Wednesday, April 26, 2006
The Gunners Move On
So with Arsenal’s win yesterday at Villareal, that makes two straight years that an English team is in the Finals. It wasn’t long ago that the EPL was criticized for its performance in the Champions League. Many pundits said that the EPL’s attacking style of play was not conducive to CL success since it often put their defenses in vulnerable positions. I believe that this criticism was valid and you can see how some of the top EPL teams have modified their style over the last couple of years. Much of these changes can be attributed to the tactical styles that Jose Mourinho and Rafa Benitez have brought to the EPL over the last two years. They both focused on building water tight defenses first before worrying about attacking options.
While Chelsea has been much more successful in the EPL than Liverpool over the last two years, you can see how much Liverpool has improved their EPL performance this year by adding Crouch and Fowler to their attack (as well as getting Morientes acclimated to the English game). However, they sputtered in Europe and probably could have been helped with Fowler’s presence if they had gotten him earlier. I think that Liverpool’s CL success and EPL underperformance last year was due to the presence of many European players in their line-up (Garcia, Alonso, etc) who were not yet accustomed to the English game. Also, Pepe Reina is a significant upgrade over Dudek in goal, despite Dudek’s heroics in last year’s CL Final (he had some real howlers in the EPL).
Now I don’t think that Arsene Wenger has suddenly become a defensive minded manager, but it’s not a coincidence that Arsenal has performed below expectations in the EPL while flourishing in Europe. First, they don’t have many English players in their side with many of their young players coming from continental Europe. This made them much more comfortable playing teams from Spain or Italy (similar to Liverpool last year). Second, I think that their subpar EPL performance early in the year had to do with missing Patrick Viera’s presence as well as having such a young squad. The English game requires a real physical presence in that holding midfielder role and Gilberto Silva wasn’t ready to assume that mantle earlier this year. However, he has grown more accustomed to this role which showed in his dogged pursuit of Riquelme. He has really formed a good partnership in the middle with Cesc Fabergas.
Now, the question is, do the Gunners have enough to defeat Barcelona in the Final (I’m assuming that they finish off Milan later today)? (George)
While Chelsea has been much more successful in the EPL than Liverpool over the last two years, you can see how much Liverpool has improved their EPL performance this year by adding Crouch and Fowler to their attack (as well as getting Morientes acclimated to the English game). However, they sputtered in Europe and probably could have been helped with Fowler’s presence if they had gotten him earlier. I think that Liverpool’s CL success and EPL underperformance last year was due to the presence of many European players in their line-up (Garcia, Alonso, etc) who were not yet accustomed to the English game. Also, Pepe Reina is a significant upgrade over Dudek in goal, despite Dudek’s heroics in last year’s CL Final (he had some real howlers in the EPL).
Now I don’t think that Arsene Wenger has suddenly become a defensive minded manager, but it’s not a coincidence that Arsenal has performed below expectations in the EPL while flourishing in Europe. First, they don’t have many English players in their side with many of their young players coming from continental Europe. This made them much more comfortable playing teams from Spain or Italy (similar to Liverpool last year). Second, I think that their subpar EPL performance early in the year had to do with missing Patrick Viera’s presence as well as having such a young squad. The English game requires a real physical presence in that holding midfielder role and Gilberto Silva wasn’t ready to assume that mantle earlier this year. However, he has grown more accustomed to this role which showed in his dogged pursuit of Riquelme. He has really formed a good partnership in the middle with Cesc Fabergas.
Now, the question is, do the Gunners have enough to defeat Barcelona in the Final (I’m assuming that they finish off Milan later today)? (George)
