Gunners raise sights as Wenger gets timing just right

The greatest managers in football don’t just manage players, they manage a season — and Arsene Wenger, at last, seems to be getting this one right.

Too often in the past, Arsenal have peaked at the wrong time, been tired at the wrong time or been dogged by injuries just when they needed to be at their best. But not this year.

With seven games to go in the 2014-15 campaign, Wenger’s side is fit, on form and gathering the kind of momentum that makes you believe a late run to snatch the title from Chelsea is not impossible.

Chelsea, with a game in hand and a seven-point lead, will still believe they are favourites of course, but what makes this battle interesting is that it is not only Arsenal players who are growing but their manager too.

Not so long ago many people — thousands of Arsenal fans among them — worried that at 65, Wenger was too old to change his spots, too entrenched in his ways to veer from his principles, too stubborn to try anything new.

But Saturday’s 4-1 victory over Liverpool underlined so many ways in which he has done all of those things this season to the benefit of his team.

Once unwilling to spend big in the transfer market, Wenger did exactly that by bringing in Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez, and is now reaping the rewards; and once unwilling to play tactically, his team did just that against Liverpool by pressing high up the pitch and forcing Brendan Rodgers’ side into making mistake after mistake.

Arsenal, once accused of being too obsessed with the beautiful game, are now more pragmatic too. They use longer passes when necessary, they clear their lines if the moment calls for it, they shoot more often, they are willing to have less possession and hit teams on the break — they no longer walk the ball into the net but have strikers with real energy who are ruthless from all angles and all distances. Consequently they are a different prospect in the matches that really matter, the games against the Big Four in which they were regularly bullied in the past.

Already this season, Arsenal have won away at Manchester City, at home to Liverpool and away to Manchester United in the FA Cup; and they still have United at Old Trafford and Chelsea at the Emirates to come during a Premier League run-in that now promises to provide a three or even four-way race for the title.

Wenger’s decision to play a truly defence-focused holding midfielder in Francis Coquelin has been crucial in their revival, and although critics will say it is a solution that fortuitously fell into his lap after injuries to Jack Wilshere and Mikel Arteta, the Frenchman deserves praise for his faith in the former youth team player who has surprised everyone with his performances.

He has shown the same faith in youth by successfully promoting Hector Bellerin to the first team — and the arrival of Danny Welbeck, a player who has attracted plenty of doubters, has been pivotal too. He scored goals up front early in the season when Olivier Giroud was unavailable and now provides energy, skill and assists wherever he is asked to play on the pitch; in fact the importance of his cameo performance as a sub against Liverpool should not be underestimated. Nor, by the way, should Wenger’s ruthlessness in recognising Giroud was his number one despite Welbeck’s excellent early-season form — 16 goals in 23 games since December proves he was right. That same ruthless streak saw Wenger drop goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny when other managers may have opted to stick with him — and the form of David Ospina has justified it..

Choosing when to show faith with players and when to rest them for the good of the team is a fine art; but Wenger’s handling of the much-maligned Nacho Monreal has shown the benefit of the former. The left-back was the butt of so many jokes last season but has become an important player this campaign, even filling in at centre-half during an injury crisis, and his flexibility and uncomplaining character has been part of the Arsenal revival.

Ozil, too, has benefited from Wenger’s man management and suddenly looks motivated and confident when previously his body language was all wrong.

Consider now that Arsenal have Wilshere, Arteta and even Abou Diaby ready to return for the run-in, and Theo Walcott — whose return from long-term injury has been carefully and cleverly managed — itching to get on the field, just as he begins contract negotiations, and you can see how things are shaping up. Finally Arsenal have a season that is building to a crescendo rather than collapsing around them.

So much is down to Wenger, whose tactics, long-term planning and uncharacteristic pragmatism have reaped rewards. The big question now is whether he can keep it going and help his team deal with the pressure of needing to win seven more games to stand a chance of title glory. In the past, Arsenal have stuttered in such a scenario. But if Wenger can keep on learning at an age when most people are retiring, then why can’t his players follow suit?