How Arsene Wenger broke the three year rule and built Arsenal’s invincibles

Ben JonesArsenalWenger
Written By Ben Jones

‘The third year’ managing a club, as former Benfica coach Bela Guttman observed, ‘is fatal.’ Jonathan Wilson explains, ‘players become familiar with a manager so his words lose their power; an intensity that once was motivational begins to grate; opponents work sides out.’ For Guttman the solution to this quandary was to avoid becoming overly familiar anywhere and spend his career traversing the world, coaching a dizzying array of teams, 25 in all. While others stay longer few are able to achieve sustained success. As such Miguel Delaney outlined in The Independent that only six managers in English football have managed to ‘build a new title-winning team at the same club, in the same spell’. Delaney identifies Wenger alongside Matt Busby, Harry Catterick, Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley and Alex Ferguson as having achieved this feat. What makes Wenger remarkable in this illustrious company is the speed of the rebuild. Wenger won the league in 1997/98 before recovering to win titles in 2001/2002 and 2003/04, coupled with the fact that Arsenal were by no means the natural dominant team of their era. Indeed prior to 97/98 Arsenal had not secured a league title since 90/91. Furthemore in the period between 97/98 and 2001/02, Arsenal had to sell key players such as Nicholas Anelka, Marc Overmars and Emmanuel Petit. In fact, Arsenal’s net spend from 1996-2002 was £24million, half of Tottenham Hotspurs equivalent £53 million and dwarfed by title rivals Manchester United’s £93million.  Wenger’s ability to defy footballing and financial gravity remains one of English footballs greatest managerial achievements.

image.jpg

As the 1998/99 season ended, Arsene Wenger was approaching his third anniversary as Arsenal manager. When he arrived at Arsenal, Wenger noted being impressed with ‘a group of highly experienced men…They were intelligent, hardworking, and prepared to offer total commitment.’ As Patrick Vieira states,‘Arsene to his great credit, understood that he should not try to revolutionise things. He understood that there would have been no point in arriving and trying to impose a more ‘continental’ way of doing things straight away.’ Indeed, Vieria ascribes the 97/98 double to ‘the quality [that] came from individual players such as Dennis Bergkamp and sometimes Marc Overmars, the rest of it was down to mental strength and organisation…In 1998 our strength was that we didn’t concede many goals.’ Phillipe Auclair recalls, ‘Arsenal created danger primarily through their ability to react at speed as soon as the ball had been won back.’  Later in his book Vieira describes the ‘1998 double’ team as playing a ‘long ball game.’  Gary Neville has outlined that ‘Wenger’s first champions…were the best domestic team we came across,’ because ‘you couldn’t…bully them.’ One area Wenger did make immediate change was in ‘nutrition…and the muscle strengthening exercises’, Wenger persuaded his team that this ‘could prolong their careers.’ This was to have a positive impact on the careers of the ‘highly experienced men’, as Tony Adams noted in 1998, ‘I now feel fitter than I ever have.’

As Vieira explained, Arsenal in this period were formidable defensively. In 1998 from 31st January, until the title was secured on the 3rd May, Arsenal conceded just two goals in 14 matches and kept 12 clean sheets. The next season, with the defence largely intact, Arsenal conceded only 17 goals in the league season, as they came up agonisingly short in conceding their title by one point to Manchester United. By the summer of 1999 however Arsene was coming to the end of his first three years and the famous defence was ageing. In 1998/99 David Seaman, Nigel Winterburn, Lee Dixon, Steve Bould, Tony Adams and Martin Keown made a combined 172 starts, for the 1999/00 season this was reduced by a third to 119. Arsenal’s defensive record suffered in turn; goals conceded in 99/00 shot up to 43. Arsenal subsequently slumped to finish 18 points behind title winners Manchester United.  Tony Adams explains, ‘1999/00 would be a season of transition for us…as Arsene began the process of replacing the ageing back five.’ As players such as Oleg Luzhny and Sylvinho began having an increased presence in the back four,  David Seaman bemoaned, ‘it is hard to form a good defensive unit when it is made up of all different nationalities…all of us have to get used to the fact that football at the top level has no borders anymore.’ As Philipe Auclair outlines, ‘the 1999/00 incarnation of Arsenal, whilst retaining many of the virtues of its immediate predecessor, wasn’t an extension of its previous self but, rather a transitionary ensemble, a bridge thrown from one period to the next.’ Auclair expands that Wenger, ‘let it be known to friends at the time that he felt in a sense held back by the impossibility of dispensing with what was left of the ‘old’ Arsenal.’ As such ‘the Arsenal of 1999/00 wasn’t the possession machine it subsequently became…its full backs, in particular were not averse to bypassing the midfield and directing long passes…they had been shaped by a style of football that bore little or no relation to the game Wenger aspired to.’

