Tactics, formations and set ups. It seems every Arsenal fan is an expert on them. Yes we all know them well, all of us bar Arsene that is.
I mean its easy, right?
Start with a world class goalkeeper. One that dominates his area and controls the defenders.
Next we want a couple of centre backs. One of who should be big lump that flings himself in front of everything and heads the ball far far away from his area. The other, a smaller beast, who can cover the big lumps lack of pace and play out from the back. Oh yes ,and they should have a telepathic understanding and work as a pair, as one.
Now we want two fullbacks No nonsense players that defend first and one of who never passes the halfway line unless his mate is tucked in.
Right, now we want two big “physical presence” midfielders that can play a bit. Pace and power, thats the key here, pace and power. Protecting the back four and setting the platform for the forwards to enjoy themselves. Don’t forget they need pace and power. This is the Premier League, pace and power is vital.
The next thing we need are a pair of wingers that have, err, umm, well, pace and power. They must be able to help the fullbacks and also attack with gay abandon, and score 20 goals per season.
A world class No.10 comes in handy now. He must have vision and creativity as well as being able to drop into midfield and help out by being a physical presence. Obviously he has to be able to score, but his main job is to create for others.
Last but not least comes the world class striker. He has to be lightning quick, strong as an Ox, and score at a rate that no other striker in the league does.
On the bench we need seven outstanding players that would walk into the starting eleven of any of our rivals.
There we have it, management by numbers. The default team of every expert layman fan.
The formation is 4 4 1 1, or the No.10 can fall back and its 4 5 1, or the wingers can push up and its 4 3 3 .
Yes this management malarkey is a piece of piss.
You may be detecting a hint of sarcasm by now?
Still. I’ll soldier on.
On top of this extensive knowledge we are all also experts on player development, training regimes, fitness and last but not least – we all have medical knowledge far beyond that of specialists that the club hire.
Of course our knowledge doesn’t stop there, oh no ! Club and global finances are well within our understanding. The negotiation of transfers is a task we would absolutely excel at.
Its true that every fan has one thing in life that they are outstanding at, and thats running Arsenal football club . And doing better in every field than the useless experts that the useless board employs.
When challenged on our credentials we have no problem here. “I know my stuff, I’ve been watching Arsenal for X years”
I mean its easy to prove how right you are. As soon as Arsenal lose, you point to which of the default team settings that were not used and claim that had they been, the result would have been better. Its foolproof because no one can prove it wouldn’t. This is evidence of your genius.
“We didn’t win because we had no power and pace in Midfield”
So basically we all want a manager that uses this template.
Sort of like the 1998 Arsenal team ?
We need a manager that understands this set up works and does it !
Players need to be told by the manager , exactly what to do and when to do it, following this template . The one we understand. The one that won stuff.
We certainly don’t want some visionary that thinks his old template needs revising because football evolves. No, we want a manager that thinks like us and does stuff we understand.
Look, we all know this squad has huge deficiencies and Arsene refuses to address them. I would list these deficiencies but I just cant think of one at present.
Anyway, we should all be happy because the very smartest among us can write blogs and do Podcasts to show just how smart we are. Spare a thought for the previous generations that had to hide their genius under a bushel.
Positively Arsenal 
Glorious.
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That all sounds well and good but I think you’re underestimating the need for pace and power. Gotta have more pace and power!
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Pace and power – Santi Cazorla in a nutshell.
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Just WoW!
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Yes George, you’ve got it. This management lark is an easy game and any old fool could do it, which makes it all the more surprising that our own old fool finds it so beyond him. Does he not watch Arsenal TV? Does he not listen to Talksport? Does he not read Neil Ashton? No shortage there of experts at the top of their form to gently point him in the right direction.
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Just back to PA and I see George is in fine form. Not unlike The Arsenal.
