Wenger refuses to change Arsenal tactics against Top Teams

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One of the major problems Arsenal fans have with Arsene Wenger is that he never changes his tactics depending on who his opponents are, in fact he doesn’t even talk about them with his players but just tells them to play their normal attacking style. It is probably good for the fans to watch entertaining games, but it can be painful for Arsenal fans, especially when looking at the 20 goals we conceded against the Top Teams this season.

Wenger is quite clear that that is not going to change in the future. “We conceded too many goals in some of these games,” he said. “But overall our policy is to try to play our game because it’s the qualities of our players that matter.

“I think the system of the team is to adapt to the quality of the players because we have so many offensive players in the squad.

“We just play to our strengths. It doesn’t always work unfortunately. You have to go for a style and sometimes you can change your style.

“The regret is that defensively we have not been strong enough in these games. Certainly we have to analyse why but it was special circumstances because at Chelsea we conceded early goals and played with 10 men.

“The only real bad performance we had where you can say yes we were outplayed on the day was against Liverpool. But on the other hand we have twice beaten Liverpool in home games.

“A style is a long-term plan. On the short-term you can always change of course because it’s all dictated by the confidence of the team and the confidence of the team is dictated by the results.

“You cannot swim against the stream. Sometimes the team needs to be reassured by being a bit less ambitious and a bit less offensive then you have to go for it because it’s part of a reassurance process.”

This may have been a dig at Jose Mourinho’s parking-the-bus tactics against his biggest challengers, but the fact is that Chelsea took six points from both Liverpool and Manchester City, and four from Arsenal, this season. It may not be pretty, but would Arsenal fans prefer that Wenger tried to gain points? Or entertain the crowd?

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