Catch-22

St. Francis Xavier said, “Give me the child until he is seven and I’ll give you the man”. The importance of a footballer’s formative years cannot be underestimated (even if there have to be some allowances made if a Sixteenth Century Jesuit Missionary’s words are to be considered relevant), and this is a philosophy on which Arsene Wenger has been building Arsenal. But as the six-year silverware drought continues, the questions are coming thicker and faster: where are the men these boys are meant to become?

Irrespective of your opinion of Wenger, you have to acknowledge, if not necessarily admire, his principles. Those labeled the future are nurtured, encouraged and protected – “there is no blame to apportion” he drawls dejectedly regarding the ‘misunderstanding’ between Szczesny and Koscielny. (Apparently both were confused as to the implications of a ball slowly rolling towards their goal in the 89^th minute of a finely poised cup final, and didn’t think to John Smith it at the first opportunity).

But after more than half a decade without a trophy, is it the players who continue to fall short of the mark, or are the principles inherently flawed? Can developing players purely for their skill ever breed success, or is it doomed to internal paradox, a Catch-22?

Clearly it’s not as simple as saying, concentrating on youth breeds naivety and playing the passing game doesn’t work: a dualistic approach between the two has done wonders for the Spanish game recently, led of course by Barcelona. And the excuses rattled out by the FA as to why England are perennially cack – that our kids are mostly inbred – aren’t relevant here because Wenger brings in talent from across the world: Wilshire from England, Ramsey from Wales, Nasri from France, Fabregas from Spain, Denilson from Brazil ECT. I think the reason why things aren’t working is actually that the players are too talented.

Humour me. Obviously talented footballers collect titles and cups. But they do so by marrying their raw potential developed through hours on the training pitch with a winning attitude and an understanding of how to succeed gained from an involvement at some significant level of success. In other words, ability alone is not enough; it must be supplemented with the right mindset and an experience of winning trophies. This is where Arsenal fall short.

They didn’t used to. The team Wenger inherited from Bruce Rioch in 1996 made the club’s last decade at Highbury one of the most successful in the club’s history and the Invincibles of these years laid rest to any claims that the Frenchman’s reputation was due to the work of his predecessors. His star players, Bergkamp, Overmars, Ljungberg, Pires and Henry (with the exception of Bergkamp who found his best form playing under him) were all signed by Wenger and they all played his way: avec va va voom.

The difference was though that the while all this foreign flair was flowing forward, the Clock End was fortified by five formidable home-grown wardens, who, as wooden as they are as pundits, knew how to defend, and knew how to win (and who, as talented as they were, didn’t exude ‘star’ quality).Whether or not they could play was of secondary importance (Lee Dixon got 22 England caps and an undoubtedly kushti contract with the BBC for mimicking the movements of Tony Adams); they could do their job.

Considering the current crop on the other hand – full-backs Sagna and Clichy offer much going forward, but are definitely culpable coming back while centre-halves Vermulen, Djourou and Koscielny have clearly had the phrase ‘the art of defending’ drilled so deeply into them that as soon as they’re up against it and their bowels start to loosen, the latter half of the phrase is dropped, and their defending is made to suffer for their art. They know no other way. Wembley on Sunday evening: case in point.

In isolated incidents, Wenger’s reluctance (or inability) to attribute blame for the successive faltering of his rear-guard can come across as paternal loyalty to his fledging Beckenbauers. But the longer the drought continues the more it looks like stubbornness to adapt his principles. They know no other way because he is not teaching it to them.

Maybe he thinks adaptation is impossible and change unthinkable? Or alternatively believes a change of fortune is inevitable and success unavoidable with the talent he has available? Either way, viewed through the perspective of six years, Arsenal’s sustained inability to fulfill their considerable potential and bring home the proverbial bacon surely says more about the manager than the players.

By encouraging such a pure form of football, the means overshadow the ends. Talent becomes not only the foundations of the team, but its floor, walls, ceiling, doors and windows. And despite constant complaints that Premier League referees allow a form a football founded in Warwickshire rather than Cambridgeshire, the fact remains that it’s not just the hamstrings which are flimsy in North London: the requisite backbone of true champions is conspicuously absent. They don’t have the cojones when it counts. When the big bad wolf huffs and puffs, the house falls down.  

There is no evidence to suggest that the team fielded against Birmingham – especially with the obvious inclusion of a fit Fabregas and possibly Walcott – cannot win anything. But whether they will surely depends more on the manager than the players, and whether he is willing to sacrifice style for a smidgen of substance?

Look at Barcelona. Their first-leg defeat to Arsenal in February was billed as the battle of the purists, yet in for all the football both play when in possession, it’s what a team does without the ball which really defines them. Not just pressing the ball and closing the opposition down, but niggly fouls to break up play and more than the odd word in the ref’s ear.

The Catalans do both aspects equally well. Without doubt, all their players can play. But if judged purely on personality and not footballing ability there are people there you wouldn’t want to get in a fight with – Pique, Puyol, Dani Alves, Mascherano, Busquets. As formidable as they are on the ball, none of the Arsenal players have the same intimidation factor (Vermulen would be intimidating if he was ever fit, and Diaby if his style of play didn’t suggest a passion for silk shirts and fine wine rather than bar brawls) or ability to influence the ref at crucial points of the match.

This Machiavellian ability to manipulate games at the right times, as well as being able to recognize when the right times are, is essential to winning games, but does not seem to be part of Wenger’s psyche anymore. Back when they were winning it was – Viera and Petit were more than capable of putting a boot in, complaining and kicking the ball away, all in one swift movement – but now when the Gunners are in control of a match they’ll play their passing triangles right up until the final whistle.

