Wenger's philosophy is misinterpreted

Did you know that Arsène Wenger has bought at least eleven players over the age of 25 years in his time at Arsenal? Did you know that some of Arsenal's best ever players over the past 12 years were playing in the first team when they were only 20 to 22 years of age?

Reading about Wenger especially after the disappointment of the last few seasons, you would think that he only ever buys 18 to 20 year olds and you would think that young kids playing in the premiership never succeed.

Here are some of the older players Wenger has bought and the age at which he bought them.

Robért Píres (27), Sylvain Wiltord (26), Sol Campbell (27), Andrey Arshavin (27), Silvinho (25), Lauren (24), Hleb (24), Rosicky (26), Gallas (29), Giles Grimandi (27), Marc Overmars (24), Emmanuel Petit (27), Gilberto (26).

Look at some of the players that Wenger bought who were young at the time they signed and have done really well. You may argue about the level of success of each player, especially Reyes.

Vieira (20), Thierry Henry (22), Flamini (20), Touré (22), Reyes (21), Ljungberg (21), Ashley Cole (first team at 20), Robin van Persie (21), Adebayor (22), Flamini (21).

Looking at these stats, three thing jumps out.

First, Wenger DOES buy older players. It is a myth that he doesn't. We are not talking about the odd player here and there. There are 13 just from my own count above – it is not a huge difference from Alex Ferguson's record. But then this begs the question: why is the current team so young? I will come back to that.

Second, the players who were bought when they were older than 23 (in the first group) were certainly far more successful from a trophy point of view.

Lastly, the successful players (from a trophy point of view) in the second group, who arrived at Arsenal under the age of 23 were successful as part of a blended team. Vieira, Ljungberg , Ashley Cole and Henry played teams with Bergkamp, Píres, Campbell, Petit, Gilberto, etc.

Arsenal has not won anything with these recent very young teams although we have been at the Champions League final and semi-final, the Carling cup final and semi finals and the FA Cup semi finals. But remember that even experienced teams like Chelsea, Man United , and Liverpool teams do not win the premier league every year. It is quite natural for a good team to go two or three years in transition phases before building back up to the top. But 4 years is too long especially since not even cups have come in that time.

But at Arsenal, this is not an ordinary transition – in fact it does not have the characteristics of a transition. A transition is a process that progressively improves towards its goal. The productive life of any team lasts 3 years or even less so we cannot consider 4 years as transition. Something else has gone wrong somewhere. If this team was young 4 years ago, how can it still young today? How has a manager who has bought both experience and youth in the past ended up with such a young team?

I don't think I know the answer but I can share my views.

I remember in 2006 when Chelsea was thrashing everyone and Man Utd were left behind. Alex Ferguson complained about criticism he was receiving when Wenger was not receiving any despite being in the same situation – "Everyone keeps talking about how Arsenal are in transition but nobody talks about the fact we are also in transition". At that time, Ferguson had started the process of replacing Jaap Stam , Beckham, Keane, Giggs, Scholes, Schmeichel, Butt etc. What is notable about Ferguson's transformation was this. Nearly all the players he was trying to replace stayed at the club with a few exceptions during the transition. In fact, two of them are still there.

You also notice this pattern when the younger players at Arsenal at the time like Vieira, Henry, Cole, Lauren, and Ljungberg were going through their own transition. Most of the people they were replacing stayed around a little while before they left. Dennis Bergkamp oversaw the transition of all Arsenals' forwards for 8 years. So did Martin Keown at the back and Ray Parlour in midfield. But after that – after 2005, the Vieira generation did not stay on to help the transition. They all left. It wasn't a transition to the Fabregas generation – it was being thrown in at the deep end and Arsenal has not recovered.

But Arsenal have had 4 years to make up for it. Why haven't they?

I believe that Wenger has always known who in the reserves or the bench is going to take over and planned it in advance. And where Wenger did not have anyone ready in reserves or the bench, he went to the market and generally bought experienced players like Rosicky, Eduardo, Sagna, Hleb, Reyes, Flamini and van Persie. Remember Flamini, Reyes and RvP didn't come to Arsenal as a teenagers. They had played in their first teams for more than a year and had a history of good results.

So my view is this. Wenger has always planned a smooth transition and everything should have been going to plan. You have to admit that it is exactly in Wenger's character to plan a smooth transition but it has gone wrong for two reasons – mismanagement of players leaving and injuries.

Deco, Anelka, Giggs, Scholes, etc all earn tons of money from being on the bench. Why did Henry, Gilberto, Vieira, Píres and Sol Campbell etc not finish their careers at Arsenal? Ok that's a lot of money to put on the bench but that's what it costs. Why does Arsenal have an obsession with the resale value of players? I am no financier but it my view, great players don't cost – they pay! Why did Flamini and Hleb leave? If Ronaldo cannot leave Man United even when his exit could finance a entirely new team, why do we collect miserly pennies for players like Hleb who could be made to stay?

