Arsene Wenger borrowed some of Jose Mourinho’s talking points about Chelsea’s negative, reactive, boring boring path to the Premier League title. He should have stopped there.
Arsene Wenger and Jose Mourinho took the first steps towards rapprochement last week before their vital clash for sixth place. After years of feuding, the two amiably shook hands. Wonders did not cease there, as Wenger went on to defeat Mourinho in the Premier League for the first time.
They have now progressed to the imitation-as-the-highest-form-of-flattery stage. Wenger parroted Mourinho’s season-long snipes about Chelsea’s style of play, comparing Chelsea to last year’s champions, Leicester City.
"The last two seasons, teams who have not had big possession won the league… Over a longer period it is still the teams who have the most possession. – Telegraph"
Arsenal sits two places ahead of Chelsea on the possession table. With a possession margin of 2.9%, Wenger feels he has a stable platform from which to speak.
If Wenger had stopped there, he would merely be indulging the Jermaine Jenas school of thought for what metric – other than goals scored, of course – predicts winning. However, he drifted on into a strange musing about the rules of football.
"I still think a sport has to encourage initiative and if it rewards too much teams who don’t take the initiative, then we have to rethink the whole process because people will not, for ever, come to watch teams who do not want to take the initiative. The responsibility of people who make the rules are always to encourage teams who want to play. Football is a balance. The right balance between possession and progressing."
Jermaine Jenas apparently thinks that a team that dominates possession is the better team. He struggles to see how anyone could praise a team that wins 4-2 at Wembley simply on the merits of winning 4-2 at Wembley. Wenger, though, suggests that football needs to adapt to incentivize possession. He apparently would alter the rules to link winning – or at least scoring – with possession.
How much would this change the table, let alone the flow of play? The 2.9% difference in possession between Arsenal and Chelsea is about 2 minutes and 45 seconds per game. This would be scarcely noticeable to even the most intent fan.
With their added 2:45 on the ball, Arsenal averages only one-tenth of a shot more each game than Chelsea. Their passings accuracy is .1% better than Chelsea’s. Arsenal does less with the ball than Chelsea, yet Arsene Wenger thinks there is an indisputable and unacceptable gap in quality.
Tottenham takes more shots than any team in the Premier League: 17.4 per game. This is 17% more than either Chelsea or Tottenham. If Wenger wants to point to a different metric of success, he could at least choose one for which there is a significant disparity among the top six clubs.
Even so, Chelsea have four more goals than Tottenham and nine more than Arsenal. Six of Chelsea’s goals have come off a counter-attack: tied for the lead with Manchester City. Chelsea have eight goals from set pieces, and 47 from open play: one more than Arsenal. However, Arsenal does lead Chelsea in two types of goals: penalty kicks and opposition own-goals. Arsenal have two more of each.
Arsene Wenger came off sounding more like Arsenal Fan TV than a man who revolutionized Premier League football. He would better serve the Gunners by determining where they have gone wrong than smearing what Chelsea have done right. Not taking a cue from Jose Mourinho would be a strong start.
Next: Cesar Azpilicueta voted insultingly low in defender ranking