Arsenal: 6 Ways Arsene Wenger Can Make Them Winners Again
reports, Wenger has around £70million to spend and Chief Executive Ivan Gazidis says it is solely down to the manager how he spends it. With that in mind, and without being unrealistic (there will be no chance of Stan Kroenke and Alisher Usmanov resolving their differences yet), we offer 6 ways Wenger can take Arsenal back to the top.
1. Get a Plan B
Arsene Wenger is a fantastic developer of talent. He can nurture a young player and turn their potential into world class ability. However, tactically he is not the most enigmatic. He started with a 4-4-2 when Arsenal were still at Higbury, switched to a 4-2-3-1 when Thierry Henry left, and since then has stuck with that formation. There has been no invention. Nearly all his changes this season have been like for like and while they say the hardest thing is to change a winning team, when you are not winning the easiest thing is to switch players and switch tactics. Wenger prefers not to. Arsenal used to be criticised for passing, passing, passing, dropping points whenever they came up against an organised team that put men behind the ball. With so little flexibility in their other tactics aside from passing (a front man with two wide forwards, ball playing central midfielders, advanced full backs that offer the width, for example) all teams need to do is find one way of beating them and Wenger has no in game changes to combat it. Last weekends game against Swansea was a prime example although Michus two goals came late, the team from Wales had dominated in terms of chances from the start. A better tactician would have evaluated Arsenals problems and made in-game changes accordingly. There are some gaping holes in the red and white squad, but they do have players who could play in a different system indeed these players have actively voiced their preference for change. Both Theo Walcott and Lukas Podolski have pleaded to be played in a central birth, and alongside the improving Olivier Giroud they could give more options higher up the pitch, causing more problems for the opposition and making Arsenal less predictable.