Reyes, Hleb, van Persie (injuries), Diaby (injuries), Senderos (too early) and Flamini are the biggest reasons why the team didn't transform in a predictable way over the past 4 years. Call me naïve but I think Reyes would have been a great player had he stayed. These are vital players that had been planned for vital positions. In Man United, nearly all those players made it. Fletcher, Wes Brown, Ronaldo, Carrick, Rooney, Ferdinand, Vidic, Evra, Park all made it. They were all bought roughly around the same time. Their transition worked. They made it together whereas Arsenal was disrupted by unplanned departures at the last minute and Wenger looked to the youth team for replacements sometimes and bought sometimes. For the youth team replacements it was too early. For the ones we bought, they got injured.

Rosicky, Eduardo and van Persie have added to the lack of transition woe (through no fault of theirs). Their injuries put the manager in a tough situation. Buy replacement in the middle of the year or wait? Will Diaby make it? Wenger must have been thinking answers like: I cannot find out this because he is injured or I think he will be fit soon so I will not buy another player. They will be back next year. But next year, someone else left and yet another new player comes into the team and we are back to 2005 again.

One can begrudge Arsenal for the way players have left Arsenal while under contract when they could have enforced the contract and maybe persuaded them the next year to sign on. One can begrudge Arsenal for allowing contracts to run down or for insisting on one year contracts over a certain age. But that is only part of the problem. It is hard not to feel sympathy for Arsenal for the damage that injuries have caused to any long-term planning. Nobody can really be sure how good RvP , Rosicky or Eduardo (or even Diaby) really are. We have barely seen them.

How do you plan for next season? Do you assume that Diaby is going to continue to be crap at releasing balls early and not conceding free kicks around our box or do you assume that this was his first real season and he will grow like Vieira after his first season? Do you assume that Eduardo and van Persie will be fit for more than a third of the season? Do you assume Rosicky will be able to play as well as he used to after being out for nearly 18 months?

If Arsenal is to go forward, they must assume the answers to those questions are NO. If anything else happens it will be a huge bonus. Last time we assumed the answers would be YES and see what happened.

Final thoughts.

People claim that Arshavin was bought by the new CEO. Myself, that theory is either for insiders who know what really happened or are angry at Wenger. Wenger spoke about Arshavin a lot in the summer. When he knew Rosicky was not coming back and Cesc was injured for 4 months, he bought Arshavin in January. He has bought older players before so to me, this is consistent behaviour.

Wenger claims that buying experienced players will destroy younger players. I think that actually quite the opposite. It will improve younger players and it will make one mighty difference which is this. It will make sure that Arsenal wins trophies so that older players can choose to stay and retire at the club and younger players like Flamini and Reyes would be patient and wait their time instead of running off. Trophies and success does that and as we have just seen, it makes all the difference with transition periods. Hleb may end up with a Champions league medal that he did nothing to win. Players at Man United, AC Milan, Real Madrid etc will sit on the bench to retire or wait their turn. But that is worth it for them because they will get medals they rarely played for. Players should think it is worth sitting on the Arsenal bench.

User Comments

gt

Posted on 11 May, 2009 at 06:03 PM - Reply

Can't find a reference at the moment, but I once read that Arsenal's wage bill is about the same size as Man Utd. The reason is Arsenal pays the youngsters generously (and that's how they attract young prospects), while Man Utd pays the superstars handsomely. Which one works better? If you look at the trophy count that's a no-brainer. So I do feel Arsenal's system is somewhat flawed; not that they haven't achieved respectable results, but they haven't made the most bang for the buck.

Yakso

Posted on 11 May, 2009 at 03:45 AM - Reply

A brilliant article regarding the problems at Arsenal. I am no expert but I think we really need at least 2 more experienced signings during the summer if we want to win something. We also should scrap the policy of only offering 1 year contract to players over the age of 30. I think that is plain KRAP. A blend of youth and experience is what's required for a successful transition as we are learning it the hard way :<

devnandan

Posted on 10 May, 2009 at 09:13 AM - Reply

what you have said is absolutely spot on. i too have been thinking on the same lines. one point which you made of experienced players help in developing younger talents is also correct, a simple example being that when beckham trained with us ,our full backs crossing improved a lot.

ashlesh

Posted on 10 May, 2009 at 07:49 AM - Reply

how dare u call urself naive..dude gr8 explaination.Arsenal fc should work out on this.

James

Posted on 10 May, 2009 at 01:54 AM - Reply

You've tied yourself up in knots.

Forget the past, it's all about balance - and right now Wenger is clearly getting it WRONG!

Open your eyes for god sake, this team is full of young players who aren't as good as previous young players, are not improving at a sufficient rate and have nobody to turn to in times of crisis.

