“Arsenal are missing a leader.” Martin Keown told The Daily Mail.
How many times have you heard that over the past four or five years. It seems to be a recurring theme at the Emirates – there are few real leaders.
Is this just lazy analysis from so-called experts though? In some ways I think it is, but in many ways, they are right. Arsenal aren’t a team that strike fear into people any more. The Patrick Vieira side could fight you off the park, just as well as they played. Later, despite not winning anything, Cesc Fabregas’ Arsenal played the best football ever seen in England.
Now Arsenal are in transition. They don’t have the same intensity of passing as they did a few years ago and have become somewhat practical. It is a cross-road for Arsene Wenger, does he build a more conventional team, with solid defenders and speed over substance ahead of them. No. He will stick to his principles, and rightly so.
Wenger will continue to play the perfect game, aesthetically pleasing yet brutally effective. But to do this he must first buy one or two players who can change a game on their own. At the moment they only have Robin van Persie who can do this. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain will become one of those players and Jack Wilshere too, has been sorely missed.
The second thing, Arsenal need to do is find some more leaders. A team needs several leaders on the pitch. Even Barcelona have the likes of Carles Puyol, Xavi, Victor Valdes, Iniesta and Messi. As good as these players are, they are also real leaders. Either by example or otherwise. They understand the philosophy of the manager, they know exactly what they need to do and what their team-mates need to do, and when times are tough these are the players that the squad will turn to.
What Keown, and other ‘experts’ (not that Keown doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but it seems some pundits don’t) think, is that Arsenal need an old-school leader, someone that will scream at his team-mates for 90 minutes, throw his body on the line and put fear into the opposition. Some one in the vein of Vieira or Roy Keane, but this isn’t necessarily the case. Captains like that are very rare these days, especially in top level European football.
Someone who leads by example, who is calm and understands the game well, is what most clubs are looking for these days. Xavi at Barcelona, Nemanja Vidic at Manchester United, Vincent Kompany at Manchester City. These are modern day captains and leaders. Don’t get me wrong, they aren’t afraid to hurl abuse at their team-mates when circumstances demand, but the majority of the time they just keep things ticking over, making sure their own performance shows the others how it should be done, and giving advice and instruction to team-mates intermittently.
Arsenal already have several of these within their squad. Van Persie has been doing a fine job, as Arsenal’s captain. He is intelligent and has led by example all season. If his team-mates aren’t up to it, that isn’t his fault. Wilshere is another. If he can put his injury woes behind him next season, he will become a massive part of Arsenal’s team. Everything about the way they play will revolve around him. He is a very consistent performer and obviously understands the game very well. He is also and Arsenal fan and will fight no end for the cause.
Some will argue that Wilshere is too quiet to be a true leader, and this is a fair point, but Van Persie isn’t the loudest on the pitch and has done well this season. Sometimes nothing needs to be said. Players will just look to their leader in the tougher times and think anything is possible, if Van Persie or Wilshere are playing well and fighting, then so should I etc.
Another leader in the Arsenal team is Thomas Vermaelem. Vermaelen is a great defender who ticks all the boxes of what a captain should be. In fact, I think he should be Arsenal’s captain. He is similar to Vidic at United, where he organises the team very well and leads by example. And like Vidic, he would grow into the role.
So there are Arsenal’s leaders: Robin van Persie, Jack Wilshere, Thomas Vermaelen.
The thing a lot of pundits don’t understand is that Arsenal don’t need more leaders, they simply need more motivated, more intelligent and more skilled players.
