Arsene Wenger has a type.
Just like mine is tall, dark and handsome, Arsene favours some defenders over others. It has particularly become so over the last few years, but it hasn’t always been the case.
Specialist defenders
In the good old days of the Invincibles, Arsene regularly tinkered with the positions of his players. Kolo Toure was a defensive midfielder turned centre back. Lauren was a right midfielder turned full back. Even Ashley Cole used to be a forward, although that is perhaps less down to Arsene’s tinkering and more down to how he developed physically and ‘footballistically’.
However, once settled on a player’s best position, Arsene did not meddle with it. Cole was the left back, Lauren was the right back, and Sol and Kolo were the centre backs.
Go back a few more years and it was a similar tale – Nigel Winterburn was a specialist left back to Lee Dixon’s right back, and Adams and Bould were two immovable objects in the centre of defence.
No, Arsene had a vision for his players and where they best fit the team. At no point were those players asked to play across the back four.
Times they are a-changing
The first departure from this mantra was Johan Djourou. The Swiss was a centre back by trade, and frankly probably should have stayed there, but he was Arsene’s first foray into the wilderness of shuffling his defenders around.
Arguably Gilles Grimandi was an earlier contestant for the role, but he was much more of a utility man, capable of playing across midfield and defence, whereas Djourou was the first to be viewed as specialist defender, just one who could be shifted laterally.
It’s understandable why the attempt was made – it was in no small part born of the financial circumstances of the club in 2006, needing to sell players and operate with a squad thin on numbers and pedigree. And it was in that context that Wenger experimented with a number of players out of position.
It can be traced back to the famous 2006 campaign, when our options at full back seemed to be decimated on a weekly or even daily basis. Stripped of Cole and Lauren, Wenger was forced to play Flamini and Djourou in the wide defensive roles, and the latter spent much of his Arsenal career being shuffled from centre back to right back and back again.*
*Ugh, if only there was a synonym for ‘back’…
Arsene’s historic attempts at making this strategy work were almost always about shifting his centre backs out towards the wings, and usually with limited success. The likes of Vermaelen and Koscielny, both very accomplished centre backs (at the time of the experimentation, anyway!) struggled when moved to play left and right back respectively.
A good centre back does not a good full back make
There are a handful of notable centre backs in the modern game who can play across the back four, notably the likes of Branislav Ivanovic and Jan Vertonghen. However, they are relatively few and far between.
The likes of John Terry, Vincent Kompany and Nemanja Vidic, while outstanding centre backs at their peak, have never ventured into the unknown lands of full back. In today’s game, they require a very different skillset.
None of the afore-mentioned trio are blessed with pace, and that is one attribute that the modern full back simply cannot live without. I firmly believe that Calum Chambers will never play full back for us on a regular basis on account of his relative lack of pace.
Full back has also increasingly become a position where you are expected to contribute significantly at both ends of the pitch. We tend to think of Nacho Monreal as a very defensive player for his position, and with a solitary goal and matching assist, he doesn’t often find himself threatening near the opposition box.
However, his role is critical to maintaining width and stretching opposition defences, especially when the player ahead of him (looking at you, Alexis!) has something of a tendency to cut inside. If he doesn’t push forward and stay wide, the opposing team can pack all their men into a significantly smaller area without a care in the world.
However, there are some more fundamental differences between playing centrally or out wide. Full backs typically face less headers and tackles, certainly in more dangerous regions of the pitch – their game has become much more about interceptions than crunching challenges.
Think back to how many times this season you can remember Gibbs, Monreal or Bellerin stepping away from their winger to cut out a pass and switch play back in the opposite direction.
Yet they are still expected to have the quick feet and poise required to stay with a tricky or pacy winger. A centre back will often be the last man, but he knows exactly where his opponent wants to go. A full back on the other hand can be taken on either side – towards goal or towards the byline – or even overlapped by an opposing full back.
They are frequently (particularly at Arsenal!) seen isolated as the opposition create two-on-one scenarios, where centre backs rarely lack the support of either a defensive midfielder or a full back tucking in. So the full back has not only the responsibility of covering his own man and potentially his winger’s opponent, but also helping to sweep up after his centre back.
Little surprise, then, that it’s not a position that you can just wave a magic wand and expect a centre back to take on.
Evolution
In the last few years, Arsene has had something of an epiphany. Where previously he focussed on signing or producing centre backs who could be deployed wider if and when the need arose, his new ‘type’ is the full back who can cover in the middle.
Bacary Sagna was the first exponent of this particular plan, particularly as his age caught up with him and his pace (and crossing!) deteriorated. And he proved to be rather good at it. Of course, choosing a player with the vertical jump of a kangaroo for the experiment helped demonstrate its virtues, but since then Wenger has looked increasingly for full backs with the physical capacity to play centre half if required rather than choosing pure centre backs who then look uncomfortable when moved.
Since then, Monreal, Chambers and Debuchy have all been ostensibly full backs utilised at centre half as and when the need has arisen. Even with the increasing funds available, it is still a way to maximise those resources, and also have a shot at keeping everyone happy with sufficient game time.
Of course, there is one recent exception: Gabriel is something of a throwback to the more historic days when Arsene looked to his centre backs to be the moving parts when required, but as we all know from our Football Manager days, it’s hard to pass up on a player who is noted to be able to play left, right and centre back!
Interestingly, none of the other top five clubs have a player who can allegedly play anywhere across the back four – indeed, the only other player who can even claim to be capable of playing both full back positions is Cesar Azpilicueta.
However, Gabriel very much represents the exception to the rule, and Arsene’s type these days seems to be firmly biased towards full backs who can switch inside.
With Monreal, Debuchy, Koscielny and Mertesacker all past 30 by the end of the season, perhaps he can go out and find us a pretty one this summer.
Check back later this weekend for some more analysis on how the shape of our defence stacks up against both our Champions League rivals and Arsenal teams gone by.