Initial note: This is a development from a previous post, re-tinkered to reflect some criticism on initial project. All new ideas, just presented in the same manner. Best viewed in the Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mMsQn59UjPZPQ2q8GWAqKaYxfj630fQNiljzhklNU0o/edit?usp=sharing
Happy FMing lads!
"IF YOU EAT CAVIAR EVERYDAY IT'S DIFFICULT TO RETURN TO SAUSAGES." ARSENE WENGER
Also how I feel watching Arsenal these days...
Arsenal is a club that, in my opinion, lost its soul when Gunners legend Arsene Wenger left back in 2017. A series of failed restructures, an inability to transition club legends into influential club roles, average players on big salaries to name but a few. Though perhaps most profoundly; Arsenal's biggest mistake was a failure to implement a philosophy that fed off of all the values that Arsene Wenger instilled in not only Arsenal fans, but football people around the world.
IMPLEMENTING THE ARSENAL PHILOSOPHY IN FM21.
This is a FM21 series that will focus on the rebuild of Arsenal's on-pitch philosophy and will also obviously explore the mechanics of the FM21 match engine to see how we can implement a coach's idea of how football should be played. Done through the main vehicles of creating an aggressive, free-flowing and expressive attacking system. It will focus on the pillar of Wenger's legacy - identifying and developing a world class, young team. With individual training practices to perfect everyone's role within our team philosophy, we will still allow the players creative freedom up the pitch. We will need to support this at a world class level in all elements of our coaching setups, we will need to build the best footballing network in the world to ensure the best coaches & players continue to come in and - most importantly - develop at this club. It's going to look like how Arsene would have wanted Arsenal to continue to be, just with slightly different people.
\"DON'T BE SCARED TO BE AMBITIOUS. IT'S NOT A HUMILIATION TO HAVE A HIGH TARGET AND FAIL. FOR ME, THE REAL HUMILIATION IS TO HAVE A TARGET AND NOT TO GIVE EVERYTHING TO REACH IT.\" ARSENE WENGER
Also can be viewed on FM forums, and live on:
WWW.TWITCH.TV/PROPIRATE
Enjoy!
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IT'S TIME FOR A NEW GENERATION OF ARSENAL LEGENDS.
PART 1:
ARSENAL
To create my version of Arsenal, we first need to identify the philosophies we want to implement at the club. I'll be basing my principles on what I believe made them a great club, even during the "banter" era.
Core values (all are direct quotes from Wenger):
- "Play progressive, possession orientated football." This means that when we move the ball around, we do it at a tempo to disrupt our opponents defensive shape. It also means that we support the ball carrier deeper on the pitch, whilst making positive runs designed to stretch the opposition's defense (think a hybrid between the flair of fluid counter-attacking football with the technicals of vertical tiki-taka)
- "We develop stars, we don't buy stars". Now that we have our idea, we start to develop a world class backroom that is able to a) identify world class potential and b) develop world class footballers.
- "If you do not believe you can do it, then you have no chance at all" develop a winning mentality at the club which develops high level professionals, model citizens and future role models to help with transitions between generations of players.
- "If you have a child who is a good musician, what is your first reaction? It is to put them into a good music school, not in an average one. So why should that not happen in football?" identify top young talent and bring them into our setup as early as possible to influence their development and tailor it towards our outcomes. Arsenal has to earn the reputation as a world class destination for young talent again.
At the start of any major change at a club it's difficult to have instant change, so we need to manage the transition of all staff (playing/backroom) at the club to ensure we can get the best out of our philosophy, whilst constantly developing it.
In terms of players in our setup, we want to start looking at players that made millions of young football fans fall in love with Arsenal. This quote describing our greatest ever player seems a great place to start.
"QUITE SIMPLY, EVERYTHING HENRY DID WAS FAST; WHETHER IT WAS RUNNING, SHOOTING OR PASSING. IT WAS AS IF HE COULD SEE THINGS TWICE AS QUICKLY AS EVERYONE ELSE AROUND HIM."
