The way we see football (part 2)

In all walks of life, sometimes on quite a subconscious level, we are given roles. We can be seen by others as stereotypes, and then respond to that by playing up our stereotypical attributes. In your friendship group you might be seen as 'the funny one' or 'the clever one', and there are all sorts of stereotypes associated with gender, age and social class. It might be quite unspoken, but it's there.

In football it's not unspoken at all, because everyone speaks about it. A player like Claude Makelele can be groomed into thinking "my job is to protect the back four, break up attacks, and play simple passes to the more attack-minded midfielders". He's an extreme example, because he was the master of that particular art, and seeing him in the opponent's half was a rarity, but if you maybe take someone like our own Gilberto - besides his one prolific season (mostly from penalties, to be fair) he would often find himself in scoring positions and scuff it horribly. Some would say, "that's why he's not playing upfront", but I can't help but think there's a side to which players like him are affected by the fact that they know it's not really their job to score goals, so they don't try as often, and they don't succeed in even the easiest situations, and that will just confirm that idea to them in their minds.

Then again, Henry missed sometimes. I'd love to make a compilation of all the good chances he missed and show it to someone who'd never seen him play. They'd think he was rubbish. But no one dwells on these misses because he usually didn't miss, but it took quite a long time for him to build that kind of reputation. He wasn't really a striker when he joined, but Wenger, a master of sports psychology got the best out of him. How he did that, we'll never know.

So that got me thinking, if Wenger could turn Henry from an erratic and one-dimensional winger into one of the best strikers the game has seen, could he do something with the likes of Adebayor, Eboue and Walcott? Adebayor had a great season in 07/08, but something about him didn't impress me that much. I never really believed he could keep it up, and despite his impressive record of 30 goals that season, he and his team mates went missing when we needed them.

That's what I couldn't get my head around. We were the best team in Europe for about 7 months, and then looked quite lost. Our weaknesses were suddenly so glaring, and it seemed like we'd probably overachieved for those 7 months. Is it really possible for a group of players to be on such a high that they just happen to get a lot of the individual moments right? Or were we a great team that just couldn't cope with the disappointment and trauma of that Birmingham game? Even the Invincibles couldn't buy a win for a long time after the unbeaten run ended at 49. I couldn't decide whether to feel annoyed at the team for missing out on the title, or to be grateful we challenged at all, when before the season started the media had us down as challenging for 5th place at best.

One player I think about a lot is Theo Walcott. I feel like he must be some kind of super talent because of all the hype that surrounds him. I'd say we haven't seen enough of him to judge him yet. Personally, I don't think he's very talented, but I'm aware that you don't have to be very talented to succeed. Bizarrely enough, sometimes it helps.

There are many more important issues with Theo. What is his position? Wenger used to talk about him becoming a striker after some time on the wings, I don't know why, but that doesn't seem to have changed. We have a new system now and Theo hasn't played in it yet so maybe we'll finally see the best of him, but he'll have to get over his confidence issues first.

He strikes me as a modest young man trying to keep his feet on the ground. He signed for a big club, for a big fee, at a very young age. That in itself, I think, was a bad move. There would be inevitable hype, and dealing with that would always be difficult. Wenger dealt with it by not giving him his debut until over six months after he'd signed. All of this must've been confusing for Theo, and then years of not knowing his position clearly hasn't helped. He just doesn't seem to believe he's good enough to play for us, and even though I think he's right, I think a change of attitude could help a lot.

Even though I cringe whenever he gets the ball, he can obviously offer us something different when he doesn't have it. In a team like Man Utd or Chelsea, I think he'd obviously do better, because there wouldn't be so much emphasis on being incredibly technical and playing a lot of quick passes. He's not suited to that style, and usually messes moves up when he gets the ball. So it depends how much Wenger is willing to accommodate him. Someone like Ljungberg didn't offer much to our passing game, but was useful at running onto passes and finishing moves off. It could work for Theo, but then, I'd still have more faith in the finishing of Eduardo, Bendtner or Arshavin in that position, so good luck to him getting regular playing time.

So there, that's my first attempt at analysing a footballer for nearly two years. I've missed writing, so I hope you've enjoyed this piece and I hope to post here again soon.

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