The 20/80 principle that Wenger and maybe Arteta never understood. by Joe_@**
Arsene Wenger and Alex Ferguson are two legendary football managers whose names are synonymous with success. While both have achieved great things in their respective careers, it is worth noting that Ferguson had the edge in terms of overall success. The secret behind this disparity probably lies in Ferguson’s ability to understand and apply the 20/80 principle, a concept that Wenger was less adept at implementing.
Wenger could have been more successful had he played to the team’s strengths 80% of the time, while adapting tactics to exploit opponents’ weaknesses the remaining 20% of the time. This was a cornerstone of Ferguson’s most successful Manchester United teams, which featured players like Nicky Butt, Phil Neville, Wes Brown, John O’Shea and Darren Fletcher. These unsung heroes were hardly superstars but they performed the necessary tasks when the tweaking to tactics was required without much fanfare. We actually suffered a lot when Ferguson suffocated our most creative players with likes of Butt, Neville and Fletcher.
Arteta should take note of this approach, as it demonstrates the importance of making the most of existing resources rather than relying solely on big-money signings. Wenger, who was vocal against parking the bus and physical tactics, thus making it impossible for himself to adopt such tactics when it was necessary – not even against Barca.
It is not difficult to understand how Ferguson and even Mourinho kept beating Wenger in matches and titles, although there were a number of seasons where we were actually the better team. The possession statistics were very evident. They just allowed us to have all the possession and simply adapted their tactics whenever they played us. The inflexibility that contributed to Wenger’s shortcomings has seemingly continued under Mikel Arteta.
On another note, the often-cited “bottling hypothesis” is not the main reason for Arsenal’s poor results towards the end of every season. During the final stretch of the season, other teams are more likely to have clearer objectives, such as chasing European spots or fighting relegation. These teams tend to abandon their usual playing style and adopt a more specific and objective-based approach against stronger teams, for example, playing a very patient game and exploiting weaknesses through dead-ball situations, long balls, and physical play.
Our vulnerability stems from our unwavering commitment to the preferred style of play, even when it is not the most effective approach. Mourinho famously highlighted this issue during the Wenger era, and it seems that Arteta may be falling into the same trap. The 80% brought us CL football consistently under Wenger and the missing 20% could have brought us titles, including the one that might have just slipped through our fingers this season.
Joe_@**
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Fergusson got the best out of lesser lights. He never complained of injuries and like all great managers, got the best out of what he put out on the pitch. He adapted, he utilised and got a tune out of some distinctly average player, better than Wenger. When tactics were needed in Europe Fergusson was ahead of Wenger. I said in an earlier post, i remember Utd coming to Arsenal with a really second eleven, played Arsenal off the park and strolled to a 2-1 victory. Wenger could never do that. I see similarities in Arteta.
Wenger had a style he trusted and for the most it worked. Fergusson adapted his style a lot more and attacked opposition weaknusses.
Reggie, unfortunately the statistics show the Ferguson was more successful overall than Wenger. With the acquiescence of Riley’s officials he was able to kick Arsenal’s more technically gifted players off the park when required. Only when Arsenal had players who could stand up (like Viera, Adams, Bergkamp and Keown) were they successful.
In addition Ferguson was ruthless in letting players go and replacing each season to improve the squad. You toed the line of the team ethos or you were shown the door (David Beckham comes to mind).
Arteta should’ve watched what Haaland, De Bruyne and Stones did to Bayern Muenchen, before they played against us
It was similar to what they did to us. Stones launched a long ball from a counter-attack to Haaland, Bayern CBs couldn’t handle Haaland and then De Bruyne gave him the ball to score
Arteta/ Edu should compare our team’s athleticism and the Invincibles’. I think Smith-Rowe is our most athletic AM, but his weaker foot and creativity aren’t on a par with De Bruyne’s
Pep has charged his football philosophy.
I think his football style is more akin to the Invincibles’ now. He added more tall players into his squad
Arteta seems a bit of a slow learner tbh.
Maybe in 2 years time he would have adapted to that tactic, but by then there will be new ones and it will take him another 2 years to figure it out.
