UK Edition
Arsene Wenger's night in the Chelsea press box provides fascinating insight into the Arsenal manager
There was a very familiar if unexpected guest in the Stamford Bridge press box. Arsene Wenger was serving the second of his three-match touchline ban for verbally abusing Mike Dean and, with the directors’ box at Chelsea in the opposite stand to the dressing-rooms, one of the Premier League’s most iconic figures decided there was no option. He would join what he very wryly sometimes calls the “specialists”.
It put him within easy proximity of the players at half-time but, agonisingly, a distance of 20 yards from the dugouts. So while Antonio Conte was delivering his usual repertoire of touchline antics, Wenger was out of sight and ear-shot of his players and able only to send instructions via Jens Lehmann, who was seated to his immediate right.
Spending 90 minutes literally just a few feet from Wenger ensured a fascinating insight. Not for anything he said, but simply the magnified perspective provided by his body language. We hear so often of how football managers live every moment of a match that we become almost immune to the draining reality of that statement. Yet to see Wenger fidgeting with each pass, almost straining to make every tackle and, even surrounded by media, still letting out the occasional shout of encouragement or kick of frustration was to feel just how much it all means.
"It was frustrating," he said, smiling at the reporter who had felt the Arsenal manager's foot in the back of his chair several few times during the game
He had been utterly absorbed and completely oblivious to all else around him - even the more uncomplimentary pantomime chants from nearby Chelsea fans.
It was exhausting to watch and, wherever you might stand on the interminable ‘Wenger In/Out’ debate, a definite reminder that his resilience and basic hunger through 35 years in management is genuinely remarkable. The wider question is whether a touchline ban really affects a team. Different managers will give you different answers.
Harry Redknapp always believed that a manager’s influence once the whistle blew could be grossly overrated and that most of the shouting and gesturing went unseen and certainly not understood by the players. Even half-time, he said, was only occasionally a moment of significant impact.
Wenger and Conte, though, are two managers who believe intensely in their ability to influence from the touchline. In the case of Conte, that impact is actually visible. As ever here, he was coaching and cajoling incessantly from the side. His shouts could often be heard above even 40,000 supporters but the real influence lay in his gestures, especially for the wing-backs.
It is perhaps no coincidence that two of the most improved players in his Chelsea squad – Victor Moses and Marcos Alonso – are also those closest to him for at least half of every game. There is certainly no way you could ever imagine any Chelsea wing-back daring to neglect the defensive aspect of their game.
Wenger’s touchline demeanour is of course very different, even if the old ‘Professor’ days are long gone. He tries to stay in his seat at the start of a match but is usually soon pitch-side and, while it is referees rather than his own players who are the usual focus for any outburst, his presence is still vast. Wenger says that he loses “a physical connection” to his players when he is in the stands and, while that presence is intangible and impossible to quantify, it clearly exists.
His touchline absence last season coincided with Premier League defeats against Chelsea and Watford that began the horrible sequence of results which ultimately cost Arsenal their Champions League place. Sunday’s FA Cup defeat against Nottingham Forest also reinforced the theory that Arsenal’s players lose an edge without him on the touchline, although it was impossible to detect any loss of focus at Stamford Bridge.
Arsenal were certainly on the back foot throughout against a virtual full strength Chelsea team but, even while depleted, there was discipline and character in their performance. Wenger completes his touchline ban against Bournemouth on Sunday and will be back in the Emirates dugout for the second leg later this month.
Whether that will tangibly impact on the performance is unknowable but, having described previously what he calls the “animalistic” characteristic of football managers, he will at least have the comfort of returning to his natural habitat.