RETRO TACTICS EPISODE 2
Team: Arsenal FC
Manager: Arsene Wenger
Era: Premier League Season 2003/4
In the second instalment of our Retro Tactics series, we look at arguably the greatest team to ever grace the English top-flight, Arsene Wenger's Arsenal 'Invincibles'. 38 games, 1 Premier League trophy, and 0 defeats, this was arguably where the North London side (and football itself) peaked.
Key Players: Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira, Sol Campbell, Dennis Bergkamp, Jens Lehmann, Robert Pires.
Honours: Premier League 03/04 (undefeated).
Team: Arsenal FC
Manager: Arsene Wenger
Era: Premier League Season 2003/4
In the second instalment of our Retro Tactics series, we look at arguably the greatest team to ever grace the English top-flight, Arsene Wenger's Arsenal 'Invincibles'. 38 games, 1 Premier League trophy, and 0 defeats, this was arguably where the North London side (and football itself) peaked.
Key Players: Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira, Sol Campbell, Dennis Bergkamp, Jens Lehmann, Robert Pires.
Honours: Premier League 03/04 (undefeated).
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Hello everybody, Adam Cleary from 442 here, we are yet again in the midst of an international
00:09break, which means there's f*** all going on right now, so it's time for another...
00:13Anyway, yes, hello, now Hardcores on the channel may remember we did one of these for Mourinho's
00:24Chelsea not very long ago, and we asked if we ever did this again, because obviously
00:28we're going to do this again, what team would you like to see, and the overwhelming answer
00:33we got by a million bajillion squillion miles was Arsenal's Invincibles.
00:39One person did ask for Alan Pardew's Bananas near Castle United side, and I will do that
00:44one day, just probably in the pub.
00:49Now one thing I want to point out right at the start, okay, is that obviously this is
00:53what everybody thinks Arsenal's Invincibles were, right, that is the XI, there's no disputing
00:59any of those players, but just to prove we've really done our research here at 442, this
01:03XI was only fielded by Arsene Wenger that season, twice, I know, I know, that's absolutely
01:11bananas isn't it, but they also had Martin Keown, they had Gael Clichy, they had Eddie,
01:16they had Ray Parler, they had Jeremie Aliadier, my favourite name in football ever, Jose Antonio
01:21Reyes and Sylvain Viltord, but were you to give Arsene Wenger a live microphone on a
01:28big stage and say please sing the true song of your Invincibles heart, this would be the
01:34lyrics, these were the XI players he always had in mind, the others just filled in as
01:38like for like, and obviously the reason I'm telling you this is because we're going to
01:42proceed with the video as if this was the XI every single week, even though it wasn't,
01:47but it did definitely feel like it was.
01:49Alright so anyway, the stuff you're actually here for, this was the Arsenal Invincibles
01:53squad, wink, it was a 442 in theory, but this being the turn of the millennium, 442 was
02:01slightly starting to get on the way out, we're just a couple of years away from Mourinho
02:05coming in and almost killing it completely, and Wenger, ever the innovator, had made several
02:10adjustments to it, so primarily you had Dennis Bergkamp here, who never really played like
02:15an out and out striker, was always in the pocket, was always off on re, was always trying
02:19to be in this gap between the midfield and the defence of both his own team, and the
02:23opposition team. Thierry Henry did like to float out to both flanks, primarily the left
02:28one, he did loads of his good work there, but would usually have to stay central because
02:32the two wide players, Youngberg and Perez, would push really far forward. Combine that
02:37with the fact that both Gilberto and Vieira would look to get forward, but only very late
02:42on in moves, they were usually quite deep, and yes, well observed, this is actually more
02:48of a 4-2-3-1. But the thing is, while this is obviously quite innovative for the time,
02:53it's not something that worked because it was really, really clever and Wenger had found
02:58some magic formula to beat other teams in the league, it's a system that worked because
03:02of the way it was executed. One of the main advantages of playing 4-4-2, and something
03:07Arsenal still had even in this sort of 4-2-3-1 shape, is that you get pairs all over the
03:13pitch, so two centre backs, two wide players, two central midfielders, two attackers, so
03:17no matter what you're doing as a player, there's always somebody who should be near you. But
03:21as well as those pairs, and this is going to start sounding like some bad GCSE revision
03:26video right now, is that Arsene Wenger also added loads of triangles, and he did that
03:31by basically staggering the entire core of the team, because Bergkamp would obviously
03:35drop off, but he would favour the right-hand side, while Henry would stay forward, but
03:39favour the left. Patrick Vieira would usually hold a very central position, but Gilberto
03:43Silva had no problems dropping out of that space to sort of receive the ball off the
03:47defence. And then in Sol Campbell, you've got a really great conventional central defender,
03:51but in Kolo Toure, a converted midfielder, you had someone who liked to bring the ball
03:56forward. And as massively oversimplistic as this explanation is for it, all of a sudden,