There’s also a sense that the Barca players’ passion matches that of their manager: it’s not that he’s plucked them from obscurity and preened them in the limelight, or that they are solely responsible for his appointment and successes; both thrive off each other. Despite his admiral loyalty to the club at which he made his name, you have to sense that Fabregas is inevitably going to swap red and white for red and blue. Once a player signs for Barcelona however, if they’re part of the manager’s plans they’re not going anywhere fast. More and more there is a sense that Arsenal is club to make your name at, not to win trophies at. Would Cashley Cole have swapped the style of Barcelona for the riches of Real Madrid?

Maybe because tiki-taka seems to be a pre-formulated idea which already incorporates less-attractive elements to ensure its success, whereas Wenger’s philosophy has an ad-hoc element of being made up as he goes along and the players come through – i.e. now they have Wilshire in midfield we’ve heard a lot less about horror tackles in midfield than we did last season, with the principle injustice now being the opposition’s physical approach to defending – but the Catalans definitely have the winning mentality to supplement their undeniable skill. Arsenal, as of yet, have not discovered it.   

Like it or not, the blame for this has to be laid at the manager’s feet. Even as a neutral on the day and a United fan by trade, I wanted Arsenal to beat Birmingham solely so that Wenger could be vindicated. We all want to believe that style can triumph. That they didn’t, and especially that they played much of the game with nerves evidently raw, merely served to confirm the problem with breeding players so extensively and so purely: they never will become the men Francis Xavier promises, but continue instead as pretty Peter Pans in pubescent purgatory until they leave. And then they win things at their new clubs. Case in point: Brrrrapsley.

It may be seem harsh to say the mark of when a boy becomes a man in football is when he wins his first trophy. Plenty of incredibly talented footballers have spurned recognized success for the glory of honour and loyalty to a club or cause. The problem with the Wenger Boys Mk. II (Mk. I for me died with the departure of Henry, signaling the paradoxical end of the Invincibles) is that the manager knows how to win; he just seems reluctant to do so again or to pass this knowledge on to his player. And this stubbornness is detrimentally affecting their development. Why, having seen first-hand just how much wily, hardened campaigners can do for you at the back is he so reluctant to sign an experienced centre-half and goalkeeper to lead the youngsters on the pitch?

This brings me onto the third part of my criteria for winning trophies: experience of doing so. At first glance it’s an archetypal Catch 22 – how can you win something for the first time if having done so before is essential to success? – but it boils down to one thing: integration.

Birmingham might not have won a trophy for forty eight years, but man of the match on Sunday Ben Foster picked up his third winners medal in three years. Similarly, Barry Ferguson MBE (I know) put in an excellent performance in the middle of the park (without covering himself in glory in the final third), drawing no doubt on his considerable experience of winning trophies in Glasgow. His manager shared these experiences. At crucial points in football matches technical ability means nothing; instinctively knowing what to do is everything, and Birmingham’s players and manager knew because they’d been there before.

Focusing on youth development is not automatically doomed to failure – far from it – but it is a policy that must incorporate aspects of the past with the future. The best example of this working over time is at Old Trafford in the 1990s (ironically enough during the same period when the experience of Wenger’s side made them one of the country’s most formidable forces) when the likes of Beckham, Giggs, the Nevilles and Butt were cutting their teeth. Crucially though, they were doing so in a team that featured Ince, Bruce, McClair, Hughes and Robson, who’d had the odd tastes of success – including the 1991 League Cup no less – and were hungry for more.

It’d be lazy journalism to speculate, twenty years on, that if the WB Mk. II had beaten Birmingham they’d go on to achieve the same success, but it certainly puts in to perspective both importance of the League Cup itself as a competition and potential platform for bigger things, and what winning a seemingly insignificant trophy can do for a side’s future. If a few senior players have those experiences it makes the difference and the cycle can become self-sustaining.

Arsene Wenger’s current footballing philosophy is the purist’s dream, but in the same way a incredible subconscious experience is frustrating if not recreated in reality, it can no longer be judged in a purely abstract context: it’s time for it to deliver in the real world. And in football – especially when considering some of the crème de le crème of young talent globally available – there comes a point when pragmatism has to overtake idealism. Trophies must be won if players are to fully achieve their potential. An individual and a team can only considered world class when they have the substance with which to supplement their style and ability.

A poignant example of this is Gerald Pique. Schooled by Barcelona from a young age, he signed for Man United at a time when his ability to deliver on considerable potential was in doubt. He developed aspects of his game that the Nou Camp and La Liga perhaps would not have catered for (how to mark Kevin Davis for example), experienced winning leagues and cups from the peripheries of the first team, returned to Barcelona. Within two years he was irreplaceable in the best club and international teams in the world.

During this time he learned from the old master and the young pretender undoubtedly set to replace the wizened sensei in Ferguson and Guardiola, two men who appreciate attractive football and the importance of developing youth, but also that bringing the best out of the best youngsters requires winning. Wenger could very easily be considered among the greatest managers of his time – indeed his successes with the Invincibles may have already earned this accolade – but his currently philosophy has been proved inherently flawed by the barren spell currently afflicting the Emirates.

Until the talent he is nurturing learn how to control games by developing what I have called a winning mentality and experience success at a significant level first hand, not only will they have failed, he will have too, and his failure will be two-fold – firstly as a manager who wins trophies and secondly as the manager for developing world-class players. The latter I think will hurt him more.

Only when the Wenger Boys Mk. II become men will his legacy in English and world football be truly immortal. Currently the only way to do this would seem to be diluting his hallowed principles regarding developing style above all else, and finding players who have won in order to complete his jigsaw of incredibly talent youngsters who have not. This though might subsequently dilute his philosophy, upon which his legacy is built. A Catch-22 indeed.