Winners

Winning

Victory through our own harmony, I say

We must win at all costs?

Last week I spoke about losing, but the other side of the coin is winning and maybe there is not so much difference in some ways. I mentioned drawing last week as being similar to a defeat as you didn’t win. They take away from your win percentage so despite Wenger’s great years he had only a 57% win ratio. But what can we analyse about winning that is useful to a managerial team and the players? I am going to argue something here that I believe should be critical to all team’s planning. You must, at all costs, beat the teams below you.

These boys don't lose often to lower teams

To explain, we were beaten by Brentford, Manchester United, Everton, Palace, Brighton, Southampton plus Forest in the cup. Draws – Brighton, Burnley and Palace. Convert them to wins and viola! Equal to City on 93 points. Second on goal difference only.

Defeats happen for a reason

So why do these defeats happen? The only logical conclusion is complacency and luck determine these defeats. Bad luck, maybe cannot be foreseen, but complacency can. I want to draw your attention to Mr Mourinho, who, regular readers know, I have little time for. He bucked the trend of modern managers of resting players (of which a major proponent was our own Arsene Wenger) in playing his strongest team wherever possible. He wanted to win all and pushed his players to their limits. It meant Chelsea rarely lost to lesser sides and they eclipsed the two giants of the time, Arsenal and Man Utd. I think this aspect he got right.

Jose Mourinho -win at all costs

I believe dropping top players against lower sides adds to the complacency. The manager is saying we can beat these teams with an unfamiliar side. Players don’t find each other so easily, the rhythm is disrupted and last season we got defeated too often against lower sides. I strongly believe we should treat these matches as the must win ones. We might get beaten by the top sides when playing our best players and last season we were beaten at least once by all the sides above us. We only managed 2 wins against Spurs and Chelsea. But it wouldn’t have mattered at all being beaten all those times as in the scenario outlined above, we would have ended up with 93 points if we had beaten all the lower sides. If changes have to be made, make it against the top sides as we were beaten pretty much every time anyway. We might still get 2 wins out of eight by resting some players.

Fire them up against the little teams

You need to play your best players, fire them up, get in a motivational speaker to say let’s go out and beat these Palace or Brentford fuckers for all those fans in the stadium who love you. Get the tactics right, get the preparation right as these are the matches that will win you the title. Our players are fired up for the Liverpools and Citys anyway.

Wenger regularly rested players

This is the bleeding obvious, yes? So why am I saying it? Because managers have been duped into complacency and the necessity to give squad players games. Mourinho never cared about that, only winning. It meant he made enemies and never stayed too long at a club as players start to grumble. As a football manager, you are not there to make friends, your only friends are the players you play all the time. The winners of Chelsea, Lampard, Terry, Drogba, etc., loved Mourinho because he made them winners. They didn’t care about the players who were just backup, made most appearances as subs or whatever. Let them be unhappy. Winning is your job as a football manager and that was probably Wenger’s biggest weakness, despite having, I believe, the best team in Europe, he never won the Champions League. I don’t believe Mourinho would have tolerated Bergkamp’s refusal to fly or arduous driving to matches. Thierry Henry rated Bergkamp as the greatest player he ever played with but we had to do without him in a lot of away matches in Europe.

We could have done with him away in Europe

Coping with losing is key to winning

Last week, I concluded that winning means coping with losing, quickly turning things around and having the ability to pick yourself up off the floor. Plus having a top team around you, both staff and players to bring you back up to the top. Lewis Hamilton had the magical Mercedes team to pick him right back up from defeat. Losing some matches should help you win matches by closing matches out when necessary. The excruciating pain of defeat helps you not to lose. In the optimistic scenario outlined above, we would have been beaten 6 times by Liverpool, Man City, Chelsea, and Tottenham and still might have won the league. Winning and losing are two sides of the same coin.

Should we learn from Mourinho?

What does it mean for this season? I reckon if Mikel Arteta made that one tweak, that the must win matches are the lower sides, played his best side and convinced his players that these are the matches we absolutely have to win, we could be an awful lot closer to the title. Mourinho made his career out of a ruthless focus on winning matches, the League Cup was not a joke trophy to him. He won most finals he contested. Arteta is not Mourinho, you can see he tries to look after all his players and have a relationship with them, He will play mostly second string in the Europa League, The League Cup and the Fa Cup and against some of the lower teams he will rest some players. He is thinking long term and the overall good of the club. Players need games to improve and show their ability.

We need to send these home crying

Maybe he is right. However, it does mean sacrificing some games to losses. Do we really want to be beaten by Olympiacos at the Emirates? Or Brighton?  We must start a new culture that we send the lower teams home crying again and again. Not the ruthless focus of Mourinho where players play second fiddle to winning, perhaps, but a merciless aim to take the victories we deserve. Victoria Concordia Crescit yes, for sure, but only harmony amongst ourselves, we don’t owe the Brightons or the Olympiacos anything else.