IMG_2913.jpeg

The summer of 1999 however did bring about one of the most pivotal events in Arsenal’s history. In February of 1997, 17-year-old French striker Nicholas Anelka arrived at the club with Anelka having been unhappy at his lack of opportunities at PSG. Over the course of 97/98 and 98/99, Anelka had blossomed into one of the most promising young players in world football. However, Tony Adams explains, ‘Nicholas…had his head turned by people supposedly advising him’, and ‘a transfer saga’ as Ray Parlour puts it, ‘went on for weeks…as players we were gutted…we felt he was becoming a huge player.’ David Seaman displayed fewer regrets, describing Anelka’s behaviour as ‘baffling’ and calling the Frenchman a ‘waste of space.’ Anelka eventually joined Real Madrid for £22.3 million. In his place came another French striker Wenger had been tracking for some time. Thierry Henry had been given his full debut by Wenger in 1994 at Monaco and in the years before his move to Arsenal the two had almost developed a will-they-won’t they style destined relationship. Phillipe Auclair outlines that when Gilles Grimandi left Monaco to join Wenger at Arsenal in 1997, ‘Henry is said to have pestered Giles…half-jokingly imploring his elder to take him along, as playing for the North London club had been a dream for him.’ After the French World Cup victory in 1998 Arsenal made their first approach, which was rebutted by Monaco. As Auclair states, ‘Wenger dreamt of associating him with his Clairefountaine school mate Nicholas Anelka at the point of the Arsenal attack. Failing to do so, Wenger later told me, remained one of the greatest regrets of his managerial career.’ Henry himself is said to have arranged a meeting with the Monaco chairman to plead to be allowed to join the ‘growing French contingent at Highbury.’ In an almost cliched narrative misunderstanding, when Monaco were finally ready to sell Henry in January of 1999, Arsenal ‘who thinking Henry couldn’t be brought to Highbury, chose the Nigerian Kanu instead’. To further compound the tragedy, half an hour before Henry signed for Juventus he had called Wenger, who recalls ‘by that time he had no choice…I had to patient.’ Like all great romances however, practicalities are no match for destiny. Henry spent six months at Juventus, where, as Carlo Ancelotti states, ‘he was very young, and lacked a bit of maturity. It isn’t easy for a young player to come into a team as strong as Juventus and immediately show his qualities.’ In the summer of 1999, with Anelka leaving for Madrid and Henry unsettled and failing to impress at Juventus, destiny now had the space, the opportunity and the money to be made a reality for £11 million. Despite Henry having spent much of the previous two years as a winger, Wenger felt ‘he can become a central striker again. That is what we will try and develop together.’ Henry himself had reacted to this suggestion by stating, ‘but coach, I don’t score goals.’ Wenger rationalised, ‘they kept him wide, they played him as a winger. He lost his appetite for scoring goals. He convinced himself he couldn’t score goals…I thought, let’s have a go and start through the centre, like when you were a boy.’ Henry started slowly, as he himself noted, initially he was criticised, ‘all that money [spent] for a guy who can’t cross the ball, can’t score, can’t do anything.’ It was not until the 8th game of Arsenal’s league season that Henry scored his first goal. By the end of the season he had outscored Anelka’s 1998/99 tally and would go on to become Arsenal’s record goal scorer. The replacement of Anelka with Henry was one further step on the evolution of Arsenal. As Auclair notes, ‘Thierry didn’t play Anelka solos.’ While Anelka was direct and lethal in quick counter attacks, Henry was also fast but more creative and more able to participate in build up play, ‘the supreme example of what a complete player should be-intelligent, strong and skilful.’

