the three points. We saw Raya on the pitch and we saw Arteta accepting he must trust the players to perform.
Was it a hard fought or a hard thought victory? Turns out it’s a bit of both. Slowly the realisation that Arsenal and Arteta are the real deal is dawning even on the most resistant of fans. Long may it continue!
So there you go fellow Wonderlanders. Have a beautiful week and may we all benefit from the wisdom of those calm heads from times past, and not lose our minds in the furore of reckless craving.