Arsene Wenger must adapt his tactics to get elusive win over Jose Mourinho

Especially pages 188-189. It is about the tactic that Ferguson devised for playing Wenger's team; a tactic that helped Manchester United win 10 out of the 14 matches they played in the last five seasons of Ferguson's tenure.

"In later years we learned more about Arsenal's thinking," wrote Ferguson. "Arsene had a template of how he sees his players and the way they play. We didn't need to win the ball against Arsenal, we needed to intercept it. You need good players who can intercept."

Ferguson then noted how Cesc Fabregas would nearly always "twist the pass round the corner then run to get it back on the other side of the defender" for Arsenal. Ferguson's instruction to his players was thus: "Stay with the runner, intercept the pass, then counter-attack quickly". The space for those counter-attacks was usually to be found in the wide positions where, whether home or away, Arsenal's full-backs were invariably lingering in their opponents' half in the often naïve expectation that their team-mate would not lose the ball.

It is clearly not just Ferguson who has noticed this. Watch various beatings that have been inflicted on Arsenal over recent years, especially against the very best teams, and it is striking just how many similarities there are in the manner of those defeats. The master coach at organising a team to defend compactly and then break on the counter-attack is Jose Mourinho. It hardly seems coincidental, then, that Mourinho's Chelsea have not lost in 11 matches against Wenger's Arsenal.

The most startling example, of course, was the 6-0 humiliation that coincided with Wenger's 1,000th match as Arsenal manager. Look back at the replays and you will see that, in five of the six goals, Chelsea broke to exploit space where a defence-minded full-back should have been positioned.

The worrying aspect for Arsenal is that neither the players nor the manager really seems to have adapted. Even in playing well and dominating large parts of their draws against Manchester City and Tottenham this season, that very same weakness seemed regularly evident once Arsenal lost the ball.

The million-dollar question when Arsenal return to Chelsea on Sunday, then, is whether Wenger will actually adjust his tactics in the same way as Ferguson and Mourinho have always done when they sense a particular danger. Every indication is that the answer will be no.

Even when playing Barcelona and Bayern Munich at their absolute peak in the Champions League over recent seasons, Wenger has never noticeably discouraged his team from committing large numbers of runners forward and attempting to dominate possession. Those hoping for any compromise in the tactics will also have derived little sympathy from Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain's analysis this week.

"We definitely give Chelsea the respect they deserve but, at the same time, I have belief in my team-mates and we do in ourselves to be able to go to a place like Chelsea and set the tempo and hopefully take control of the game," said Oxlade-Chamberlain.

But do Arsenal need to address a susceptibility to the counter-attack?

"I think that's the risk you take when you play the way we play football, we send a lot of bodies forward in a positive and attacking fashion," said Oxlade-Chamberlain. "As a team we do work on trying to stop that at source. Sometimes you do get countered and I think teams maybe set up to do that against us. But, as I said, you can't have everything. You either don't send so many bodies forward or you do and sometimes you can be susceptible to the counterattack."

You would suspect that Mourinho is licking his licks at those words. In a controversial biography of Mourinho, the Spanish journalist Diego Torres has even gone as far as to claim that he has a seven-fold plan to deal with talented attacking teams. The basic overview is that the team who commits fewest mistakes will win and that whoever has the ball is the most likely to make mistakes. Such pragmatism has seemed to tally with Mourinho's approach for certain opponents. Against that, it is no secret that Mourinho is trying to develop a more adventurous identity at Chelsea this season. They have taken more risks going forward, although much less so when they faced Manchester City.

It will be fascinating on Sunday, then, to see if Mourinho adds another midfield enforcer alongside Nemanja Matic - perhaps John Obi-Mikel - and pushes Cesc Fabregas further forward. That would suggest Mourinho has sufficient concerns about Arsenal's creative qualities to play more on the counter-attack. You can imagine that he has concluded that Arsenal are actually at their most vulnerable when they have the ball.

At one level, you have to admire Wenger's courage (some might argue naivety) in how he has always set up his teams. Against Galatasaray, it made for a thrilling spectacle and four excellent goals as well as the required result. But against a much better team? If Arsenal can ride their luck, not lose possession cheaply and score the first goal, they have what amounts to a "puncher's chance" of doing it their way and still prevailing. More likely, though, will be further ruthless evidence that their way amounts to professional suicide against a clinical opponent.

At the very least, and even if Mesut Ozil, Danny Welbeck and Alexis Sanchez have licence to test Chelsea with their considerable attacking qualities, Wenger must surely urge Kieran Gibbs and Calum Chambers to hold their defensive positions early in the game. If not, his midfielders must be ready to fill those gaps. You cannot expect a team never to lose the ball against quality opposition.

After the victory against Galatasaray, Wenger was directly asked if he was planning any change of tactics against Chelsea. "We'll see," he said. The interviewer then turned to Paul Merson in the studio and asked whether Arsenal could play in this same way against Chelsea. The answer was rather more succinct. "No way," he said.