Arsene Wenger is convinced that despite a shift away from possession football over recent years, keeping hold of the ball is still the most effective way to score goals and how ‘big players’ want to play.

While possession football is still a successful way to play the game when executed properly, an increasing amount of teams are beginning to move away from it.

Unless you have the quality to play tippy-tappy football and show a willingness to switch up the team’s tactics if needed, it can be pretty predictable to play against and easy to overcome – as Arsenal have proven this season.

Whether it’s Leicester, who managed to beat all the odds to win the Premier League last season by defending as a team and counter-attacking, or Spurs, who don’t stop pressing, more and more managers are choosing to adapt their style.

They realise they can find success without trying to be Barcelona.

However, Wenger is still convinced that this is the best way to get goals.

“Football is a balance,” the manager explained.

“The right balance between possession and progressing. Sometimes we had some games this season when we had 70 per cent possession like West Brom and we lost 3-0 and like Crystal Palace where we had 70 per cent possession and we lost 3-0. So that means on the day, our balance was not right.

“We had possession but that had to be combined with being incisive and overall, you have to be efficient defensively on set-pieces. At West Brom, we got punished on set-pieces.

“I am convinced you still need to have the ball to create goal chances and that overall you cannot encourage, as well, youth teams to say we do not want the ball. You cannot buy big players and say we do not want the ball. Big players want the ball.”

It’s this balance between having possession and actually doing something with it that Arsenal still need to relearn.