I think Arteta will tweak his tactics if he signs a physically-imposing CF who can dominate tall CBs
I think despite watching the above mentioned players he would and should develop an attacking mind while playing big teams but not aiming at defending as he did with city because defending relaxes the mind and attacking develops creativity
Probably not as good as Debruyne’s but ESR has the best weaker foot in our team. I think his development is stalled due to injury but let’s hope he can get over that next season. He is the closest to Debruyne we have in the squad currently in term of style of play. One major weakness in the team is lack of runners with the ball from midfield making us relying on combining too many passes when we win possession before deciding to move forward. This slows down transition and allow time for opponents to regroup. When you watch the elites of Europe, they are quicker in decision making when they regain possession, it gives a lot of advantage. Hopefully, an in form ESR will help correct that next season.
A very interesting article Joe.I fully concur with your comments concerning the impact of the intransigence shown by Arteta who has sadly rebounded on him and the team.His failure to change our set up and system has made it easier for opponents to plan in the days before a match, and with respect to them, average teams such as Bournemouth, Southampton and West Ham have demonstrated just how weak we are defensively at a critical time of the season.The fact that we were outplayed by a class act such as Man City did not come as a surprise given our performances leading up to that game .The trouble is, Arteta does not show any imagination, nor inclination to change his tactics nor much in the way of personelle to address our problems,and, quite frankly, I shall not be surprised if we fail to beat Chelsea on Tuesday.Let’s hope my pessimism proved to be completely unfounded.
Its not pessimism Grandad just plain truth.
I’ve been saying the same since the end of the world cup. We have kinda become a one trick pony, flood the wings and rinse and repeat.
This has become pretty obvious to the opposition, and have now utilised the double up technique on Saka and Martinelli and counter by being physically direct.
I’ve have also been saying that a 20 to 25 minute purple match per game is unsustainable. I can’t remember when we played a game where we was under complete control for 75 to 80 minutes.
So Grandad, I concur with your comment. Arteta’s philosophy has to change just to see us through the last 5 games of the season because if it doesn’t I have this real horrible feeling that the remaining fixtures will be a very hard watch.
Come on MA, mix it up a bit and be a little less predictable.
Ps, good article Joe
Let’s be honest, I don’t think he has it in him to make that call.
Seems a very stubborn person
Exactly what my thoughts are.
I just hope Arteta learns and do it quick enough.
I think if Man City drop 5 points to finish on 89 points and Arsenal win all their remaining 5 games of the season. Us Arsenal will win the title. But will Man City bottle the title this season to drop 5 points? And even if they drop the 5 points, would Arsenal seize this golden opportunity if it’s flew past them and capitalized to collect 15 more points and win the League title on 90 points?
Us will see if Arsenal will not bottle the chance if it presented itself to them again to win the League this season.
Please just stop it.
Our defense needs to improve either collectively or personnel-wise something must change. Going forward we are still a strong side, it;’s a sickener that our defending has let us down so badly
It’s not our defending it’s the tactics Arteta used which sadly stayed the same for every game and while it’s effective against most teams, we have to understand that the clever coaches has by now figured it out and to make matters worse he stuck with basically the same eleven for most of the season so the players are probably also extremely fatigued both mentally and physically. To me football is simple you cannot use a motorcycle to cart cattle to the market, but you can use a pick up to go on a date, meaning you need to adapt based on your circumstances. I will say it again we dropped points this season where a simple tweak would have given us full points examples the away games against Everton, Liverpool and West Ham the Southampton game at home then play a 4-5-1 against City if they beat us it’s OK cause we so far ahead on the log.
Wenger is a legend, but I never rated him from a tactical perspective. He was too focused on his team playing in a specific way, than what the opposition were up to.
That’s why he never conquered Europe, and why a tactical genius like Mourinho completely dominated Wenger.
I do find the lack of flexibility and rotation with Arteta also worrying, but overall he’s still doing an unbelievable job
I think that the qualities which made some managers great/very good…are also most of the times their worse qualities too .whatever you call it,be it stubbornness,real self-belief in oneself / way or simply pride. some of the best examples are Wenger, Mourinho.. refusing or not being able to evolve or go against their principles,on the other hand you have SAF who would do anything to win and knew when to stop.like everything in life,managers and styles come in cycles,what works today may not work in 10 years time.right now we could be watching the end of of another era/cycle in Klopp, Conté…and in few years it will be the turn of Tuchel and the likes but in the same vein, there are always few exceptions like Pep even Ancelotti.regarding MA,despite having been critical of him lately,I believe it is still too early to call him a”one trick pony”.especially,when his tactics have been successful with a fully fit squad and as we all know he is still a young manager still learning.
