Stage set for Wenger to end Mourinho and Old Trafford troubles
As the text message dropped, Arsene Wenger’s mood got even worse. The Arsenal manager was already feeling a little perturbed by the election results from the United States last Wednesday, and now received the news Alexis Sanchez had aggravated a hamstring injury on international duty with Chile.
Worse, they weren’t willing to send him back to London. The Chilean set-up wanted to keep Sanchez around to see if he could make Tuesday’s World Cup qualifier with Uruguay, something Wenger described as a potentially “suicidal decision”.
You could understand his deep frustration, given that there seemed a depressing inevitability to it all. Arsenal’s bogey month of November had already started with a disappointing draw at home to Tottenham Hotspur, having been 1-0 up, meaning Wenger still hadn’t beaten Mauricio Pochettino in the league. Next up was a meeting away to the manager he has an even worse record against, at the club he has so struggled to defeat over the last decade. Yes, the union of Jose Mourinho and Manchester United was maybe the worst possible combination for Wenger, and he was now set to meet them at the worst possible time of the season and without two of his best players in the injured Hector Bellerin and, now, Sanchez.
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Except, on Tuesday night, the Chilean didn't get injured. He successfully came through a 3-1 comeback win over Uruguay while also scoring twice. He is now expected to be fit for Saturday and, if that is the case, it could yet ensure this is one of the best times for Wenger to face a Mourinho United - and thereby bury a fair few ghosts.
Sanchez’s rampaging running up front has fired a scoring return of 2.18 goals per game - their best since 2004-05. It was that season - coincidentally enough - when Alex Ferguson’s fine run against Wenger began, and Mourinho first faced the Arsenal manager. Both managers realised around the same time that the best way to play Arsenal was to sit deep, wait for the right moments to break up their attacks, and then counter with force.
It meant that Mourinho has never been beaten by Wenger in a competitive game, and that Ferguson only lost four of his last 24 matches to Arsenal.
The problem - and particularly enticing factor about this fixture - is that, even leaving aside all of the ongoing debate about whether the Portuguese has declined, he doesn’t have many of the elements necessary to this blueprint. For one, United have conceded 13 in 11 matches, an oddly poor defensive record of over a goal a game. They don’t exactly possess the solid backline required first and foremost as a foundation for this approach, as has been made even more clear by Mourinho’s known desire to bring in more defenders - especially a commanding centre-half.
Instead, this defence has been quite fragile, all the more so when they go behind first. A further problem, however, is that United don’t really have the speed to break out of defence and bring the ball up the pitch in the way the Arsenal blueprint really requires. Luke Shaw would fit the role, but Mourinho’s problems with him have been well documented, and the team beyond that is generally quite static.
There’s just not much pulse to United. That is reflected in how they haven’t scored a single counter-attacking goal yet this season. The recent history of this fixture, however, has been constructed on such situations. With Mourinho unlikely to be able to play the way he has become unaccustomed in this fixture, and still unsure of his best team - especially with Zlatan Ibrahimovic suspended from the win over Swansea City - the time could actually be right for Wenger.
He has none of those doubts right now. In fact, there is an encouraging certainty to the Arsenal side at the moment, right down to the greater directness of their play. Wenger’s side play fewer than 500 short passes per game. That has not been the case since 2010-11. All of these references to recent records, and breaks in trends, naturally indicate that this could be a juncture fixture in its own right.
If Mourinho again finds the formula to beat Arsenal, it will be the first time since August they have won successive games, and represent a believable sign that they really can get this season on track; that the fire is still there. An Arsenal defeat, meanwhile, would indicate their old problems are still there and cause that depressing sense of inevitability to return.
That, however, is precisely why an away win would be more than just a win for Wenger. It would be a new departure, right down to enjoying a result he never has before. That really would embolden the sense of a new era, too. It would instead be Mourinho suffering that sense of depressing inevitability again, then, as his team once more suffer a negative after a positive.
The result of this game may not mean much in the grand scheme of the title race - but it could end up meaning an awful lot to both sides’ seasons. It will mean a great amount to the managers.
