OVER the past few years Arsenal have become synonymous with a particular style of football. It is classy, slick and a delight to watch. Arsene Wenger's team pass the ball around while opponents endlessly chase shadows looking tired and tormented.
Many fans claim that this is the way the beautiful game should be played and that Arsenal are their 'other' favourite team. There is, however, another rather important feature about the Gunners that can be overlooked; they aren't winning trophies the
se days.
After four years of flattering to deceive their true colours were hoisted in a couple of recent home games against Manchester United in the Champions League and Chelsea in the league. They had a vast amount of possession in both games and were also hammered in both, 3-1 and 4-1 by managers who have sussed them out.
Everyone in the game, including 40,000 Arsenal fans, now know that 30 or 40 pretty passes in the midfield aren't worth as much as one incisive through ball or a 35-yard lash into the bottom corner from a free-kick by the likes of Ronaldo. There comes a time when moving the play from side to side, trying to move opponents out of position while striving for the perfect goal stops being effective and starts being self indulgent.
Maybe Wenger knows this, and Andre Arshavin is the perfect player to change the attitude. The Russian could play midfield passes for a fortnight without giving the ball away, but he knows that top players do it in the final third, where it hurts, where it is effective and where it is most difficult.
If you think that is sacrilege, then how about this, Barcelona, are in danger of going some way down the same route. Yes, they have scored a phenomenal amount of goals in La Liga and the fantastic Messi alongside Eto'o and Henry are a positive threat particularly in the Nou Camp. Iniesta and Xavi are also always probing as well, but against Chelsea in the Champions League they were made to look impotent for 182 minutes for all their impressive possession statistics.
Clearly there is once again a huge cultural difference between English football and the continental game. (Arsenal may be based in north London, but their spiritual home is still Paris).
Liverpool, Chelsea and particularly Manchester United, on the other hand, have realised that while the chin strokers might swoon over a 50-pass move that elicits a corner, to win games and trophies a moment of skilful genius from Ronaldo, a perfectly-timed run into the box and finish by the most economic of the world's top players, Frank Lampard or a lung-bursting power play by Steven Gerrard is what successful modern football is all about. It has to be explosive.
In an era when we all but venerate the sitting midfielder, it is worth remembering that while the best proponents of this position rarely give the ball away, it is generally the easiest place on the pitch to make a pass. They are also very good at reading the play and destroying attacks, but again it is worth remembering that destruction is ten times easier than creation.
So if English football is so superior, why do the Spanish have a better national side and why has England's golden generation failed to win a World Cup or even a European Championship? I think the answer is that when they pull on that white shirt, they feel they have to ape the continental game and guess what – they aren't as good at it as the guys who play that way week in, week out.
I partially forgot for a while just exactly what I truly believed in when I was a player. Midfield players giving ten-yard sideways passes back and forth to each other used to drive me up the wall, by the time the ball reached me after this indulgence the defence had time to organise themselves and I had a full-back right behind me and a covering player at the front, which tended to make it a little harder for me to create.
Without resorting to the heinous long-ball game, a quick look at Manchester United will show you how to keep the ball when you have to and when to explode forward in a direct manner to devastating effect.
Last week there were even some worrying signs in the Old Firm game, the very last place you expect to see prissy football. For Celtic Marc Crosas is undoubtedly a talented footballer, but in central midfield I watched him closely for 45 minutes and he attempted one unsuccessful defence-splitting pass, the rest of the time he gave a fair impression of how former Rangers player Ray (The Crab) Wilkins was caricatured.
There were no serious attempts to get beyond his forwards and into the box either, unlike Scott Brown would have done and Steven Davis did so with crucial consequences. It wasn't until Aiden McGeady was let loose that the odd effort to get in behind the Rangers back four materialised. What surprised me most is that while this is not Gordon Strachan's avowed playing style, he seemed so pleased with the performance.
More presciently it was never Strachan's style as a player either, if anyone was to be found probing forward from midfield looking for a gap in the tightest areas, it was him and boy was he good at it. I always admired that cavalier, brave and intelligent style even when I was playing against him or trying to oust him from the Scotland midfield. Maybe last Saturday's comments were more about protecting his players, about keeping spirits and beliefs up at a bad moment.
Today at Easter Road, however, his team will have to be more positive. On Wednesday in the first half, Rangers had a similarly impotent and indulgent midfield against Hibs and not surprisingly they went in a goal down. At half time Walter Smith changed things around by adding Nacho Novo's directness and Kyle Lafferty's physical presence, duly salvaging a point while deserving all three.
To win things in football, you have to be willing to make passes in the last third where it is more difficult and more dangerous. That is why I think Manchester United will win the Champions League and why even down at the level of the SPL, fortune and glory between now and the end of this extraordinarily tight season, will favour the brave, not the pretty.