04:01look, you've got these little triangles all through the centre of the pitch, where normally
04:05under a 4-4-2, you'd have players on the exact same line. Now just imagine for a second you're
04:10playing against a team that does this, and you are using a 4-4-2, and it's just
04:15absolute bedlam for you. Like, who would deal with Dennis Bergkamp here? Would you want one
04:19of your central midfielders to drop onto him, leaving his pal completely outnumbered in the
04:24middle? Or should one of the centre-backs push forward and allow Henry to run into the space
04:28he leaves? And likewise, when Toure is bringing that ball out from the back, does one of your
04:32midfielders then press onto him in that space? Because you're going to be leaving your pal,
04:37not just with both of these midfielders to deal with, but remember Bergkamp's dropping in as well,
04:41so it's a 3-on-1. Or do you stay there and just let him have the ball? It's so difficult to work
04:47out what to do across 90 minutes. And what this commitment to finding space between the lines
04:53allowed Arsenal to be was a really direct, quick side. Like, it does kind of bug me a little bit
04:59that Arsene Wenger's now got this reputation for just building sides of little passing nerds who
05:03want possession for possession's sake, because this is not what this team was at all. Like, they
05:08didn't really have that much more of the ball across 90 minutes than most of the teams they
05:12were playing. What they wanted to do was pull defenders out of position to allow any of their
05:17forward line, all of which, blessed with incredible pace, to break into that space. Like, if you just
05:23think back to the best goals scored by the Invincibles over this season, how many times
05:28in your head can you see either Henry or Perez or Jungberg running at a back four or running into
05:35the space behind them and scoring a goal that way? Like, that was their bread and butter. Move you up
05:40the field, move you out of position, and then get in quickly. And also, right, for all this is like
05:45an early version of a 4-2-3-1, Arsenal sort of had an early version of a high press as well. Like,
05:53do you know how your dad always says, oh, it was just called closing down in my day? Well, it was.
05:58It was just closing down, but it was structured closing down. Now what Arsenal would do when they
06:02didn't have the ball is the two wide players, they would drop back to form like a really
06:05conventional two banks of four. Like the good old days, the defence would push up, leaving quite a
06:10high line. And then Bergkamp and Henry, their job was to press slash close down the centre backs,
06:17not very aggressively, but just to let them know they're there, and force them to put the ball out
06:21wide to the full backs. Now, because Arsenal are simultaneously very compact, but also very high,
06:27and theoretically, Bergkamp and Henry have shut down the options to get it back to the central
06:32defenders, doesn't really leave the full back there with all too many options. But they can
06:37see a load of space in behind, so they're trying to tempt them to hit it long into that space.
06:42Now, and you know, not to show off or anything, but 442's own Mark White spoke to some of the
06:47Invincibles for a massive feature on them in the next issue of the mag, look out for that. He told
06:52us specifically about this system, when you play with such an attacking team, you have to have such
06:58speed at the back. That's what Arsene Wenger did. Sol and myself were fast, we had power, we were
07:04able to defend high lines, and we could pin teams in with our quality. And that was exactly the
07:09plan, because in Lauren, Campbell, Torre and Cole, you had four incredibly fast defenders who, if the
07:14ball did go over the top, could beat most forwards in a race to chase it back. But also, the reason
07:20they went and got in Jens Lehmann, was because for the time, he was a very sort of, I don't want
07:25to say innovative again, but sort of innovative sweeper keeper. He would come out and close that
07:30space down. And Lowe, if you can't play through them, because I mean, Christ, that's Gilberto
07:35Silva and Patrick Vieira there, and you can't play over the top because the defenders are really
07:39fast and the goalkeeper is going to sweep up, doesn't really leave you with many ways of breaking
07:43them down. And they don't get anywhere near enough credit for how good defensively they were that
07:48season. Check this, I'm going to guess, I think they conceded like 26 goals in the league. I'm
07:54going to check that. 26? Was 26? Why do I doubt myself? 26. 26 goals. That's really good. This is
08:01why I said at the start that understanding the Invincibles is not about some clever system that
08:06Wenger stumbled upon. It's all in the execution. Because while this is a system based around
08:11finding the space between the lines and dropping out of your own position to do so, it's being
08:15executed by a group of players almost perfectly assembled to be like naturally inclined to do
08:23positional rotations with their teammates. What do I mean by that? Well, think about it this way,
08:28you've got Dennis Bergkamp, who loves to drop away from the forward line on the right hand side,
08:31but you've also got Freddie Umberg, who just adores to receive the ball in that sort of right
08:37hand half space, confusing the central defender in the fullback as to who should be marking him.
