A team of central midfielders

Wenger knows how to spot a good midfielder. He is much better at scouting, buying, growing and dropping them than he is with defenders, goalkeepers and forwards. Wenger loves technique and short passing so he gets attracted to these sorts of players who tend to be central midfielders; consequently, the Arsenal squad is full of them even after having let go of Merida and Bischoff.

I have a friend who is obsessed with retro style tennis shoes – the ones that are now remade for fashion rather than tennis. He has got every conceivable variant. When he needs to figure out how to be formal at work, instead of just getting some standard leather shoes to go with his suit, he either buys new suits (more expensive) to fit with his array of trainers or at one point he took one of trainers to be dyed black. When it is spring and it gets all rainy, instead of getting some sensible shoes, he goes to extraordinary lengths to waterproof his shoes with all kinds of sprays – all of which costs more than buying the right shoe for the right occasion. Wenger does that with central midfielders.

Wenger has never bought a real winger – the last one was converted to a striker (Henry). He converted his central midfielders to wingers and even made two defenders from central midfielders (Lauren & Kolo Touré). I wondered how a guy with such an eye for a midfielder let slip Diarra and Yaya Touré. But watching both over the last two years has explained it to me. Diarra peaked at 19. He plays exactly the same as he did then. He makes the same mistakes and he is passing is too poor for Arsenal. Yaya was about to join Arsenal when there was too much competition in that position. In addition, Yaya, was required to do very simple things at Barcelona, the position at Arsenal in the premiership is much more challenging. Note that at Man City, Yaya is far more advanced than he was at Barcelona. Yaya became a good short passer at Barcelona but still a bad long passer.

Anyway the effect of Wenger's overload of central midfielders on Arsenal is twofold. The first is that Wenger loves these players because they are great passers with great technique. They can pass the ball around all day. The problem is when you have a lot of these guys, you end up with a team of people who pass to each other and nobody who wants to take the ball, run and try to score instead of passing. Arsenal's collection of central midfielders creates indirectness in their game.

The second effect is that it can create "false" selection hierarchies. Let me explain.

Something struck me when England was playing Hungary. England tried hard and hard to break through and naturally forced the game through their most talented player, Rooney. It created an unnecessary bottleneck for England especially where the Hungarians were most prepared – they had worked on stopping Rooney. Liverpool had Mascherano and Gerrard focused on stopping Nasri and Arshavin. They lay deep and the game plan was to use Joe Cole for the creative outlet. They forced their game through one channel and also created a bottleneck. When Rooney was substituted, Gerrard duly scored twice. When Cole was sent off, Ngog saw more of the ball than he did in the first half and hassled Vermaelen a considerable amount. It is similar at Arsenal.

The selection question at Arsenal is: who do you play out of position? Rosicky or Fabregas? Nasri or Diaby? Arshavin or Rosicky/Fabregas? That is not an easy question when you have talents like Arshavin, Rosicky, Fabregas and Nasri. The temptation is to play all of them – conventional wisdom says that you have your best players on the pitch. But I wonder whether this forces our game through Fabregas and creates an unnecessary bottleneck because he is the only person in a natural position so all others get stuck when they get the ball on the wing and then go back central where they are more comfortable and have to use Fabregas who is there.

I wonder also whether Arsenal will be more direct if we played less talented players but in their right position instead of more talented players in the wrong position. Going forward, Arsenal need directness more than anything else this season. The forward line with van Persie and Chamakh now has height, maturity and variation. Chamakh is very different. He tried, failed and kept trying till he scored. He is a very effective centre forward who times his runs better than anyone Arsenal has had since Henry. He is also rugged enough to work hard, close down and fight aerially. Chamakh is quite happy scoring a scrappy goal.

But the midfield, where Arsenal's game is, desperately needs to be more direct. I was surprised at how direct Rosicky is when he plays centrally recently – until I remembered what he was like before Arsenal. Rosicky gave a master class at Liverpool when he came on. He has a wonderful pass and he has more energy than I have seen since his first injury. Walcott has a lot of faults but he is direct. Arsenal has five direct players as I see it Fabregas, Rosicky when central, Arshavin when central and Walcott and Eboué but both with less end product. The problem with that picture is that Rosicky and Arshavin – the most experienced of that crowd are out of position and as such, they keep Walcott and Eboué on the bench.

Diaby is direct but I have flipped flopped on Diaby a hundred times. This time I am close to giving up on him. Diaby has no idea where he is on the pitch. He is improving in areas that we don't desperately need and still making mistakes in areas that we desperately need him to grow in – year after year!

I am beginning to think that a midfield of Song, Rosicky and Cesc could be the most direct midfield we can have. And to maintain the directness, we should only have players on the wings who are in their natural position – i.e. that Arshavin and Nasri are on the bench and when they come in as subs, they should come into their natural positions.

Man Utd, especially with Quieroz in their staff did not really buy players from just technique only – Arsenal loves technique players and United loves direct players. When United win a game, you see the effort and drive they put it because they lose the ball more often due to their directness but it also pays off for them when they are trailing and it intimidates opponents. Arsenal has lots of possession but it is not intimidating or even productive to an organised opponent. Chelsea can win without you seeing the effort they put in. They are organised and go through the motions in an orderly way. They punish mistakes and score by executing with maturity rather than by opening-up teams.

Arsenal are too young and too "free" to play like Chelsea. There is nobody in the coaching staff to teach them that. But they can get the success that United has by being more direct. Combined with superior skill and an improved strikeforce, it might make a big difference. It might mean keeping some of their best players on the bench and filling the team with round pegs in round holes.

Rosicky certainly has proven to me that he needs to start every game in the centre. I think we will get a more direct midfield with Rosicky, Fabregas and Song. If Song is injured, I would like to see Nasri play in his position rather than Diaby. And where possible we should play Eboué or Walcott with the two strikers. If Arshavin comes in, he should be substituting van Persie or Chamakh in the centre. I would love to see everyone playing in their right position to what that could mean for Arsenal's directness. I already noticed that Arshavin and Rosicky have no problems changing positions during games – Rosicky makes a lot of things possible for a lot of players, he should really be on the pitch centrally this season.

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