Why Wenger’s Problems Are Of His Own Making

Just after our away win at the Etihad last month a stat purporting to show that we were more successful away from home when our possession dropped below 43% was bandied around the blogosphere. Strange to think that it suggested had we had just 1% less possession than the 44% we managed away to Spurs shortly after we would have had a statistically better chance of winning that game too. However as it was based on just 7 games over a 10 year plus period representing just 3.6% of our away fixtures and ignored whatever the other 96.4% of fixtures might tell us it was a pretty flimsy attempt at genuine analysis. However it seemed to support a belief that we have been over reliant on possession football and that somehow that reliance has worked against us. It’s a notion that overlooks the fact that the PL teams to win trophies last season were Pelligrini’s possession based City side and ourselves, both teams with the highest number of short passes and pass completion rates last season.

Still it is true that we’re not dominating possession as often or as fluently as at times in the past. That’s partly due to a greater pragmatism, a consequence of the team’s need for more defensive confidence according to Wenger last month, but largely because many more teams are more adept at retaining possession and control of the ball themselves. PL football has become less long ball, though it still has its advocates even if they’re less one dimensional than in the past, and more ‘continental’ in style. Possession based football is more of the norm for more sides now and we’re less able to have things all our own way.

There’s a common idea that ‘tika-taka’, to use the rather silly sounding label popularly defining a style of football involving rapid short passing, is outmoded and that our own continued adoption of it in the form of Wengerball is indicative of a manager out of step with developments in the modern game. The reality though seems rather different. In the 5 full seasons since the 2009/2010 season not only have the bigger teams in the PL passed ever more rapidly and shorter but every team throughout the league has done too. If Arsenal are finding it harder to dominate possession stats it’s mainly because others have learned the value of possession based football.

In 2009/10 the average number of passes per game was 425 with short passes (328 ppg) making up 77% of all 8494 combined league average total passes made. Arsenal averaged the greatest number of short passes at 459 and Pulis’ Stoke the fewest at 215. 11 sides averaged more than 70 long balls per game. Each season since, to the end of the last full season of 2014, has seen the number of passes made in the PL steadily increase to a total of 9503 – a 12% increase in the combined league average. With two thirds of the season gone this will be bettered again this season. 82% of those greater numbers of passes last season were short passes with the team average number of short passes per game increasing to 383 so that not only are all teams passing more rapidly but they are also adopting a shorter passing game. Last season City topped the averaged number of short passes per game at 546 with Crystal Palace at the other end averaging 252. Both bottom team and the top team averaged some 20% more short passes per game last season than 5 seasons back while only 2 sides made more than 70 long balls per game.

Not only are teams passing more rapidly and frequently they are also passing more accurately. In 2009/10 the PL averaged 72% pass success while 2013/14 reached a touch over 79%. The middle third saw 42% of play in 2009/10 and 45% in 2013/14 and when considered in concert with developments in passing styles and increasing accuracy and frequency of passing the notion that Wenger’s long established philosophies have become outmoded doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny. If Wenger now has more difficulty in imposing playing fluency it’s simply because he, along with other advocates of possession based football, seems to have won the philosophical debate and now has a greater constituency of converts to deal with.

In an era where teams are more adept at maintaining possession and passing more accurately then possession stats alone may no longer reflect dominance as much as they might have done previously. Where and when possession is held and where and when it is yielded could be more significant determined by the pattern of the game.

Not for the first time Wenger has found himself ahead of the curve in the development of the game and now having to find ways of moving ahead of those who have followed. Constantly adapting strategies and tactics to accommodate the evolution of styles brought about by the success of your own tactics is quite a challenge but can also be seen as a back handed compliment.