Where a lot of people would say that Henry was a generational talent (he was) and that basing a philosophy on having world class players all over the pitch is a dangerous assumption, we have to go into our culture change wanting to drive excellence. So we will set up to try and suffocate teams and play the beautiful game, regardless of who is on the pitch.
So what are the key things we look at for players? It really comes down to what area of the pitch the player is responsible for. For my Arsenal save, we are fortunate because we have relatively good player profiles in the current squad to match what I want in different areas of the pitch. We will have different types of players come in to our squad, but we have core non-negotiables that our players need (in game stats):
Composure, Decision Making, Determination, Teamwork, Work Rate, Off-the-Ball, Technique, Vision, Passing, First Touch, Strength, Stamina, Pace
However, when players age, or we have certain players that are world class but lack (for example) pace, we are able to accommodate their weaknesses with a strong team unit. Make no mistake, however, our entire recruitment setup is designed to bring in players of this mould - and no one else.
Up the pitch, we will need to add agility and presence in order to finish our chances regularly. Deeper in the pitch, our centre backs… well we basically need Sol Campbell and Kolo Toure. Our full-backs need to be absolute engines that want to get high and wide. Our double-pivot in deep midfield needs to have vision, the ability to dictate the game, and be able to hit angled long balls and switch the play. Our absolutely ideal number 10 is Mesut Ozil when he was 23. Our idea of a striker is that he is well rounded, very intelligent and decisive in his movement.
Both our wingers need to be unbelievably aggressive in their forward runs and will know when to provide width, and when to get very narrow to open up space for our fullbacksOur goalkeeper is a brave shot stopper who can distribute anywhere, but most importantly makes quick decisions on what to do in possession.
THE SYSTEM?
OKAY, LET'S HEAR IT.
We always set out to be an expansive attacking side, full stop. We don't ever go into a game with a defensive mentality. We go out to win and entertain. But we also control the game, and let the intelligence of our players dictate the speed of the game. But when we attack, we commit numbers forward with extremely aggressive central attacking runs. Our transitional defensive setup is still strong, and high up the pitch. We hold a high line and have a strong central press, allowing our wide players time to recover into their shape. When the right runs present themselves, we turn the dial from 0 to 100 and overload the opposition flanks with relentless pace and aggressive movement.
All the while a certain German will dictate the middle of the pitch.
When we lose the ball our initial reaction is to counter-press, however individuals will have very specific defensive instructions. When we win the ball, our main objective in the transition is to spring a counter that very fluidly leads to a goal scoring chance. We do this by distributing quickly when good opportunities are at hand. We don't really care where, just that we make the decision quickly.
Defensively we defend with a high line, probably in between half way and the 18-yard line. But we have a lower line of engagement in transition - so basically, if we lose the ball high up the pitch we will try and win it back quickly. If we lose the ball in the middle third, our first defensive decision is to press centrally, and allow our wide players to get back behind the ball. Effectively we should be harder to break down if we do this correctly.
Our team is aggressive, so tackle that way. Foul them if you need to, but put good tacklers in positions that really need it - down the spine of our team, and even out wide. We obviously still want our wide players to counter-press if they are in a good situation to do so, but we also do want to be behind the ball.
Our front three should be fluid and narrow when we are high up the pitch, i'm looking to get around 5 or 6 players in the box regularly to be incredibly difficult to defend.
OKAY MARCELO BIELSA, LOL.
WHAT DO THE PLAYERS DO?
The system defend's as a 4-3-3. In transition we press centrally to force teams to either go wide, or direct. In order for this to be successful, we play a narrow front free with the number 10 sweeping up behind to put pressure on any deep lying midfielders. Our central players tackle hard. In our attacking build up play, these three players are all able and responsible for stretching the opposition defense, continuously trying to find space, and taking on defenders to commit them, thus creating space for other players.