The summer of 2000 saw further changes in Arsenal’s squad. Two key players from the 1997/98 double. Marc Overmars and Emmanuel Petit were sold to Barcelona for a combined £32 million. Patrick Vieira recalls, ‘I hadn’t been too happy about it at the time…[it] meant that we treaded water in terms of strength.’ Ray Parlour concurs, ‘It’s frustrating but that’s what he wanted to do. Marc got much more money at Barcelona…of course you are thinking about the impact it might have on the team.’ In their place Wenger signed, Lauren, Sylvain Wiltord and Robert Pires. Pires represents another long term Wenger target, Pires himself stating ‘it felt to me as though he had been wooing me throughout my career…when I was playing for Metz  in the mid-90s, Arsene wanted me to join him at Monaco.’ Pires outlines that far from Wenger being dismayed to sell Overmars, ‘he was no longer in his plans and… he was trying to sell.’ Pires describes the wait as ‘infuriating,’ while Arsenal needed to sell Overmars to bring in Pires. ‘Arsene stayed in constant dialogue with me, reassuring me and telling me, don’t worry, I’m still interested, I’ve made up my mind you’ll be with us next season and I’m doing everything I can to make sure that happens.’ Replacing Overmars with Pires, as with replacing Anelka with Henry, marks another step on the transition from the style of 1997/98. Pires was a more creative and fluid player than the direct style of the Dutchman. Pires recalls that, ‘I’d struggled during my first few months…at times it did cross my mind whether I’d made the right decision…I certainly felt there had been some doubters.’ Eventually however Pires flourished to become what Wenger describes as, ‘unquestionably the best left winger in the world by far.’ 2000/01 remained, as Auclair states, ‘a season of transition…the manager wisely opted for evolution rather than revolution…The Wenger revolution had entered its second phase but hadn’t yet progressed past the experimental phase.’ Seaman, Dixon, Adams and Keown remained key members of the squad, totalling 104 league starts between them. Auclair expains, ‘Wenger’s dilemma was that he couldn’t do away with the ageing core of the side without endangering the foundations on which the previous four years had been built, while being aware he had no choice in doing exactly that.’

IMG_2916.jpeg

Wenger’s last step in completing his revolution was perhaps in finally replacing that back four. In the summer of 2001 centre back Sol Campbell signed for Arsenal from Spurs in a shock move. Campbell was a brilliant all round defender with the ability to effectively defend 1:1 with any attacker, giving the rest of the team more freedom to take risks, safe in the knowledge Campbell was a formidable opponent even when isolated against strikers. With Lauren establishing himself as first choice right back, Arsenal now had a defence consisting of youth team product Ashley Cole, who was a former winger, Lauren who had been a midfielder before he signed for Arsenal and Campbell who had spent much of his time in youth football as a forward. Auclair outlines, Wenger ‘had visions of a team that was also able to build from the back…in which the heart of the defence could beat to the same pulse as their more creative teammates.’ Arsenal had moved away from the famous back four. As Patrick Vieira recalls, ‘slowly but surely players had been brought in who would revolutionise the way in which we played…the team was very different. Gone was the long ball; in came quick accurate passes to players feet...we were now mounting carefully constructed series of attacks.’ In 2001/02 Arsenal won another double. The total number of League starts by Seaman, Dixon, Keown and Adams had halved to 51. Auclair describes ‘Arsenal’s reinvention was the fruit of an evolutionary process-not far from a managerial masterpiece…players…found themselves gently pushed towards the side-lines without creating the dressing room unrest that might have been feared.’

Wenger is a big believer in allowing players freedom, he recalls while being a boy that having ‘no coach…was invaluable for allowing us to develop a game based on taking the initiative,’ and this is a viewpoint he took into his managerial career. Wenger describes his ‘style is a team that expresses itself, that builds, that takes risks.’ Ray Parlour states ‘Arsene…let players take responsibility.’ As Dennis Bergkamp outlines ‘Wenger never said, do this, do that [he]...let me do my own thing.’ Seaman had similar recollections, ‘it was not so much that players were being told to do this…more they were not being told not to do things.’ Auclair describes that Wenger ‘created surroundings in which players could express themselves…very little time-if any…was devoted to any kind of tactical drills.’ As Pires states ‘he doesn’t want to cram our head full of tactics,’ with Seaman explaining ‘Arsene hardly talks about the other team at all.’ For Auclair the ‘supreme example of the type of football he wished to create…could be described as simultaneous improvisation.’ This simultaneous improvisation can be summed up further by Bergkamp, ‘Wenger doesn’t think in terms of systems. He thinks in terms of players, intelligent players, and he allows them to determine the system on the pitch.’ It is telling that Wenger describes himself as ‘an educator first and foremost.’ This is key to his approach to football. Wenger sought to provide the best environment, physically, intellectually and mentally for his players to express themselves. As such, while Wenger encouraged freedom in terms of how players expressed themselves on the pitch, with regards to preparation he imposed a sense of rigour. Wenger himself put it, ‘I replaced the prayer book with good players and being well prepared.’ Wenger is famous for focusing ‘on all the things that contribute to performance besides training: dietary regimes, massage, mental preparation, sleep, quality of life…a player must live in a sense of constant preparation.’ Wenger’s philosophy can be summed up thus, ‘the coach should promote collective expression by creating the conditions to allow the team to take risks.’ Vieira outlines, ‘Wenger...change[d] the way in which we approached our lives, our diet, the way we would look after ourselves physically. An osteopath would be at the club twice a week…a doctor was permanently available to us, our meals were designed for maximum nutritional impact and we know longer had any choice in what we ate.’  Wenger himself states, ‘this profession leaves no room for sloppiness, and there is a heavy price to pay for the slightest wavering.’ As well as physically prepared players, Wenger developed ‘exercises that help increase this ability to gather information’, as Pires explains to, ‘sharpen my natural instincts.’ This enabled Arsenal to develop what Bergkamp described as, ‘the team has a kind of subconscious intelligence.’ Wenger outlines ‘for me football is an orchestra. The more they are inspired by the same music, the more they have the chance to play a good song.’ Wenger described this as ‘a collective state of grace.’ As Bergkamp recalls ‘it was fantastic. You knew exactly where to put the ball. You knew exactly what kind of run the other players would make for you because you knew what they were thinking.’ The links to the Dutch total football style  developed at Ajax in the 1970s are tantalising. Ray Parlour recalls, ‘Wenger was always making you think…he loved it when people were changing positions in the game. You fill the gaps…it just happened organically.’ Henry was more direct in his comparison, ‘whatever way Arsene sent the team out on the field the mentality was total football…Attack at any time. Everybody attacks. Everybody defends…you make it your style of total football.’ Former Ajax defender Barry Hulshoff describes total football in a similar manner, ‘Total football means that…the defender must first think defensively, but he must also think offensively. For an attacker it is the other way around.’ Jonathan Wilson outlines that total football ‘seems to have been less the result of any plan than the harnessing of a process that occurred naturally among a group of intelligent players.’ In further similarities to Arsenal, ‘Ajax…invested significantly in the science of preparation, working on nutrition and training schema.’ As David Williams explains in Brilliant Oranje, ‘off the field every detail was taken care of.’