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Sounds like a great team George, well done. You’re right it isn’t complicated is it? As long as you don’t have to deal with the nuances of relationships between players or the individual emotional frailties of human beings or luck or global financial markets or the sudden shift in spending power of other teams or unpredictable officials or the opposition and their tactics their luck their form or a biased power crazed media or slavering knuckle dragging aresholes calling themselves fans and booing your players when they most need support or unpredictable injuries unpunished repeated assaults on your players or disloyal weak players who you nurture only to have them stab you in the back.
Yep piece of cake.
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Great George, although Steww is right you need to remember you also have to have the ability to bring in the worlds top player every window without regard to cost, availability or squad size
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Plus you have to make sure Doris the tea lady is happy.
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Great stuff George, you’ve hit the nail on the head.
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Homesickness. Vaulting ambition. Thwarted ambition. Biorhythms. Love sickness. Nerves. Late nights. Addictions. Family problems. Agents. Fitness. Health. Cliques. Loneliness. Language.
No – those sort of things don’t come into it at all..
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Of course they don’t FH – it’s just like the computer games, where the players are animated figures who can be moved around at will and do exactly as you expect them to at all times!
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Is George is a secret agent for Roman or the Sheik? Sounds like their template.
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Of course the better managers manage to cope with all the variables over an extended period of time. Moyes at Everton springs to mind, as of course does Ferguson. Many managers can come up with a one-off glory season (where all the stars align, more by luck than anything), and some can extend that over two or three seasons. But to keep things fresh, to keep the reinvention going takes something quite special. I can see how clubs with unlimited funds may take the view that constant managerial turn over is the best way to achieve success, but for those on budgets the Arsenal approach is surely best. After all, without continuity at the helm you are unlikely to ever see investment in your own academy bear fruit, and if the top clubs are only ever buying ready made players then eventually the whole of the game will atrophy.
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I may have ruined blogging for the masses.
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Love it, PG.
Give it some “2 banks ov 4” and a non high line, man-marking, walk it into the net not.
Easy peasy. Truth be told, Steww @ 8:17, has responded the way I’d have liked.
Shotta
Previous article magnificent, thanks.
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I’m lost for words George.
If only I knew managing Arsenal was that easy I’d have parked up my unflinching backing of Arsene years ago.
He’d clearly nicking a living.
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Pace and power. Power and pace. Beast. 6′ +, et al
I give you – January player o de munth – Oh Santi Carzola:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=riGx1rd9_y0
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Bit late to the party but in the spirit of self-flagellation, thinking of Groaners rocking dithering and dribbling on the ropes, the whole “Narrative” constructed around Akpom was hilarious. Will he re-sign? Won’t he? By gum, by golly, what will he do?
Podolski, Campbell and Sanogo went out on loan and Chuba got a good run out in both the last two games making his FA cup and full league debuts (not sure about the league debut but I think that’s right) in consecutive games. Unless he’s being advised by the kind of self-declared experts that have been trying to advise the Arsenal whilst screaming in a shrill tone over the years I don’t think there was ever any doubt what he was going to do! The player as with the other recent teenagers (Bellerin! And now Chambers…Chamberlain’s staggered introduction etc. ) has been given protection for as long as possible for fairly obvious reasons. You’d also want to retard any JET inspired super-egos, seems to be working! Was there some haggling? You’d hope so, but I don’t think my trips down to the bazaar, the odd haggle, are worthy of being in the news myself.
Or you could just buy into the drivel written by the hack dwarfs out there “Arsenal appear light in attack after letting blah blah blah…”same old trolling of the mindless.
Thanks Shotta & George. When people are reduced to fretting on whether Akpom, a teenager, will re-sign or not after three senior or older forwards* are sent out on loan it’s safe to say that people out there are still brave enough to be asking “questions that need to be asked”. The gallant souls.
*One of them a World Cup winning hundred cap plus German who’d lost his starting place for the national team before his move to the Arsenal but if you won’t tell the groaner’s and those goading them on (who know full well the score…) then I won’t either.
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Great bit of writing George and the flag is flying high at the moment.
