The 86th minute replacement of Olivier Giroud with Francis Coquelin by Arsene Wenger elicited the refrain, ‘you don’t know what you’re doing’ from travelling Arsenal supporters at Villa Park on Saturday.
That particularly brutal assessment may appear harsh to reasoned observers and Wenger went onto the front foot in response to the criticism. The Frenchman pointed to 30 years of managerial experience ‘at the top’ adding, ‘I’ve only managed 1,600 games and in 200 matches in the Champions League’.
It is unsurprising given the body work he has undertaken in North London that Wenger will be bristling at any slight on his capabilities. Similarly, the opinion of a large group of fans who have travelled 115 miles to watch their team at the inconvenient time of 5:30pm on a miserable Saturday evening in a match they could have watched in the warmth on television is valid.
Furthermore, the chant, a familiar ditty across the country but unique in Wenger’s 16 years at Arsenal, was not restricted to the minority. Of course, the suggestion that a man with the 63 year-old’s record of innovative thinking and success lacks the perspicacity to guide his team is erroneous. Nevertheless, no individual, however highly revered, is beyond criticism or, more pertinently, without need for fresh and incisive ideas to frame their thinking.
Wenger will have learned little new about his team on Saturday. They remain capable of producing pockets of compelling football but lack a clinical edge in front of goal. Despite the clean sheet at Villa Park there is an undoubted soft centre in the Arsenal side. As important as a new striker to Wenger is the need for a strong central midfielder to offer that missing solidity, so affording protection to his back-four and freeing Jack Wilshere and Mikel Arteta of some defensive responsibility.
A football manager is continually learning about his team. Premier League bosses are not immune to that fact and plenty will have taken fresh knowledge from their side’s outings at the weekend.
Rafa Benitez had his first chance to manage Chelsea and never has a new manager required a quick start quite so much. Disliked by his new team’s supporters and with only a short-term brief, the Spaniard has no time to waste if he is to have any chance of silencing his critics – the best he can hope for among the Stamford Bridge cognoscenti – and, in the process, re-establish a reputation as an astute tactician with the credentials to manage at the highest level.
In the credit column Benitez will have immediately realised that in Ashley Cole, despite the brilliance of Leighton Baines’s attacking play at Everton, he has the best defensive left-back in the league. Branislav Ivanovic adds steel to the heart of the back-four. Most encouragingly, the Brazilian Oscar demonstrated that in addition to his wonderful skill and the ability to pose a threat to the opposition goal regardless of the flow of a match – evidenced both against Manchester City and in defeat in Turin last Tuesday – he is conscientious and disciplined. Those qualities, as much as his imaginative play, will earn the faith of Benitez.
Juan Mata had his quietest game of the season and his talent is wasted if he is denied a roving role and under instruction to hug a touchline. Fernando Torres was insipid. On Sky TV’s commentary Gary Neville routinely drew attention to Torres’s latest failing as the match wore on. This version of the 28 year-old is unrecognisable from the electric forward who Benitez worked with at Liverpool. Torres has lost the burst of pace which was formerly such a lethal weapon in his armoury and is displaying an alarming lack of strength and movement. If Benitez is able to draw a tune from Torres it will be one of his finest achievements.
Oriol Romeu who became marginalised under Roberto Di Matteo stands a fair chance of becoming a key figure under Benitez. The ex-Barcelona player was on the field for little over ten minutes on Sunday but in that time was defensively aware and offered greater mobility than the man he replaced, John Mikel Obi. It could be that a combination of Romeu and Ramires will provide Benitez with the defensive stability he craves allied to the quick-thinking and vision required to act as a base for their side’s attacking talent.
Another man watching his new team for the first time was Harry Redknapp. Q.P.R. improved upon their spiralling form but were unable to earn any tangible reward at Old Trafford. Mark Bowen was in charge of the R’s in Manchester and provided a damning indictment of a cluster of Mark Hughes’s signings by restoring wiser heads; Shaun Derry, Clint Hill and Jamie Mackie to the starting eleven ahead of individuals such as Esteban Granero, Junior Hoilett and Samba Diakite.
The result was a hard running and committed showing that nevertheless betrayed familiar and fatal shortcomings – a weakness in coping with crosses into the area and lack of punch in attack.
In common with his fellow new arrival to the West London football scene, the focus for Redknapp will be on striking a balance in his side. Undoubtedly he will hope for help in achieving that aim in the January transfer market. A forward with a penchant for scoring will be a priority along with a defender who has leadership traits to match ability.
Speculation, not surprisingly, has focused on Jermain Defoe and Michael Dawson, as likely targets. The chances of any pursuit for either of those Tottenham Hotspur players bearing fruit receded a little with their involvement in a 3-1 win over West Ham United at White Hart Lane.
In what was particularly poor timing for Redknapp, Dawson was selected to start in the Premier League for the first time this season. Defoe was scintillating and characteristically dead-eyed in scoring twice. As he seeks to prove himself as a progressive manager, Andre Villas-Boas is gradually seeing his team start to replicate some of last season’s flowing football produced under Redknapp.
If I were Arsene Wenger, I will leave Arsenal and the useless mobs called fans and go to where I will have money to assemble mega stars, work little to achieve success and earn bigger pay. Arsenal mobs are notorious, unruly and lack manners and home trannings.