While the older players had been phased out, the role they played in Arsene’s second flourishing should not been downplayed. As Ray Parlour explains, ‘Arsene wasn’t much of a disciplinarian’. Tony Adams goes further, ‘Arsene said very little. He never liked confrontation.’ Adams was in Vieira’s eyes ‘a dominant figure…telling players when there was a problem.’ In Adams view, ‘standards needed to be set and followed,’ and he saw his role in his latter years ‘to be of best service to the club off the pitch…by continuing to be an influence in the dressing room and around the training ground…I knew the clubs standards, helped to establish them indeed, and made sure they were maintained.’ Adams considered himself ‘line management,’ and was ‘going to make sure I was on [them].’ Dennis Bergkamp described him as ‘a real leader.’ There are potential further similarities with the Total Football Ajax team. After winning the 1971 European Cup, disciplinarian manager Rinus Michels left Ajax to take over at Barcelona and was replaced by Stefan Kovacs.  Additionally, experienced defender Velidor Vascovic departed. As former Ajax midfielder Gerrie Muhren put it, ‘Kovacs was a good coach, but he was too nice. Michel’s was more professional. He was very strict…In the first year with Kovacs we played even better because we were good players who had been given freedom.’ Jonathan Wilson concurs, certainly it was in 1971/72 that Ajax were at their most fluent,’ while Williams states, ‘Kovacs had presided over a prodigious flowering of talent at Ajax largely by taking a back seat.’ Muhren however continues, ‘after that the discipline went and it was all over.’ Wilson states, ‘Ajax were too free. Put like that, coaching a side comes to seem like gardening: The fruit will be at its juiciest and sweetest, or the flower at its most fragrant, at the precise moment before it begins to rot.’ As with Arsenal after Adams retired in 2002 and David Seaman left the club in 2003, the ultimate realisation of Wenger’s vision took place in the 2003/04 season as ‘the invincibles’ developed. However without the stabilising influence of Adams and company the ‘state of collective grace’ was vulnerable to disruption. After 49 league games unbeaten Arsenal travelled to Old Trafford to face Manchester United in October 2004. As Vieira puts it, losing this game and the record run, ‘changed everything because up until then we had lost the habit of losing…I think that game did us more damage than we realised at the time…slowly but surely we lost confidence in ourselves.’ Arsenal went on to lose five games in the Premier League that season and have not won a league title since.

At the end of the 2003/04 season, Wenger’s second great three year period, running from 2001-2004 was over. By utilising resources already at the clubs and having the patience, courage and intelligence to make his managerial dreams a reality, Wenger was able to achieve what few others are able to and defy the three year rule.

Ben Jones, The Left-sided Problem

Ben Jones
Previous

Depression, being a football fan and the 2018 World Cup
Next

Scandals and scoundrels [Part 2]: