Beating the Mourinho allegations and learning from Herbert Chapman

Like those ancient travellers of yore, like Magellan and Ibn Battuta, Pep Guardiola’s story cannot be told in its entirety without a fair mention to his group of disciples. From Xavi Hernandez, to Luis Enrique and now Mikel Arteta, any clash between these up-and-coming managers and the master himself is sure to get journalists rubbing their hands in glee, pens and keyboards ready to delve in the layers of drama. 

Talking of Mikel Arteta, the Arsenal manager, once Guardiola’s assistant at Manchester City, has reached a rather cinematic third arc in his young career. From the well-oiled machine at the Etihad, his first task was to work a miracle at crumbling establishments of Arsenal, with two eight-place finishes instantly shrouding his stint in ominous light. This was perhaps the first strike, a taunting blow to Arteta’s aspirations of moulding the Gunners in the image of Guardiola’s side.

Despite the sinking feeling pervading through what is now referred to as “lockdown Arsenal”, the second blow was arguably more agonising. The wheels came off established Big-6 sides like Liverpool, Chelsea and Tottenham, allowing the likes of Arsenal, Manchester United and Newcastle to fill in the vacuum. Arteta’s men, having just greeted former Cityzens Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko, shot to the top of the Premier League, some twenty years of hurt about to be emphatically wiped off the cannon crest by someone who once wore it. Instead, the free-flowing Gunners had their champagne party ruined, a 4-1 battering at the hands of Man City effectively serving as a 21-gun salute to their title hopes.

From those ashes rose a new Arsenal. Well over a hundred million pounds spent on Kai Havertz, Declan Rice, and David Raya created the platform for Arteta to inculcate one of Guardiola’s key strengths; control and risk-aversion. Till the first half of the 23/24 season, Arsenal enjoyed plenty of the former, but suddenly looked toothless and dropped points in cagey affairs. Replenished after a winter break, the Gunners had a visibly steely edge to them and quickly became one of Europe’s finest off-the-ball teams. There were the demolitions of Chelsea, West Ham, with Arsenal arguably outplaying Liverpool twice, their 3-1 league victory a resounding statement. However, the string of poor results in December, along with a shock loss at home to Aston Villa allowed Guardiola to have the last laugh by a thin margin of two points.

Three strikes down, the pressure and expectations are now sky-high. This season saw the arrival of Riccardo Calafiori, a centerback who has enjoyed majority of his Arsenal minutes at left-back, and Mikel Merino, a Swiss-army-knife of a midfielder with world-class duelling statistics in tow. The former Liverpool captain Jamie Carragher’s punditry generally brings groans from the audience, but one can’t deny his passion for the tactical side of the game. That’s why it was so fascinating to hear him compare Mikel Arteta to Jose Mourinho, delineating a transformation aimed at toppling Guardiola off the throne. The pundit couldn’t help just mention, cheekily, how Arteta is still far from adopting Mourinho’s penchant for trophies.

Nearly some hundred years ago, Herbert Chapman, arguably the forefather to Arsenal’s glittering history, was appointed manager and tasked with steering a ship battling relegation for the past two seasons. So the legend goes that Chapman devised a counter-attacking system, built around the then-revolutionary WM formation, putting Arsenal on a one-way lane to their first top-flight successes through the late 20s and into the 1930s. Intriguingly, the success wasn’t without its complaints from the footballing public. Accusations like “Lucky” and “Boring Arsenal” were flown across Chapman’s face, his philosophy of prioritizing a strong defence seen as an affront to the centrality dribbling assumed in that era. Arsenal, nonetheless, scored a record 127 goals en route to their first league title.

Arteta’s men have been, for the most part, architects of their own doom this season, and currently sit in trepidation of the possibility of Liverpool disappearing into the sunset. However, with the majestic presence of attacking midfielder Martin Odegaard returning to the side, along with some tough away fixtures already dealt with, Arteta must keep belief and shut out the noise, just like Chapman did a century before him. 

Is Mohamed Salah “world-class”?

Former Watford cult striker Troy Deeney decided to spare the footballing world from making do with only Harry Kane’s “England above all else” sentiments, with somehow, a more incendiary discourse. While answering a question on Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah’s “world-class” credentials, he first delineated that his “world-class” might be different from someone else’s “world-class”, like a variation of “my red is different than your red”. Nonetheless, Deeney’s wish that his children played more like Real Madrid’s Vinicius Jr., instead of Salah, was simply too inviting for aggregator accounts to not post the quote and bookend it with a question to their audiences.

We have been here before. First it was the mercurial Eden Hazard, sometimes Neymar Jr., and now Vinicius Jr. The years wind down and Salah keeps diverging from the explosive maverick that shook the Premier League to its core in 2017. That season, and the one after that, Salah successfully completed 2.45 and 2.22 take-ons per 90 minutes, figures he hasn’t come close to replicating ever since. 

There are many ways to frame the responses, from both Deeney and the amorphous “footballing public”. Nostalgia is an inescapable phenomenon in nearly every sphere of modern life, and football is no exception. A collective withdrawal for noughties English football was labelled as a love-letter to “Barclaysmen”, with recent highlight-worthy goals being compared to something out of a “Best of Serie A 2006” compilation. Ronaldinho, Rooney, Kaka, Del Piero, Sneijder, Henry and the rest; you dare compare these with soulless, robotic players like Haaland and Salah? 