Our two central midfielders act as a deep lying playmaker and a traditional athletic, creative midfielder. Of these two, the deep lying playmaker is conservative in their runs forward, but is the heart and soul of this attacking unit deeper in the pitch. I want this player to be able to see things in front of them (vision) and I want them to be able to dictate the tempo of the game and be a bully against other midfielders. This player is then partnered with Thomas Partey. Partey traditionally is considered a box-to-box midfielder, or potentially a deep lying ball-winner. I'll be looking for Thomas to do… everything. Good luck Thomas lol. It's important to have an athletic, but intelligent and creative midfielder in that role. There will be a point where I'd like this role to be more of a Mezzala type half-wide channel playmaker on the left-hand side, but for now this will be our engine (b2b/s).
Supplemented on either of those midfielders are our two wing backs. These roles will pretty much never change, regardless of opposition. They have the same principles defensively and offensively, regardless of what role we play. Their defensive instructions are two recover back into our team defensive shape as quickly as possible, and then defend behind the ball. If an obvious opportunity to counter-press high up the pitch presents itself, they can do so.
Attacking wise, they are expected to be aggressive. Run with the ball often, cross often, take players on often, and get high and wide up the pitch whenever possible. There will be times this role will be fulfilled by a traditional "wingback" and times where we will utilise an inverted wingback, to provide more central build up options to a more traditional winger that holds width. But predominantly, we will use wingbacks, and recruit wingbacks.
WASN'T THIS MEANT TO HAPPEN A YEAR AGO?
Finally we have my sexy attacking trio, who in theory will be the ones that reap all the rewards of our system. Luckily, at Arsenal we do still have some world class options to fill these three specific roles for my system to thrive. Arsenal captain Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang plays on the left side of our trio exploiting space and utilising his supreme speed, off-the-ball movement and his ability to open up the right hand side of the goal, much like a certain legendary predecessor…
On the right hand side of our trio we would ideally mimic the left-side approach with Aubameyang, however, we want a more "half channel" operator that is able to contribute to the build up and still be a goal threat, but intelligently make decisions on whether to play high and wide as a winger, or come narrow and be a goal threat.
In the middle we have a "complete" centre forward as mentioned earlier. In order for our system to be successful, you are wanting a player that can contribute to build up, but also be lethal in front of goal, a physical presence, and an aggressive striker. This role must be a complete forward.
YEAH BUT… ARSENAL CAN'T PLAY LIKE THAT. THEY HAVE NO CREATIVITY!
"I believe, the most important thing that people never talk about, is to believe in human beings. Despite all this, when you're such a long time in the job, you're not naïve. You know all the strengths and weaknesses, and how sometimes people can be selfish or mean. But you still have to believe that there is a light in every human being that you can get out." Arsene Wenger
OZIL SITTING ON A BALL.
The rose of our Arsenal team in our early stages will be one of my favourite Arsenal players of all time, Mesut Ozil. Mesut is an artist, who doesn't really like to run. Ozil will play as a 10 behind a very quick front three. Ozil will sweep defensively behind the front free, but only a smaller portion of horizontal space, as in theory the wide players should cover the widths of the pitch. Even vertically could be an issue for Ozil, so we have ensured that players instructions around him help with this. It will allow him to be a little freer in his defensive obligations - something we aren't being naive about. We know he doesn't like it, and I am willing to facilitate my team's system to integrate his unmatched creative ability into my team.
In the transition, Mesut will float to create space out wide, or come deep to drag defenders with him, essentially creating space for our other forwards to run into.
I am determined to bring Ozil to life in this save.
OZIL IN 2014.
So now we begin our journey to bring fast-paced, aggressive attacking football back to Arsenal. I'll be updating how we adapt, progress and mould our club to reflect the styles we want to play going forward. Hope to see you along!
COME ON YOU GUNNERS!
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