Entirely off topic I was looking at the press reaction to a fellow Arsenal supporter and his resignation from his manager of QPR yesterday. It appears that the career of Arry is over to all intents and purposes, the car window finally wound up, his final transfer window slammed shut. Good manager, bad manager, or probably somewhere in between a management career going back to 1983, and almost always in steady work in charge of a club is a long run, a very very long run in fact. At 68 years old the end was nigh in any event.
It seemed to me reading the media that the same press arselickers who have fawned over Arry for years, who have lapped up the cheeky Cockney chappie routine, and hung on his every witticism can’t wait to stick the knife in – contempt for efforts at QPR, Spuds and aspirations to manage England, accusations that he personally ruined Pompey and the references to his court case abound.
Never miss the chance to kick a man when he is down – motto of Her Majesty’s Press Corps
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Several things missing in the analysis, for starters you have to have a nearly all English team, and management team, and it really helps if all the clubs fans are local, as they are real fans who know more about Arsenal cos they happen to be born closer to the ground so by osmosis they have naturally acquired a greater football knowledge and of course more knowledge of all things Arsenal.
It has also been ignored that transfer deals are as simple as paying what the selling clubs asks, and if we run out of money using this policy we can borrow more or our billionaire owner can give us some of his money. And if this does not work then he can sell up and let an even richer man bankroll us.
The manager must also ensure that our academy has the pick of the worlds best young players coming through, and that these lads must have been coached to the Arsenal way by ex Arsenal players such as Tony Adams and Paul Merson.
Lastly but most importantly the manager has to know how to rotate, and this will ensure none of our first 11 ever get injured or suffer a loss of form.
The manager should also not get a massive wage, and he should ensure that ticket prices are lowered, and that stewards do not stop fans from breaking the terms of ticket purchase by constantly standing despite this being against the rules.
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some reports today that Podolski has been left out of Inter Milan’s Europa league squad.
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I saw that a well Eddy – how utterly shameful and humiliating for our cheerful German !
Something to do with Inter being allowed to add one new signing to their Europa Cup squad and choosing took Shaqiri, who they signed from Bayern, rather than Poldi who they borrowed from us.
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Poldi’s natural goal scoring abilities have dried up at Inter.
I never trusted Mancini to look after him anyway. Some players need to feel a bit loved, and Poldi is one of that kind.
If he hadn’t tried to burn down the bridge behind him when leaving, I’d think he might come skulking back in the summer. Back to Koln for a final hurrah in his career seems the only honourable option left to him.
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When will you dipsticks realize I’m the manager AFC need…..
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Off topic as well,
but watching ‘Old Grecain 2000 flap around uselessly against a spirited Cambridge Utd. was a real pleasure last night.
he lasted 61minutes before LVG put him out of his misery.
Fair dues to Cambridge – they never gave up on the game.
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George, “I may have ruined blogging for the masses”.
dont worry George remember the moveable and extremly flexible goal posts, one of the pre-requsits of being a manager to satisfy the unwashed is to acheive a target only to find it didnt really exist and in actual fact it is still abit further in the distance, you know like a mirage.
There will always be excuses and reasons why a highly intelligent, tactically astute world class coach is just not good enough and indeed would be better just taken advice from builders and office boys
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Just took a pop over to the Ending of Arsene’s era blog and it appears you have hit the nail right on the head, George. Id rather go to the dentist everyday instead of watching C and Bill duke it out in a battle of Championship Managers. Its rather funny when they don’t have any proper supporters to pick on over there. You’d think one of em would of gotten their badges by now and got a job managing somewhere.
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They do go on
and on
and on
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so does this mean Giroud is very good or that Hummels is not very good, it will confuse the fuck out of the AAA
Coquelannister @18DialSquare86 · 2h 2 hours ago
Mats Hummels lists Olivier Giroud among 3 of his toughest ever UCL opponents. The other two were Mandzukic & Lewandowski.