At least there’s Vinicius Jr, a rogue, individual spirit with mischief in his playbook, and a bitter taste of losing out on this year’s Ballon d’Or to Manchester City’s Rodri. One can easily trace a line from Deeney’s comments till Karim Benzema, when the ex-Real Madrid forward gave his two cents on the issue, ultimately judging that Rodri was undeserving due to a lack in his “phwoah” factor—a piece of trickery or individual brilliance immediately perceivable to the eyes.

The Egyptian King of Merseyside is hardly the worst offender. Former Arsenal defender Hector Bellerin has bemoaned the death of art in football at the hands of the “data revolution”, while many want to send Pep Guardiola and positional play to the gallows for making third-tier English sides to play like Barcelona.

Perhaps some haven’t still come to grips with modern tactical trends. Shortly after Liverpool broke a three decade-long league title drought, Guardian’s Barney Ronay published a long piece about a dominating, historic season for the Reds. One quote stood out the most, in which Ronay described Jürgen Klopp’s side as one where the “full-backs are attackers, midfielders are defenders, wingers score goals, forwards chase and press”. 

Salah was never a pure right-winger. Even at Roma, where his body of work was prompting tweets from Juventus’ official Twitter account, warning their supporters of the Egyptian forward ahead of a league clash against the Giallorossi. There, he was the “small man” to Edin Dzeko, the “big man” in the frontline. Indeed, as Ronay highlighted, Salah along with Mane were the chief goal-scoring threats, focussed on drifting towards their respective half-spaces, hunting for goals. Since his Liverpool debut to this moment, no other player in the Premier League has registered more cumulative touches in the opposition box than Salah, except the malaise-ridden 2022/23 season. 

Funnier still is Roberto Firmino, the former no. 9 and his role as a “false nine” in that “Liverpool 1.0” side. The Brazilian always caught eyes with his clarity of thought when dropping a couple of yards behind the penalty area, effortlessly employing cute flicks and nutmegs to allow his wingers to pounce at goal. If Firmino and Salah had swapped their shirt numbers, allowing the tricky Brazilian to be profiled as a winger or an attacking midfielder, while Salah was referred to as a center-forward, would Deeney had responded differently?

Is Klopp a bad habit Liverpool can't kick, and is it by design?

It might sound ridiculous now, but there existed a time, at least in England, when the passing game was scoffed at as something frivolous, too indulgent. The constant tennis of “dogma vs pragmatism” centering around Big Ange seems to be a carbon copy of the discussions sparked by Pep Guardiola’s arrival at Manchester, and Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal, especially in the face of the anti-football demigod in Jose Mourinho.

These days, the winds blow differently. The glint of a rare European trophy and two domestic ones failed to fool West Ham and Manchester United supporters respectively, who both clamoured for a coach who can make their teams play “good football”. A similar French revolution can be said to have occurred at Crystal Palace (for at least the first half of this year), Juventus, Dortmund, and finally, Liverpool.

Wait, Liverpool? But they had Jürgen Klopp, didn’t they? The frenetic German manager, despite the fact that he shattered a three-decade long curse while sharing a league with Guardiola’s Cityzens, has been receiving curious glances from some people, the very same eyes which were once filled with utter submission and devotion. “Control” has become a hip word to use whenever Liverpool are brought up. Some have compared Slot’s sides as a band of “peacekeepers”, some likening them to dating a corporate lawyer after ditching your rockstar boyfriend. Most importantly, Slot’s men are flying high in two leagues, which does reflect rather funnily when compared to Klopp’s quadruple-Jenga collapsing this April.

What’s even funnier is the (dreaded?) return of the “second half FC” rhetoric; Liverpool get nearly outplayed in the first 45, their high-press acting as a sieve for the opposition, only for halftime to que the Reds to “switching on” in bursts and leaving the other team dazed and confused. Is it another “pro” in the Slot column, his success in evolving, not revolutionizing the team? Or is it Klopp’s undying shadow leaving too much of a permanent mark on the squad?

Perhaps the new Liverpool regime, helmed by a returning Michael Edwards and the up-and-coming Richard Hughes, saw all of this coming. According to reports, Klopp had already informed the big wigs of his forthcoming exit in November last year, before revealing the same to the public come the turn of the year. Names like Xabi Alonso, Julian Nagelsmann, and even Thomas Tuchel were thrown in the mixer. Could Arne Slot, with only success in the Netherlands decorating his resume, stand toe-to-toe with that trio? What he can boast, though, is a peculiar marriage of a slow, methodical buildup, and an “all systems go” phase in attack. The former lures the opposition in a high press, with the latter exploiting the space left in behind. 

Andrew Beasly, a data analyst focusing mostly on Liverpool, highlighted that if all teams from the Big Five European leagues (England, Germany, Italy, Spain & France) were placed in a single “league” table, the 23/24 Liverpool side would sit at the bottom in terms of take-ons conceded. The Athletic’s Mark Carey observed that this season, the Reds have tightened up their rest defence, sitting more compactly to avoid getting torn to pieces from counter-attacks. At the same time, Liverpool continue to reap the rewards when it's their turn to go direct, as seen in both of their goals against Aston Villa. 

During their pre-season tour of the United States, several Liverpool players were quizzed on the immediate differences between the departed Klopp and the new boss. Harvey Elliot waxed poetic about a more “elegant Dutch style”, while Curtis Jones stoked early fires from the Liverpool fanbase after revealing that he felt more comfortable and “himself” with Slot. Perhaps, this wasn’t an exercise in assassinating Klopp’s heavy-metal, with the hitman’s calling card bearing Guardiola’s signature. This feels derived more from science-fiction; when the natural body fails you, you take the best pieces and weld them with cold, hard, pragmatic metal. Control and chaos, hand-in-hand.