Glenn Moore: Arsenal's midweek collapse was down to errors, a shift in momentum, panic - and the game's modern laws

The Weekend Dossier

Former Arsenal captain Tony Adams shows the sort of old-fashioned, no-nonsense defending the Gunners team of today could benefit from (GETTY IMAGES)

With 20 minutes to go we were leading 5-1 and Shanks came and sat beside me. Then things began to go wrong.

Charlton scored one goal, then another. From being confident and relaxed, he began bobbing up and down in his seat. There was no holding him. The score changed from 5-2 to 5-3, 5-4, 5-5, then with just five minutes to go, 6-5 to them. Shanks was beside himself. We managed to equalise two minutes from the end and he calmed down a bit, but then, with the last kick of the match, John Summers scored his fifth goal to make it 7-6 to them. Shanks couldn’t believe it. In the dressing room afterwards he gave our team hell.”

From ‘Denis Law: The Autobiography’, on Charlton’s 7-6 win over Huddersfield in 1957. Bill Shankly managed Huddersfield, Law (injured that day) played for them.

There have been comebacks for as long as there has been football. On the opening day of the Football League in 1888 Bolton Wanderers went 3-0 up against Derby County but lost 6-3. A week later they went 3-0 up at home to Burnley and lost 4-3.

With the game’s gradual shift towards a more defensive outlook such comebacks became rarer. Which make it all the more eye-opening when they occur, as at the Emirates this week.

Even Anthony Vanden Borre, who scored twice as Anderlecht stunned Arsenal with three goals in the last half-hour to secure a 3-3 draw, admitted: “It’s hard to explain. I think what we have done is incredible.”

The man who has to explain it, Arsène Wenger, identified “poor defending across the pitch”, complacency and fatigue. Per Mertesacker criticised the defending of the players in front of the back four. Former German international Dietmar Hamann blamed naïvety and selfishness.

There is something in all of this. It could also be argued the root cause is Wenger’s failure to sign cover at centre-half and a top-class holding midfielder. But Arsenal do not surrender leads that often, and nor are they the only team to do so – think Liverpool at Crystal Palace last season, or Everton at home to Arsenal and Manchester United at Leicester this campaign.

As with most goals, each of Anderlecht’s could be laid at the feet of an individual. Calum Chambers went walkabout for the first, Nacho Monreal made a poor challenge for the second, Mertesacker was too deep for the third, and then beaten to the cross. The referee’s assistant, who did not notice that Vanden Borre was offside for the first goal, was also at fault.

But responsibility, as Wenger and Mertesacker said, goes deeper than that.Arsenal had too many players committed upfield – and not exactly busting a gut to get back – for the opening goal. A lack of pressure on the player on the ball was one reason Mertesacker dropped deep for the third. The first goal also induced a sense of panic in the Arsenal team, which quickly lost defensive shape.

Wenger makes much of his players’ character and the number of late goals Arsenal score (like at Goodison Park) back him up, but under pressure they do seem to lack a hard-nosed old pro, someone who dishes out the bollockings as Tony Adams used to and focuses minds.

Years ago I watched York City when Denis Smith was player-manager. Smith famously suffered umpteen fractures at the heart of Stoke City’s defence and was as tough as they come. Now he was adding some nous and grit to a promising young side. In one game, with York defending a one-goal lead, a team-mate dallied on the ball looking for the killer pass. Suddenly Bootham Crescent echoed to the sound of industrial language as Smith told him in no uncertain terms to pass back to the goalkeeper. Roger Jones picked the ball up and another couple of minutes ticked away.

There are times when Arsenal could do with that attitude, though just as relevant is the fact that goalkeepers can no longer pick up back-passes. That, as much as anything, makes it much harder to close a game down.

The rule change, in 1992, fundamentally changed the way teams sought to hang on to a result. Watch videos of Liverpool’s European triumphs. There is no disputing they were a very good team, but a lot of time was taken out of the game away from home passing the ball back to Ray Clemence or Bruce Grobbelaar. The last English champions before the ruling, Leeds United in 1992, came 17th the following season and failed to win a single away game. Suddenly the ball could no longer be rolled back to John Lukic every few minutes. These are just two examples of many. Now teams attempting to waste time have to settle for eking out seconds by the corner flag, faking injuries, or making substitutions.

Changes in the offside law, designed to benefit the attacking side, have also contributed, along with a shift in emphasis towards attacking play generally, and specifically towards more adventurous defenders.

After Chelsea won at Anfield last year, wrecking Liverpool’s title challenge, Brendan Rodgers said bitterly “it is easy to coach a team to defend”. That infuriated Jose Mourinho and one of his players, Nemanja Matic, was equally dismissive this week. “Many teams this season tried to park the bus in front of the goal against us,” said Matic, “but we win. It’s not easy, if you defend you have to know how to defend.”

That is true, but Rodgers is essentially accurate and, to an extent, his players illustrated that in Madrid on Tuesday. His makeshift back four cannot have had long together on the training ground, but largely kept free-scoring Real Madrid at bay.

Defending, both individually and collectively, is a skill, but it is one that can be coached more “easily” than attacking play, which relies more on individual imagination. While I was doing my Uefa B licence, four blokes who had never previously met, and were not particularly gifted or quick, were able to forge a solid back four with just a week on the training pitch, especially when another bank of four was erected across midfield.

But when a team’s attacking philosophy is ingrained, as at Arsenal, gaps will appear. Their matches are thus more open, making momentum important. When Anderlecht scored on Tuesday they gained momentum and Arsenal, their time-wasting options limited by modern laws, did not have the nous and grit to resist.