I can only see news about Fabregas’ injury since the press love him now. Eboue’s absence is more worrying. I hope by some miracle he makes it for Wednesday. But back to the objective here.
Remember when we played 4-5-1 and got a thrashing from Man Utd in the FA Cup final? We won by sheer defensive grit. A lot of people call the 4-5-1 a revelation. Not really. Wenger has flirted with it in the past and found it stifling. Why is it working in now? Remember how our favourite 4-4-2 left us out-fought and leaking points for the majority of this season in the Premiership? Now 4-4-2 is working a treat in the Premiership. Why is it working now?
The answer is Dennis Bergkamp. Or maybe that is the question, to which the answer is Emmanuel Adebayor.
If you think about it, for the majority of his time in the Premiership, Wenger has only ever played with one striker up front and a half-striker. Arsenal are not a two-man striker outfit. For all his time in the Premiership Wenger has used Dennis Bergkamp as that half striker who came deep, didn’t score many but created lots of goals for the Arsenal striker and midfield to make up for it. Hence no one really noticed that Arsenal have been playing one player up front for years. Píres, Wiltord, Ljungberg and to an extent Petit were into double figures for goals each season, each with more goals than most Premiership strikers. To quote Andy Gray from 4 years ago, “Arsenal are not Arsenal without Dennis Bergkamp.”
It is no surprise that Wenger has kept Dennis around this long. For the past 4 years, Dennis has been slowly dwindling and in those years Vieira had to really grow his passing and vision game to cope. This season Vieira left and Dennis was barely playing. Vieira’s absence was felt, but in many ways (not all but many), we were merely feeling Bergkamp’s absence without knowing it. It has been the big blow to the Arsenal attacking machine this season. Remember that Henry has had Dennis behind him for his entire career at Arsenal. Everything Henry runs for is rehearsed for Bergkamp. Now he had to cope with Reyes and van Persie who would rather finish than seek the finisher.
Henry has been said to destroy his striking partners. One contributing factor is that he simply doesn’t know how to play with someone in the same space. We have seen that when he plays for France as well. It is also worth noting how goals have dried up for Freddie Ljungberg in the past two seasons.
The big change now is that Bergkamp has been replaced in Europe by Fabregas and at home by Adebayor.
Europe is a low scoring, tight defending situation. Five in midfield keeps us tight but also releases Fabregas to do what Bergkamp used to do for Henry. We all saw the passes at the beginning of the season from Fabregas to Henry and Reyes. It finally clicked that he has some of Bergkamp’s eye for a good pass. In 4-5-1, Fabregas is more advanced than Hleb, Reyes, Ljungberg or Píres. Against Juventus, Píres was put in a more defensive role than Fabregas because Fabregas had to be Bergkamp and treat Henry to what he is missing.
In the Premiership where many goals are necessary, Fabregas stays more defensive because Adebayor bring a new dimension that Arsenal didn’t have earlier in the season with 4-4-2. Adebayor may seem an unlikely Bergkamp successor but he does 2 crucial things. The first is what Dennis used to do. He comes deep to pick up the ball. This allows Henry to choose a running path. It also means Henry doesn’t have to come and get the ball himself and then have to find someone else (usually nobody earlier this season) to score.
The second is not Bergkamp-like, but it involves Adebayor’s box play. I went back to watch the last 4 Premiership games to work out why Adebayor and Henry work well and I found this.
Imagine we are playing Chelsea with a 4-4-2 formation. Makelele sits outside the D and protects the box. Essien and Lampard then hang around Gilberto and Fabregas. Fabregas has the ball and Adebayor runs out of the D to come and get it. Makelele reacts and follows him. Adebayor gets the ball and instead of turning to look for Henry as Dennis would, he waits for Essien to leave Fabregas and join Makelele against him. Good midfielders double up against opponents. Just then, he passes back to Fabregas who is now free from a distracted Essien. Adebayor then turns and starts running into the box while Fabregas has the ball, leaving Makelele and Essien behind him with pace.
Fabregas now attracts Essien and Lampard again since he has possession. At this point Hleb is running, Píres or Reyes is also running on the other side and Adebayor is going into the box. One accurate pass by Fabregas would then cut out Essien, Lampard and Makelele. Both Chelsea wingbacks can see Hleb or Reyes coming. Most importantly, because Adebayor is going straight into the box (Arsenal didn’t used to do this), Terry and Carvalho have to split and pay attention to Henry and Adebayor. This means that Henry is no longer surrounded by 2 or 3 defenders and a defensive midfielder and has room to do some magic.
Adebayor’s liking for being inside the penalty box forces opposing defenders to share their concentration between him and Henry. His liking for dropping deep like Bergkamp means he carries defensive midfielders with him. When we last played Chelsea, Makelele pretty much dealt with Henry alone since no one was inside the box to distract the defenders. Another key to this is that Adebayor uses Hleb and Fabregas to launch his attacks, dragging midfielders away from them to himself then giving himself a chance to be there when the ball arrives by then running into the box. Adebayor improves Arsenal by allowing Thierry to play the way he did with Bergkamp and by providing Arsenal with a box player that scores rebounds.
Between Fabregas and Adebayor, Arsenal have 2 working systems. A 4-5-1 that replaces Vieira and Bergkamp in Europe and a 4-4-2 that replaces Bergkamp in the Premiership. Bergkamp was Arsenal’s most influential player in the last 10 years. We missed him without even knowing!