Arsenal must find a little fortitude to accompany the flair

The enigma that is Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal was perfectly encapsulated in a painful defeat to arch rivals Tottenham. The side the Frenchman has forged might please the purists but it is inherently lacking in the sort of steel with which Premier League winners are made.

Arsenal are often lauded for the breathtaking quality of their football and Harry Redknapp’s men were mere spectators in the first half as the hosts turned on the style with some mesmerizing passages of play.

Goals from Samir Nasri and Marouane Chamakh were no more than Arsenal deserved in an opening period which, for all Tottenham’s Champion’s League pretensions, appeared to highlight the sheer gulf in class between the two teams. The second half started as the first had finished with Arsenal totally unwilling to cede possession to their north London neighbours and there was little indication of the dramatic capitulation which was to follow.

When teams have the will to score against Arsenal all too often they find a way and 50 minutes of  good work started to come undone when Laurent Koscielny was beaten to a hopeful long ball by Jermain Defoe. Winning a header against a 5 ft 7 inch centre forward should be one of the most straightforward aspects of a centre half’s Saturday afternoon but Koscielny failed to do just that.

As a result Gareth Bale was gifted a golden opportunity to grab a goal his team had done precious little to deserve. Worse was to follow for Arsenal when Cesc Fabregas inexplicably blocked Rafael van Der Vart’s free kick with his arm to gift Tottenham the most needless of penalties.

Fabregas’s protestations that he had merely been protecting his face were as embarrassing as the handball had been unnecessary. As a professional player you are going to have to take a football in the face once in a while, it goes with the territory and is a very small price to pay for the £100,000 weekly pay packet.

The Arsenal captain obviously feels otherwise and while his face may have survived the incident intact the Arsenal lead did not, with Van Der Vart gratefully converting the resulting penalty.

Insult was added to injury when, with less than five minutes remaining, Younes Kaboul flicked a simple set piece into the back of the net to secure an improbable Tottenham win. Kaboul might not be the most gifted of footballers, a point which was repeatedly highlighted in the first half of this match, but he was still able to comfortably beat two Arsenal defenders to the ball.

There was a time when Arsenal’s attacking play was seldom easy on the eye but the defence was virtually impenetrable. Wenger inherited a back four from this era and it was the foundation upon which his first title winning team was built.

As the likes of Martin Keown, Tony Adams, Lee Dixon and Nigel Winterburn reached retirement Wenger was forced to rebuild and did so in style. The ‘Invincibles’ of 2003/04 remained unbeaten for an entire season with a rear guard consisting of Lauren, Sol Campbell, Kolo Toure and Ashley Cole.

An early criticism of Wenger was that he could not sign defenders but the likes of Toure and Thomas Vermaelen have long since silenced that particular argument. The problem with Arsenal is not so much the quality of the individual defenders but the lack of emphasis on defending as an art.

Rumours emanating from Arsenal’s state of the art training complex suggest that the players spend little if any time doing defensive drills. Now a BBC pundit, Dixon touched on this after defensive lapses had once again cost his former side dear in an away defeat to Chelsea last season,

“During my time at Arsenal I am not saying that we, as a back four, did not get coached – we had been coached earlier and we knew each other well – but basically Wenger just let us get on with it,” he said.

The likes of Keown and Adams did not need to be told how to defend and Wenger astutely recognized this fact and left them to their own devices. The Arsenal back four in its current incarnation is in urgent need of education, a point which cannot be lost on the manager but one he appears unable to satisfactorily address.

The suspicion is that Arsenal’s fast flowing football is the product of intensive routines which come at the expense of more traditional training methods. In terms of retaining possession there are few teams better but when it comes to defending set plays, or even on occasion optimistic punts, Arsenal are consistently found wanting. Wenger has worked wonders on a comparatively meager budget but his footballing philosophy is starting to look increasingly flawed.

When George Graham was in charge Arsenal were renowned for seldom scoring twice and ‘one nil to the Arsenal’ was a refrain which rang repeatedly around Highbury. Under Wenger the football is far more expansive but, along with the old stadium, that defensive resilience has been consigned to history.

The problem for Arsenal is that while all goals may not be created equal they do all count the same. Finesse in the final third counts for nothing if it is persistently undermined by defensive frailties and, whereas under Graham one goal was more often than not enough to win a game, in the Wenger era even a two goal lead can be made to look fragile.

Despite this demoralizing defeat Arsenal are currently just two points off the top of the table and the Wenger experiment could yet be vindicated with a fourth Premier League title. His side are never far from greatness but they are in desperate need of a little fortitude with which  to accompany the flair.

Picture: Getty Images

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