How do you propose they dig themselves out of it? It's impossible.

Wenger needs to fix this once and for all in the summer by bringing in 2-3 experienced players to augment the squad. If that means some of the kids will have to go back to the bench so be it. How can that be a bad thing? They will just have to try a damn sight harder.

Double-you

Posted on 9 May, 2009 at 08:04 PM - Reply

Spot on analysis!

Mithun

Posted on 9 May, 2009 at 07:51 PM - Reply

Excellent!! one of the best articles i've read regarding this topic!!

ur great man!

AusGunner

Posted on 9 May, 2009 at 05:33 PM - Reply

You make some fair points but the thing you mention about trying to force the likes of Reyes, Hleb etc to stay, you overlook something important: the individual will of the players. Reyes, Hleb, Flamini all wanted to leave. Once players want to leave and have their heart set on it, there is no point keeping them against their will because it is counterproductive (Flamini of course couldn't be kept one way or the other but I'm sure you see my point).

KAYDIDDY

Posted on 9 May, 2009 at 05:30 PM - Reply

WELL SAID.

VERY CONCISE ANALYSIS

andrekarim

Posted on 9 May, 2009 at 05:05 PM - Reply

Very pertinent views indeed. And I have to admit i do agree with most of them. However, I would like to add that, regarding your comparison with Manutd players, most older players who left arsenal (Viera, henry, hleb, Cole, reyes etc..) did so without the agreement of the manager. But he couldnt hold them against their will unfortunately; particulary the case A. Hleb.

andrekarim

Posted on 9 May, 2009 at 05:04 PM - Reply

Very pertinent views indeed. And I have to admit i do agree with most of them. However, I would like to add that, regarding your comparison with Manutd players, most older players who left arsenal (Viera, henry, hleb, Cole, reyes etc..) did so without the agreement of the manager. But he couldnt hold them against their will unfortunately; particulary the case A. Hleb.

David

Posted on 9 May, 2009 at 03:21 PM - Reply

So basically what you are saying is Ferguson is really way better than Wenger! Because he has been planning for transition year after year and planning for the unexpected injuries as well. That's why they have won the league three years in a row and might be going on to defend their ECL title for the first time in history. Yes, some of your views are correct, Wenger did buy experienced players, but only if he is pushed to the wall. Like this year, he bought Arshavin because RVP, Cesc, Rosicky, Walcott, and Eduardo were all injured. We would have been fifth or sixth by now if Arshavin didn't come. In Wenger's earlier years, he did plan for replacement. He brought in Campbell, Lauren, Cole to replace the famous back four; and Gilberto for Petit; Lehmann for Seaman; RVP for Bergkamp; Reyes (then Rosicky) for Pires; Walcott for Ljungberg; Cesc for Vieira; gradually Sagna for Lauren; Clichy for Cole; Gallas for Campbell; Flamini for Gilberto; those were all CORRECT replacements. After that, see what happened: ? to replace Keon (tried Cygan, Toure, Senderos); ? for Flamini; ? for Lehmann; most importantly ??? for Henry. While the rightly replaced are so injury-prone (RVP, Walcott, Rosicky), the ones that have never been replaced determined our recent trophiless destiny. You could say we were unlucky on injuries to key players, who wasn't? Man U lost CR7, Rooney, Hargreeves, Carrick for lengthy periods, but they managed to win trophies after trophies. Ferguson even dig right into the market after they won the 2007 EPL title to buy Anderson, Nani, Berbatov, Carrick, Hargreaves. How did Wenger respond knowing he lacks certain players? He did nothing but bought bunch of kids. We were almost there last year, but Adebayor cost us the title by not passing to Bendtner for an easy empty netter at Birmingham when the score was 2:1, by winning that match, we'd be 8 points clear. Now Wenger is still trusting those mediocre players like Adebayor, Diaby, Toure, Song, Almunia, Djourou to bring us trophies in future. The transition almost finished last year, but Wenger's stubbornness and mistakes prolonged or even restarted the process again. So if these abovementioned still stay, we will never win. Period!

Ole Gunner

Posted on 9 May, 2009 at 02:01 PM - Reply

Great article.

I think one thing you didn't factor in, and should, is that our big guns wanted to leave. Feggerson and Man U have the luck that their players never want to leave.

Pires, Vieira, Henry, Ljungberg,Campbell....these guys all wanted to leave. Wenger kept them for years after they first wanted to leave. And you just couldn't be planning a transition and spending every summer

Then your Deco on the bench analogy was a bit daft. Chelsea lose money every year and have spent more money in the last 4 years than any team has ever spent.What would it take for Arsenal fans to finally get the obvious. We don't have that kind of money. Nobody does. Even the richest club in the world struggles to match their recklessness.

Then there was Lehman who made it impossible to retain him.