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no confirmation on Arsenal.com, but the BBC are claiming that Akpom has signed a new four and a half year contract at Arsenal. Hope they are correct
http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/31120658
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This morning on the radio the blessed ‘Arry described the Arsenal’s recent footy as:
“amazing”
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Arsenal’s updated Champions League squad list
A List
1. Wojciech Szczesny, 2. Mathieu Debuchy, 3. Kieran Gibbs, 4. Per Mertesacker, 5. Gabriel, 6. Laurent Koscielny, 7. Tomas Rosicky, 8. Mikel Arteta, 10. Jack Wilshere, 11. Mesut Ozil, 12. Olivier Giroud, 13. David Ospina, 14. Theo Walcott, 16. Aaron Ramsey, 17. Alexis Sanchez, 18. Nacho Monreal, 19. Santi Cazorla, 20. Mathieu Flamini, 21. Calum Chambers, 23. Danny Welbeck, 24. Abou Diaby, 26. Emiliano Martinez, 34. Francis Coquelin, 35. Gedion Zelalem.
B List
15. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, 27. Serge Gnabry, 38. Chuba Akpom, 39. Hector Bellerin, 42. Isaac Hayden, 43. Ryan Huddart, 44. Deyan Iliev, 45. Alex Iwobi, 47. Glen Kamara, 52. Tafari Moore, 54. Brandon Ormonde-Ottewill, 64. George Dobson, 70. Ainsley Maitland-Niles, 73. Stefan O’Connor.
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Pretty bizarre stuff
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Hummels knows. Thats interesting, Eddy. ACLF’s most hated player being exalted by their most wanted player. LOOOOOL
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You could ask, Kompany, too. Giroud made him look like a Sunday league player.
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Yikes stupid phone
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PG, do not count your chickens!
Jon Jon will find you, remember late October 2012? The tall tales that laddie come away with. He did claim to be a shareholder in The Arsenal, over 5 millions relatives in Islington, was it?
Children should not play FIFA, at 7am. in the morning..
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Tony Barrett @TonyBarretTimes · Feb 3
Nothing screams English football’s mediocrity louder than how highly Harry Redknapp (one major honour in 32 years as a manager) is regarded.
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Kaylen Hinds signs his first pro deal with Arsenal
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20150204/kaylen-hinds-signs-professional-contract
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An excellent example of the revisionist arselickers of the British press eddy I am obliged
Watching Dortmund Augsburg at the moment – not a great game and Dortmunds strike force feeble – they should have borrowed Yaya
Full house though, crowd seem to think supporting the players on the field is important – enjoyable even !
And I like that man Klopp
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‘Arsenal Guvnor’ @ArsenalGuvnor · 8h 8 hours ago
Twitter is suddenly a positive happy place now the ‘Wenger Out Muppets’ have crawled back under their rocks! #InWengerWeWillAlwaysTrust
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Klopp is still confusing the WOB, lost again and still bottom of the german league
Borussia Dortmund P19 W4 D4 L11 F18 A27 GD-9 Pts16
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Much better 2nd half in Dortmund where Augsburg win their first ever game
Frantic efforts for the final 30 from Dortmund
How can a side with so many excellent players be rock bottom of Bundesliga ?
Amazing
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BVB UK @DortmundUK · 10m 10 minutes ago
FT: BVB 0-1 FC Augsburg
Booing, whistling, jeering. Fans leaving early.
That’s a first. Rock bottom is deeper than expected.
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I thought the booing was at the referee for not giving the penalty at the end Eddy
Nailed on I thought – suit yourself though
Dortmund shit
Klopp shit
Dortmund fans shit
Does that make you happy ?
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Mention for the “veteran Austrian goalkeeper” of Augsburg though
Two very tidy stops in the final few minutes
Whatever happened to Alex Manniger ?
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anicol I did not watch the game, what I posted above is from a Dortmund twitter account, it is they who are saying fans booing and fans leaving early. I could care less what they do, I just find it amusing that the WOB who used Klopp as the epitome of a high caliber modern day manager that we should all want as a replacement and indeed upgrade for Wenger, now don’t know what to do.
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liverpool dragging out a win over bolton by the looks of things
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