Remember that Wenger has had years to instill a footballing philosophy from the bottom up - every single age group at **** plays the same way, every single player he buys he thinks of in terms of potential "fit" with his style. It doesn't always work out, but the larger point is that he emphasizes the stylistic fit - understanding the basics of pass-and-move, a focus on one-touch passing, building triangles etc. - as much as the player's quality and "name".
While we have changed our youth structure to hopefully instill our own vision throughout every age group, we haven't had that kind of continuous transfer philosophy for even as long as Swansea, much less ****. Instead we have mainly been opportunistic in the market, signing boatloads of players under Comolli in the hopes that a few will work out and then jumping at (sometimes spectacularly good) bargains and freebies under Harry (and I'm not judging this, we are very much money-constrained relative to our competitors so we have to be thrifty).
Then AVB came along all of a sudden, but our transfer strategy remained the same, disorganized and scattered - for example, there was very little chance that replacing VdV and Modric with a non-playmaking-second-strikers like Dempsey and Siggy and then missing out on Moutinho and Willian was in AVB's plans. Dempsey and Siggy are classic moneyball signings, cheap-ish players who have great stats because they finish moves rather than participate in the qualitative task of building them. They are not bad players by any means, but I call them the extra cards in your deck, not the
building blocks to remake a torn-apart team looking a new identity and vision.
A much better comparison than **** in truth, is us and Liverpool. We both got our new managers at the same time (and concurrently, new philosophies); we've always wanted that genius "dynastic" manager who would help us hold our own against far wealthier clubs for years and years; we compete in a similar market with an eye on moneyball (sometimes rather amusingly so, in the head-to-heads :lol
. As much as I dislike his personality, my personal opinion is that Rodgers has done a very good job instilling his own vision at Liverpool fairly swiftly, with some superb team displays last season .... but I also believe that Carroll aside, with Comolli out of the way Rodgers has been able to inherit or sign his ideal kind of possession-oriented players (Suarez, Henderson, Allen, Coutinho, Enrique, L Alberto, a bunch of La Liga imports etc).
The thing is, for me AVB has not really had this luxury until Baldini + Bale-level money came in. If last season was a young manager still coming to terms with the squad he inherited, to me this season is the real beginning of the revolution at the Lane. Yes we signed a few key players in previous windows too (Lloris! Verts!), but I believe it's really the Magnificent Seven who bear the hallmarks of a true transfer strategy for the first time. Last year's players were players we signed because of their quality; this year's players are players we've signed because they have the potential qualities integral for a certain kind of style, system, vision.
This is perhaps a controversial statement, but if we run with that Liverpool comparison I think we are actually a small step behind them in terms of re-fashioning the team in our new manager's vision. That is why our current stats are so damn similar to their first season under Rodgers: controlling the midfield, having the highest passes in the final third, having the highest shots in the league and conceding the lowest, while still not being able to score much and sometimes not getting the results you'd expect from those stats. I believe this is because the high-line, high-pressing, 'death by football' style is one of the most difficult to execute - by forcing them back you're actually denying yourself the space to create clear chances, while also leaving yourself vulnerable in the few times they manage to breach your high line. So you need to know how to provoke them out, react like a viper after forcing the turnovers, and move the ball at frightening speed to create chances in narrow fighting quarters ... and that takes an incredible level of familiarity and players who have all the qualities of intelligence, technique, and dynamism in rare depth.
GHod knows Liverpool didn't manage to get anywhere near it until they got Coutinho and Sturridge ... but the thing is, I think it is well worth the difficult transition period and the multiple windows to get this right. We have made incredible steps this summer in acquiring a number of key building blocks, now we need the patience to really craft it. Do we as fans have that patience? I don't know, not when CL has become so important, not when our neighbors are flying so high - but I hope we keep in mind that is
precisely because they're reaping the rewards of perseverance right now. We've chosen the long and difficult road, not the one where we get sugardaddies or miraculously come upon the One player or manager or system that will transform us at a wave of the wand. For me though, that's the only one worth taking.
