11 from 33 = Failure

The former American basketball coach Bobby Knight used to stress that he coached his players to make the fewest mistakes as possible in a game. His theory was that even if your shot isn't falling or you're facing a team with more talent, making fewer mistakes than your opponent would keep you in the contest. I've heard many theories on coaching from hundreds of coaches and managers and one theme that kept popping up was that you can't coach from a negative perspective. Knight didn't believe this.

By a "negative perspective" I mean, it's more difficult to teach a player not to do something, to avoid an action, than it is to teach him to actively do a thing. A simple example is that it's easier to say to a player "Run fast!" than it is to say "Don't run slowly!" Putting a negative thought in a player's head makes him less decisive, forces him to start considering things instead of being instinctive, or so the theory goes.

Where Bobby Knight is concerned, let's put it in its most basic terms: He would lose his mind when a player made a mistake.  That's not an exaggeration, either. Nothing, not even incompetent officiating, grated on him like seeing a misplaced pass, a missed assignment, a forced play, a silly foul, or anything that can be classified as a "mental mistake." As such, he tended to recruit players who were perhaps less physically talented than others but had a greater mental acumen for the game, and his teams tended to play in a fundamentally sound style, no matter the changes in the team sheet over the decades. (Knight's lunacy and lack of self control are another subject for another writer.)

There were of course other aspects to Knight's teams but it always came back to avoiding the mistakes that kill momentum or give your opponent easy scoring opportunities. That was the foundation--everything else rested on it. Knight had much success in his career getting good performances out of teams that were less talented than those they defeated.

I bring this up because of what I saw in the latest Arsenal away defeat to a "top" club. Well, what I watched of the match, anyway, as I got to the point where I simply had to switch it off. Abject performances in big matches have that effect on me.

The mistakes that Arsenal made, both of omission and commission, undid them. This is aside from an overall tentativeness in attack that I'll leave for either another post or for someone else to describe. What I find galling about the losses that Arsenal have suffered this year where they've conceded 3 or more goals is that they've shown none of the organisation and "pragmatism" that saved them during last season's run in.

I was so disgusted after the opening home loss to Villa that I turned to my group of Gooners in our New Orleans pub and said "If this is the best we can do then Wenger needs to be fired." What made me furious was the way that Arsenal conceded in that match. There it was--the ridiculously high defensive line again. Leaving essentially one CB to try to defend 3 attackers running at full speed straight at Szcz. The same old mistakes that we thought had been eliminated since February of 2013 were there again, the exact same ones, Groundhog Day and all that.

That, and not the loss in and of itself, is why I was furious with Wenger.  That August fury has faded into a sad realisation that I was right, that Wenger cannot set out the team to play with the requisite toughness and help them minimise the mistakes that have cost them a league title this season.

Mistakes cost Arsenal first place in their CL group. A simple, pragmatic, even Teutonic game plan against Napoli would have settled it, we all thought going in that it was a fait acompli that we would win and avoid one of the big teams in the knockout phase. Instead, silly mistakes settled that and the rest, once again, is history.

The loss at City was one I could walk away from and say that, while it was hardly a glorious battle, it easily could have finished 4-4 and that would have been a fair result given the way both teams played. Of course that can't be said for the away defeats to Liverpool and Chelsea. Again, it wasn't about being outclassed, but rather it was down to silly mistakes and that insane high defensive line. (Pardon me for going all Stewie Robson on you by repeating that.)

So that brings us to "the biggest match of the season Mark VI" or whichever one it was away at Goodison. The team started out a bit more compact and the fullbacks didn't bomb forward like the bleeding Light Brigade, but again the mistakes crept in and led to the first 2 goals. I haven't seen the third and don't care to, but the first two were down to incredibly poor marking and a lack of composure around our own 18 yard box.

Mistakes, the same mistakes, over and over, season after season, simple, correctable mistakes are our undoing. League Cup against Birmingham City?  A mistake cost us a trophy. Mistakes, errors, gaffs, comical cock-ups, whatever you want to call them, they are the recurring theme in a decade of failure. Enough is enough, really.

I used to find it easy to blame the mistakes on the players--Gibbs falling over versus MUFC, Clichy continually doing something stupid, Alex Song leaving an huge gap at the back as he galloped forward like a riderless horse--but after so many years of seeing them, I can't do that anymore. Last season I thought Wenger had rid himself of all of his bad habits (tactical intransigence, misplaced loyalty to failing players) when he took the team to Bayern and benched Szcz and TV5. It seemed as though this was a new Arsenal, a new old Arsenal, a new old George Graham at his peak Arsenal. I wrote that Wenger had finally merged his need for Gallic flair with Teutonic pragmatism. In other words, "Just win, cheri."

This run in has undone all of that good will. There is none left.  This post simply addresses in-game errors and doesn't even begin to treat on the transfer window miscalculations. Arsenal are a tactical mess right now. What is the point of a side that pleads inequality in spending but is set out to attempt to overwhelm supposedly much more talented opponents? Why not continue to pile up results with pragmatic tactics that keep the flaws in the side hidden and actually minimise the potential for mistakes?

And that's it, isn't it?  You have to hide the flaws in your team and find a way to play to whatever strengths you have. Mertesacker has no pace but is masterful at reading the game. Why have him knocking it about in the other team's half?  Sagna is tops at winning headers but is rather crap at crossing. Is it sensible to have him stationed in the other side's penalty area when they've been sent out to hit you on the counter?  These are schoolboy mistakes, and quite frankly they're unacceptable after so many years.

Arsenal have taken 11 points from the last 11 league matches. 11 from 33. Mistakes piled on top of mistakes have destroyed what was a very pleasing season for the club and forced Wenger's supporters (I had counted myself among them) to be rather harsh in our assessments. These in-game errors are avoidable and a manager with Wenger's experience ought to have cut them out after the opening match of the season, but here we are and there they are, and nothing seems to have changed.

Last weekend I had to shamefully say to my friends that "right now, Pulisball > Wengerball." What a vulgar and disheartening thought.