Match Focus: Wenger Needs Big Response When Arsenal Welcome United

Arsene Wenger was dismissively talking about what he saw as an incorrect line of questioning following Arsenal’s 3-2 defeat to Olympiakos, but he used what is absolutely the correct word to describe the club’s situation.

“It’s a farce,” the 65-year-old sniffed.

Yes, that’s exactly the term used in the old line about history repeating itself multiple times, and it really is remarkable how often the exact same season keeps playing out for Arsenal.

The number of distinctive patterns to the last decade of Wenger’s career are actually embarrassing for a manager of his intelligence and a club of that standing.

Look at this campaign already.

We’ve already had the first injury crisis, with the spate of absences in a specific position putting further focus on another summer of hugely puzzling transfer business, as Wenger refused to sign another defensive midfielder.

That has been a factor in the first typical humiliations of the season, with Arsenal losing not one but two Champions League games to opponents they should really be brushing aside.

In between those, Wenger suffered his customary defeat to Jose Mourinho, taking that record to eight losses in 15 encounters.

The wonder now is whether he’ll follow with the customary defeat to Manchester United. Wenger has lost 10 of the last 16 fixtures against United, with so many of those matches also following the exact same pattern - United sitting tight, wait for a specific type of passing move, intercept and surge into Arsenal on the break.

Sir Alex Ferguson even outlined this in his last autobiography, writing with what almost seemed a sense of disappointment that he could discern such an obvious “template” to the play of his great old rival.

That is actually rather fitting given Arsenal’s seasons seem to conform to a similar template, and is a key factor as to why that is the case. It’s also possible, however, that another hard-wired Wenger trait helps them this Sunday - and it may be further aided by United’s new manager.

Part of the reason that Arsenal’s seasons always seem the same, despite the drastic extremes they go to within them, is because of the side’s curious self-correction mechanism. Just at the point when optimism about a good run seems set to propel them onto a new level, they lose. 

Just at the point a crisis seems to plumb genuinely concerning depths, then, they win.

It should be no surprise to see them respond in the typical Arsenal way against Manchester United on Sunday, and put in what will be labelled as a “spirited” performance, but the real wonder is how Louis van Gaal will respond.

The Dutch coach is actually more pragmatic than Wenger when he feels he doesn’t have the quality players necessary for his style, as the Netherlands’ run to the World Cup semi-final under him displayed, but much more dogmatic when he thinks he does.

That could see something of an inversion to the history of this fixture, and one that was already partially indicated in Arsenal’s 2-1 FA Cup win at Old Trafford in March.

Even though Ferguson outlined the blueprint to beat Arsenal regardless of what else you’re doing in a season - and one that David Moyes followed to enjoy one of the few successes of his dismal time at Old Trafford, as he beat Wenger 1-0 - there is already evidence Van Gaal is deviating from that to pursue his own principles.

The key to beating Arsenal, as described by Ferguson, is to let them have all the meaningless possession they crave before leading them down blind alleys and then intercepting specific moves. Despite that, Van Gaal has demanded his own usual domination of the ball in the last two matches against Wenger, with the FA Cup defeat bringing United’s highest rate of possession in the fixture - 57% - since WhoScored records began. The side’s average in Ferguson’s last eight league games against Wenger was 49.5% and that is somewhat inflated by the freakishly easy 8-2 game from August 2011, which brought 54.3%.

The Scot also intimated that aggressively tackling Arsenal in the manner of the 2004 match that ended the Invincible streak became increasingly pointless. It is better to be patient and calculating. Van Gaal, however, seems to have demanded an equally proactive approach to winning the ball back as playing it. Ferguson’s last three games against Arsenal saw an average of 20.3 tackles per match, but Van Gaal’s have seen 31.

Even though the intention behind this is to beat Wenger with pure play, it may play into the home side’s hands. The Arsenal manager worked a way around it last season, in a rare example of Wenger adapting to the opposition rather than trying to impose his own game on them.

Of course, there are two ways of looking at it, and Van Gaal is looking past all of that. He has the utmost faith that his approach is close to unbeatable when the players are fully integrated into it and on top form, and it can’t be denied that United were exceptional in totally dominating opposition sides in a series of big matches after that FA Cup defeat to Wenger’s team.

Here, they mightn’t even need to be on top form. Just better form than Arsenal.

Wenger needs to find the correct response.

Who do you think will come out on top when Arsenal welcome Manchester United on Sunday? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below