Chelsea 2 - 0 Arsenal: Boring and predictable

The Franchise wrote:One thing I would love to know is, how come under the years of Petit and then Gilberto he saw the use and need of a true holding midfielder but today, he seems like it isnt relevant to him?

If his whole career he didnt see the need for a holding player thats one thing, he has a belief and you have to accept it. But why not does he no longer value it?

He knows the difference between Petit/Gilberto and Arteta/Flamini..he knows good and well the difference in qualities. So why does he no longer value this player?

Its not like Gilberto and Petit werent good passers of the ball, they were very good and more importantly consistent.

It's like the number 1 thing I would love to hear Wenger speak about.

The Cesc effect

prior Cesc, Wenger rarely ever use players outside their prefered positions except Ray Parlour ( whose reason was mostly because of his old age)

Then Cesc came, Wenger was successful to play him pretty much everywhere in the line up, 1st replace Viera in 4-4-2, then strictly AM in 4-3-3 and more free roam at the end of his career. After that there was no coming back, dude is upset to build these kinda players who could play anywhere in the midfield. Nasri, Hleb, Rosicky, Santi, Ozil, Ramsey, Jack were all tried and play out the wings; Ox was tried as CM and then Diaby, Arteta as DM. All outside their prefered position but certainly not according to Wenger.

Also Petit, Edu had better passing range than Arteta and Flamini combined. Those perfect long ball for Thiery and Denis were unreal.

You always need someone to do the dirty work, but someone who has great intelligence and can keep the ball, this is why Gilberto and Makelele were such experts for their clubs and countries. Nowadays it's the likes of Busquets, Alonso, Matic, Fernandinho etc who do this role so, so well.

Flamini and Arteta....doesn't have quite the same ring to it. Both are honest players who you know love our club (despite the former leaving in 2008) but they are not elite players. Probably reveals a lot that both have limited caps or none in Arteta's case. Arteta has been a very good servant for us, you can't deny that, but neither are the answer to our DM issue (as we know all summer).

I get you about Cesc, but even when Cesc was playing all over the place...as you know, there was still a holding mid back there cleaning up.

I have heard it suggested Wenger moving players around for them to learn new aspects of the game. For example, put a player a striker on the wing and he has to learn defensive responsibility. Put a winger in the midfield and they have to learn to be less individualist.

But obviously there is a fine line between that and winning games.