08:41You've got Thierry Henry, who loves to go all the way over to the left hand side to receive the ball
08:45and be set for a counter attack. But you've also got Robert Pérez, who loves to drift into the
08:50centre and loves to just go at goal himself. And then when Pérez does find himself coming in field,
08:54you've got young Ashley Cole here, who adores to bomb up the left hand side. There he goes,
08:59falling off the table because he used to be a striker. To get that back. You've got Vieira
09:03and Toure, who both like to break forward from their position, either carrying the ball or making
09:07late runs into the box. But they're ably supported by Gilberto Silva and Sol Campbell, two men with
09:13the spatial awareness and the heft to cover that space all on their own. Now, more than anything
09:20on this entire earth, I want to pay special attention to this forward quartet, because I
09:26would argue, or at least in my opinion, I think they are the best collection of four attackers
09:32ever in the Premier League. I know there's arguments for loads of other different groups,
09:38like York, Cole, Giggs, Beckham, they were obviously really good. Mane, Salah, Firmino,
09:43probably the best in the modern age. Duncan Ferguson, and just the really angry voices
09:47in his head. You could say loads. But for me, just the pace, the inventiveness, the incisiveness,
09:53the creativity, the fluidity, everything between these four, I think it's just worth talking about.
09:58Because as we've already talked about, this Arsenal side was built around dropping out of
10:02your position, finding space and having players who were naturally able to fill into it. And it
10:06was just so just lethal the way it was organised between these four. And it all starts and ends
10:12with Thierry Henry. Teams were absolutely terrified of him. And there was seven or eight different
10:18ways he could effectively score a goal against you. Like in its most basic sense, imagine you
10:23are marking Thierry Henry and he pulls away from you and drops sort of into the space behind the
10:27midfield. Like, do you go with him? Because if you do, he might get the ball and just literally
10:32sprint past you and score a goal. But if you don't go with him, you'll just crack in a shit
10:37pinger from about 30 yards. He loved to drift wide of the defenders and either receive the ball and
10:42drive directly a goal or receive a pass in behind them and dart diagonally. And whenever his movement
10:47did create space for a teammate, they were more than happy to fill it. It was just impossible
10:53to work out what to do. I think, honestly, maybe I'm getting slightly carried away with this. I
10:57think Thierry Henry might have been the first centre-forward in the Premier League ever who
11:02could just score every kind of goal. Anyway, though, for one entire Premier League season,
11:09just this creativity and this fluidity in attack, this sort of robustness in the centre of the
11:15pitch and this sort of structural ingenuity that allowed them to play forward and just every single
11:21element of this team that Wenger had designed worked perfectly. And it worked perfectly for
11:2638 games. Couldn't get beat. Now, just one final little point before I go, okay, you do get a lot
11:32of people trying to talk down the achievement of going unbeaten in a Premier League season. Like,
11:37obviously, yes, they were not the first team to do it. Shout out my boys, Preston North End in like
11:421889, 90 or 99, 80 or whenever it was, they obviously did it first. And they did get knocked
11:49out of all the cup competitions and they did draw like 12 games as well. But there is a reason
11:56why you did not see this for over 100 years and you have not seen it in the 20 since. So many
12:03tiny little individual things have to happen at once here. Like Jens Lehmann had just arrived,
12:08but he hit the ground running straight away. There was no bedding in period for him. All the really
12:13key players were getting into peak points of their career at the same time and stayed largely
12:19injury free. Every single week, Arsene Wenger had to sit down and analyse their upcoming opponents
12:24and make certain adjustments and he never got it badly wrong, even once that season. Like,
12:30that's all it would have taken. Just, you know, getting the marking disorganised at a corner.
12:34Oh, back post 1-0. Oh no, we're not going to be invincible anymore. Happens to every single team,
12:39no matter how good they are. But for 38 game weeks, it did not happen here. Like they were
12:45really frugal at the back. They were unbelievable to watch going forward. They set up in a 4-4-2,
12:51so they represented all those best bits of that British footballing mainstay, but they also
12:57innovated it in ways that would change how a lot of other teams set up in the future. They were the
13:02perfect balance of just everything. And we will leave it there. Now, if you have enjoyed this
13:08video, I will say this is not the kind of thing that the algorithm on YouTube usually likes,
13:13but we have a whole heap of fun doing it. So if you have enjoyed this, please do consider sharing
13:18it around and sending it to your friends and just giving us a little extra push than we might
13:22normally get. That would be really, really helpful. And make me do this. And also, hey,
13:26while you're here, please do consider subscribing to the channel because we do normally cover
13:30the latest and what's going on. But when nothing is going on, we do this fun stuff as well. And
13:35not just for us and of course for all the clubs. Can you hear my voice going? I can hear my voice
13:39going. So I'm going to wrap up even quicker than I normally would. You can get me on all the socials
13:43at Adam Cleary, C-L-E-R-Y. Just joined TikTok. Don't know why. The latest issue of the mag is
13:47not upside down. It is right here. Trent Alexander-Arnold is on the cover. But the new issue is
13:51coming very soon and includes a massive piece, not just by myself tactically, but from the entire team
13:57about the Invincibles because we think they're mint. Right, yes, that is it. I do need to
14:02throw a tweet now. So I'm going to go. Love you. Bye. That'll do.