Have the men become boys?

Results

Date	Time	C	Opponent	F	A	R	S
15 Aug	5:30 PM	P	Everton (A)	6	1	Win

You read that title right. Watching the matches against Atletico Madrid, Rangers and now Everton, there's a new dimension to the Arsenal first team compared to the teams from previous seasons - mobility. The first team are now playing like the youth team in terms of avenues of attack and movement across the pitch. In that sense, the men have learned to play like the boys.

Whenever I watch the Carling Cup squad play, I would see a higher level of fluidity from our younger players. There was a cavalier and flair about them that wasn't present in the first team. It was as if the manager had told the players in the dressing room, "Don't worry about who's out there, who your man is on the pitch. Just play like you're on the playground with your mates." Just go out and play, was the message.

That's why the Carling Cup teams were such a joy to watch. They passed and moved with such verve and energy that it wasn't so much of a surprise that they were turning over teams who were older and supposedly more experienced on the pitch. For the most part, the cavalier approach worked.

And then we would go back to watching the first team, and you would immediately notice a rigidness and more disciplined approach to their play. With either Thierry Henry or Emmanuel Adebayor in the team, the attack would always go one way, towards them. With Alexander Hleb it was easy to anticipate where the ball would go should the play get a bit tight in midfield. And if the defence was too tight or the other attackers were being marked, the ball would always be passed to Henry or Adebayor, if it hadn't been broken down by an offside trap.

When we were faced with two banks of four, the team would pass sideways, and then back to the middle, and sideways again. Calls from the supporters to "Shoot!" would go unheeded, and the move would break down again. But this season's Arsenal team is different. This season's Arsenal team play with the same cavalier, flair and mobility as the Carling Cup squads. Has Arsène taken his blueprint and reversed it and instructed his first team to essentially, "Go out there and play"?

With the departures of Henry, Adebayor and Hleb, we've removed the players who were the obvious avenues for attack in the team. We now have Andrey Arshavin who floats from the flank to the middle, and always willing to try the audacious (it's amazing that in the six months he's been in the league, it's still not apparent how the opposition would be marking him, but that's for another article). The midfield are no longer looking for that perfect pass through the middle that is meant for a big lumbering centre half, but instead charging forward and if there is no obvious pass on, they will shoot at goal.

Of course, it's still early days to come to that conclusion, but three of the six goals in Arsenal's demolition of Everton were from the midfield, only one came from an attacker and that was only because Arshavin's shot had rebounded off the post kindly for Eduardo to tap into an empty net. Out of the five goals scored in the Emirates Cup, four of them were from midfielders, with Eduardo again contributing on behalf of the strikers. Fabregas scored three goals in the entire league campaign last season, and has already scored two in this one.

The movement from the players playing in midfield have led to opposition defences being stretched, they no longer know who they should be marking. That's not to say that the strikers are not contributing on the pitch. They are, because they're occupying and stretching the opposition defence and opening up avenues for their colleagues in the centre of the park. With Adebayor or Henry, the defenders knew that the attack would come through them. It's almost as if our opposition do not know how to play Arsenal any more, much like how they would feel when they came up against a Carling Cup squad.

It'd be interesting to see if this trend continues against Celtic, but I feel that the Wengerboys from this year have more freedom to express themselves, to move across the pitch and try the audacious. But isn't that what Wengerball has always been about? Is Wengerball back? Perhaps we should wait till 9.45 PM GMT before deciding that. I can't wait, can't wait to watch the men play like boys.

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