Then you didn't pay enough service to the fact that it's become the hardest it has ever been to win the Premier League. Any of the Top 4 would win the league in any of the other leagues in Europe.

Look, we had to transition within a transition.

stevme

Posted on 9 May, 2009 at 02:00 PM - Reply

One problem with the development that has led to no trophies since 2005 is surely wenger's tendency to ignore his defence. when you look, sol campbell came on a free, gallas probably only came because he wanted out and there was a cloe saga involved then apart from sagna, who has he really bought there in the last 6-7 years?

Arshavin was not a CEO buy. ANR for example conviniently ignore the fact that Zenit spokesmen were critical of wenger's approach right in the summer, calling him a fox at night over Arshavin were did the CEO come in then.

thanks brilliant article.

Ole Gunner

Posted on 9 May, 2009 at 01:59 PM - Reply

Great article.

I think one thing you didn't factor in, and should, is that our big guns wanted to leave. Feggerson and Man U have the luck that their players never want to leave.

Pires, Vieira, Henry, Ljungberg,Campbell....these guys all wanted to leave. Wenger kept them for years after they first wanted to leave. And you just couldn't be planning a transition and spending every summer

Then your Deco on the bench analogy was a bit daft. Chelsea lose money every year and have spent more money in the last 4 years than any team has ever spent.What would it take for Arsenal fans to finally get the obvious. We don't have that kind of money. Nobody does. Even the richest club in the world struggles to match their recklessness.

Then there was Lehman who made it impossible to retain him.

Then you didn't pay enough service to the fact that it's become the hardest it has ever been to win the Premier League. Any of the Top 4 would win the league in any of the other leagues in Europe.

Look, we had to transition within a transition.

A

Posted on 9 May, 2009 at 01:08 PM - Reply

I don't think Wenger is against buying older players entirely, we currently have in our ranks, Gallas, Toure, Silvestre, Sagna, Rosicky, Arshavin, Adebayour, RvPersie, Eduardo - These are all in the 24-34 age bracket, so Wenger clearly feels he has a lot of experience in the squad, but like you say injuries were difficult to manage because we had so many long term ones. I think Wenger is building his team with a core of young players who when the mature, will be able to win trophies consistently for a few years without needing to be replaced. When did Fergie buy Rooney and Ronaldo?, it took them a couple of years to start performing in Fergies vision of the team, and since then its been three successful years for ManU. So the hope is that when this Arsenal team do mature and start winning, it could be a period of consistent trophies.

Medals

Posted on 9 May, 2009 at 12:55 PM - Reply

also this about arsene not knowing they would leave or get injured but at the end of the day he should have a plan B!! He needs too change his mindset too winning at any cost.
im not saying we need a squad overhaul just get us Hanglaand senna and david villa and get rid of adebbaypoor, senna is old and wont manage too play 35+ games so song will learn and still get some playing time

Al

Posted on 9 May, 2009 at 12:33 PM - Reply

Good points! Arsenal has to review their policy of offering one year contracts once you reach a certain age. The club needs a blend of youth and experience so that the younger players are not thrown out into the deep.

Gregory H.

Posted on 9 May, 2009 at 11:53 AM - Reply

It's very logical and very clever! Please publish these thought in other medias too! Mr. Wenger has principals and one of these is extremly important for us such as : fidelity. Theo said that other great players improved so well under the manager so that's why he's stay. That's the point! Senn from my native country, Hungary, in the last ten years or so Arsenal= Arsene Wenger. If wwe belived in him and him squad in the previous decade, we do the same in next one!

Gooner17

Posted on 9 May, 2009 at 11:45 AM - Reply

Great article mate, I personally think we would of won one if not two trophies this season if hleb and flamini did not leave, Rosicky would of been replaced by the improving walcott.

bobbyp

Posted on 9 May, 2009 at 11:29 AM - Reply

A brilliant article. I haven't read anything like this (and I trail through a lot of Arsenal stuff) I concur with your theory, but would never have thought of it myself. Well done fella. I would send a copy off to Arsene el pronto if I were you.

Gerry Gooner

Posted on 9 May, 2009 at 10:31 AM - Reply

Really great article mate. Great read and excellent points.

kizito

Posted on 9 May, 2009 at 10:25 AM - Reply

true gunner i may say........! things have got real to change....how about WENGERS'S tactics on big games....same mistakes...dont you think? final 2006,UEFA CL, CARLING CUP, semfinals....FA, UEFA?

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

ritesh

Posted on 9 May, 2009 at 10:24 AM - Reply

Many playrs left last year after what happened to Eduardo. No one like being kicked like they were last year

Varick

Posted on 9 May, 2009 at 10:18 AM - Reply

Brilliantly said.

Anon

Posted on 9 May, 2009 at 10:18 AM - Reply

I think this is the best article I've read all year

User Comments

• Got something to say?
• Read comments

Vs chelsea