EPL Managers | Arsene Wenger | Strength, Weakness & Tactics #1

I have been watching, enjoying and observing football (soccer) since very long time. I thought I could share my views and thoughts on football teams, players, managers, tactics etc. I spent approximately 3 hours into thinking and doing some extra research on this post. So, here is my observation about Top Managers of English Premier League featuring Arsene Wenger as my first manager.

Introduction

Arsene Wenger who joined Arsenal on October 1996 has been in charge of Arsenal till now. Arsene Wenger has been given the nickname "Le Professeur" which means "The Professor" in French. He has won many titles during his time in Arsenal, including an Invincible Trophy given to his team for finishing a whole season unbeaten. So, talking about Arsene he is a genius when it comes to football.

Strength

He is a futuristic person with a vision because his changes his tactics according to the need of modern football. He has a good vision of pointing out future stars. Rather than buying a World Class player, Arsene prefers to buy a young player with possibilities and turn them into a World Class player. That is one of his strong points.

Theirry Henry who wasn't doing so good as that time and who was a Winger. Arsene signed him and appointed Henry role of a striker who the striker himself admits was shocking for him. He didn't do well in starting games as a striker but when he scored his first goal he kept on scoring on and on and eventually became Arsenal's highest Goal Scorer.

Not just Theirry Henry big names like Cesc Fabregas, Samir Nasri, Laurent Koscienly, Pattrick Vieira etc were all unheard of or less popular when Arsene signed them. But Arsene saw something in them that others didn't see and eventually they ended up being one of the greatest players.

Arsene Wenger is also a good at bringing on new tactics on to the pitch and trying out new things. Arsene is always ready to try new positions and formations. When Adebayor was sold to Manchester City in 2009, Arsenal were out of strikers. Arsene didn't panic and he tried a new formation with a Lone Striker upfront. He appointed Robin van Persie as a lone striker. The concept of Lone striker wasn't new to football but every was surprised.

Many pundits and football experts criticized Arsene for using a Lone Striker and predicted the concept of only one striker upfront will never work. But if you look closely to the modern football there is only one striker upfront supported by Wingers and Attacking Midfielders.

He love experimenting with Player Positions as well. We already talked about Theirry Henry's position change. He did a lot of experiment on position changes. Some of the latest examples are trying Ozil as Winger and Holding midfielder but eventually gave his no.10 position back. He drops Elneny as Centre Back, Chamberlian as Wing Back and a lot different. Though he haven't been crazy enough to try Cech as a Striker or Defence.

Weakness

Now talking about his weaknesses sometimes Arsene Wenger is too predictable which comes with his stubbornness. Once he is used to a tactics he implies it in each and every game. He is sometimes so predictable that even in easy or hard situation a normal Arsenal fan can predict his substitutions and at what time it is going to happen. Sometimes his formations and tactics are very much predictable that opponents can beat it.

Like everything has good and bad aspect, Arsene not signing world class players have been a problem as well. Before the arrival of Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez, Arsene was always hesitant to splash huge sum of money in transfer window to land big names. He has been spending quite a bit from them but even till date no Arsenal fan is happy about him not trying to sign big names spending a huge amount.

In the past years there have been more haters than supporters for Arsene around the world. His inability to win the League and Champions League has questioned both fans and players about his ambitions. And everyone has been criticizing about him not trying to play Modern Football as well. There have been protest from fans asking Arsene to leave the club with slogans like "Wenger Out", "In Arsene We Rust" etc which has been quite an internet sensation for few years.

But, Arsene has reacted towards hatred by extending 2 years of contract at Arsenal and he has been trying to sign big names with latest arrival of Xhaka, Mustafi and Lacazattee. Also adapting to new 5-2-2-1 Formation in which Arsenal are doing much better than old 4-3-2-1 Formation, Arsene has showed that he can and will adapt to Modern Football.

Tactics

About Arsene's tactics he is more of a manager who loves Passing gameplay. Many players talk about how beautiful Arsenal's gameplay is. All the credit goes to Arsene who loves a passing gameplay. Arsene's major tactics is to focus on short passing more and create chances in the box. But the passing gameplay only runs in the Central Midfield part.

Arsene is a man who loves to take things by speed and who loves to counter attack. Arsene has used wingers with speed rather than wingers with skills. Arsene had produced some speedy players like Walcott, Gibbs, Chamberlian, Bellerin, Sanchez, Henry, Pires etc who are one of the players with most speed on Football World. Arsene loves to use speed and it's his trump card when it comes to counter attacks.

When it comes to strikers he has always used striker who are more of a Target Man who are good in air. Except for van Persie and Theirry Henry who were good at both air and taking shots the other strikers were more of a Target Man. Adebayor, Bendtner, Giroud are all tall and are good in air. So, its safe to say that Arsene loves to use the passing gameplay and turn it into a chance where strikers don't have to do much work and can score easily.

But lately with the use of Sanchez on wings who uses both pace and skills on wings and Mesut Ozil who is rather a slow player rather than a fast one. Arsene wasn't getting much of speed on the wings as he used to. But with introduction of Wing Backs, Bellerin and Kolasinac who love to make daunting runs and cross it into the box Arsene has once again found his love of speed on the wings which is turning great for them.

When it comes to defending Arsene tactics is pretty terrible. With major defending decisions like assigning Djourou, Squillaci as Centre Backs were one of his biggest defending mistakes. Mertesacker was one of the biggest questions raised when Arsene signed him but he eventually turned out to be OK. But still Arsenal aren't a team who are known for clean sheets. And have suffered huge losses due to their unorganized defence formations.

Assigning Koscielny, Mustafi and Monreal as major Centre Backs with Holding and Elneny as other options these days Arsenal are improving on their defence as well. Before arrival of Petr Cech from Chelsea with Goal Keepers like Alumunia, Szczesny, Mannone , Arsenal had no good goal keeper since Jens Lehmann. Arsenal were also criticized once for their lack of defence when it came to Aerial defending and then they couldn't hold winger with speed and then the positioning of their Defensive players were bad.

But with good defenders in air they are doing very good dealing the aerial threat. Using 3 Centre Backs have somehow solved their problem of positioning problems of defending players with help from Holding Midfielders as well. And due to use of speedy Wing Backs its quite tough for wingers to beat them with only speed.

So, that's all about Strength,Weakeness and Tactics of Arsene Wenger. Next time I will be do a post on Jose Mourinho if you guys like. Please Upvote and Comment if you want more of these Football Topics from me.