As an armchair manager its easy to kill the gaffer, but if the war chest is freed up as expected allowing for significant reinforcements to the spine of the team,, surely the end product will be different
Good points.
People sit on the sidelines and say we should have done this or that as if that guarantees a different outcome.
There are also some inaccuracies which abound. A typical claim is that Arteta has never tried any other formation or tactical approach against Guardiola’s MC.
No tactical adjustment is going to suddenly turn Holding into Van Dijk.
The reality is that in terms of team setup and tactics Arteta is one of the best in the league despite what the critics on JA seem to think. The main area where questions remain is in-game management.
He’s already spent half a billion pounds ,bottling those 3 draws and giving up against city as nothing to with money .
So spending insane amounts to assemble the City squad had nothing to do with money…ok then!
City have lost to United, Liverpool, Spurs and dropped points to others this season. None of these teams are better than us this season. Why must it be us to always lose to them everytime? It’s just pure tactical naivety to think wr can play a 433 attacking against a coach who taught our coach everything. Even Pep respected was not that careless, he set a midblock with 6 players and stifle us right from buildup but Arteta never saw the handwriting on the wall.
You have to give Pep credits for adapting/evolving since moving to the PL.
Gunsmoke, a mountain to climb given the proven ability of Pep Guardiola and the bottomless pockets of state owned Manchester City financially supporting him.
What a fallacy. Ferguson did not set up United to play to exploit his opponents weaknesses. If he did, United would have easily won 2009 and 2011 UCL against Barcelona. Fergie set up United to play to its strength to dominate and destroy opponents. Nicky Butt, Phil Neville, Wes Brown, John O’Shea and Darren Fletcher were good enough to implement team instructions amd at least pass around the ball decently. O’shea, Phil Neville and Nicky were actually awesome players who sacrificed looking flashy for playing with tactical discipline.
United couldn’t beat barca was not because Ferguson didn’t try to exploit Barca’s weakness it was because barca were just exceptional on that night and exploited united weakness more, that barca team would breeze paste arsenal team that was just going to Europe to write attendance with a cricket score line on that night…
Exploiting opponents weaknesses doesn’t mean you go unbeaten, in Wenger’s later years, Ferguson have been beating arsenal even with a far weaker team… Remain compact, allow them play the ball around, go physical as the have mostly technical players who is uncomforable with the physical side of the game then catch them on the counter. We saw that God knows how many times, this is why people are mad at what we are doing now, every team is exploiting the spaces left by zinchenko, who is forcing our Cb’s to go wide to cover for him and leaving big spaces in defense, how many times have that happened in the last few games?
God bless you! Fergie once played a team with 7 or 8 defenders against us and still won. Our team can’t handle physicality and that’s a staggering similarity between this team and Wenger’s team. Rooney said they used to call us babies back then. In the Summer, my first buy will be Caicedo or a similarly physical midfielder. I will even prefer 2 if the fund allows it. Then a physically imposing tall centre forward. How many UCL later stage games in the last few years didn’t involve physicality. Referee can’t punish for every foul and top coaches understand this. So they try to bully you off the ball if they can.
Ferguson was not a tactical genius despite what some seem to think. Certainly, he generally got the better of AW over the years in part due to adjustments designed to counter AW teams. However, there were other factors at play and it is overly simplistic if not disingenuous to suggest that AF’s successes against AW were all down to tactical ingenuity. Although it is probably true that AW was relatively inflexible tactically he also did not have the strength in depth that the likes of AF and JM had.
As for this season, I agree that it is completely unreasonable to label the team as bottlers. What is really curious is that some so-called fans are also hellbent on using such terms to describe a team that have made such strides this season.
Arteta has focused on using a particular system which has enabled us to dominate most games and play attractive football. Some tweaks may be necessary but it would make little sense to suddenly drop an approach that has worked so well. The biggest weakness is our limited strength in depth at certain key positions.
No matter how much depth a team has, there will always be a first 11. The question is does the coach prefer to stick to the first 11 and not rotate or not? Pep also could have waited until Grealish or Ake or Silva or Halaand developed injury before the likes of Mahrez, Forden, Alvarez or Laporte or Walker can start games or have quality game time.
The difference between Man City’s players in terms of quality and experience is much less than that of any other team.
They can afford to bench players without a significant drop off. Arsenal do not have such strength in depth.
👍 David, hits the nail on the head – quality players in each position, plus equal cover in all positions or options/flexibility to vary approaches to each opponent.