Arsenal's Defence: The Chaos Theory of Football

Another 90 minutes of EPL football are completed, and the analysis continues. Editors and pundits attempt to convert 90 minutes of athletic sport into some neatly packaged and easily digested story.

"The Story" is important, because the EPL is, for many, an unfolding and developing quasi-historical drama that continues for 365 days a year based on a series of predicted causes and effects.

Take Arsene Wenger. It is now widely acknowledged that Wenger has had his day.

The story goes that Wenger came to the EPL at a time when premiership footballers were akin to Neanderthal beasts existing on a diet of Guinness and chips.  Wenger, the aesthete, introduced scientific training methods and proper nutrition and, hey, presto, Arsenal won numerous trophies.

However, so the story continues, word about Wenger’s methods got round the frozen wastes of the EPL and soon even the most backward natives were on probiotics and vitamins. As his empire declined, so Wenger took to his bunker and became ever more disconnected from reality. He signed untried 17-year-olds for £17 million while refusing to sign an experienced and proven centre-half for similar, or even less, money.

As with the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, which many historians ascribe to developing social trends such as the loss of “civic virtue”, each stage of Arsenal’s decline is said by the pundits to be predictable and to lead logically to the next.

But, there is an alternative historical theory, often illustrated by reference to “Cleopatra’s nose”. This school of history holds that if the beautiful Cleopatra had been possessed of an uglier, less beguiling nose and a less seductive personality, then Julius Caesar and Mark Antony would not have been so interested in her, and, as a result, they would have been more focused on winning the Battle of Actium, which they lost. Had that not happened, it is argued, the Roman Empire’s fate might have been very different.

In modern parlance, this is known as the “chaos theory”, i.e. that major events happen by reason of absolute chance, rather than due to logical and predictable patterns. 

Returning to the EPL, it is interesting to compare and contrast the “cause” and “chaos” theories. Generally, football commentators favour the cause theory, as it allows them to hold forth on perceived failings and to predict outcomes. Thus, many have described the Blackburn defeat as part of the predicted, systemic decline of manager and club.

However, to a “chaos theorist”, another way of looking at the defeat is to consider how things might have turned out but for the intervention of fate or fortune.

What if, (a) Yakubu’s offside goal had been officially judged offside, (b) Walcott had been awarded a penalty in the 94th minute, (c) Mertesecker’s header had not just cleared the bar in the 92nd minute and (d) both Song and Kosielny had not scored freakish own goals? Each of these events might well be regarded more as an act of fate than part of any historical pattern. They were chance happenings, which, individually or collectively, led to an outcome that the interpreters have sought to place within the context of their own theories.

Indeed, even a cursory consideration of historical moments in football lends credence to the notion that much turns on a split second of absolute chance.

For example, Thomas’ rousing last ditch goal at Anfield in 1989 could so easily have crept wide of the post. Had that happened, then Liverpool, rather than Arsenal, would have been league champions in 1989. What if Eduardo had not been brutally injured at Birmingham in February 2008? Many believe that the incident so traumatised the team that it never recovered and, as a result, lost the EPL in 2008. Consider Lehman’s sending off against Barcelona in the Champions League final in 2006 and Lehman’s penalty save away at Villarreal in the semi-final of the same competition. 

These moments of fate profoundly affected the outcome of football matches and championships. Yet, they are not necessarily part of any historical pattern, nor were they affected by the “philosophy” of a manager, the “character” of a captain, the passion of the fans or indeed anything to which some rational cause and effect can be attributed.

Pundits would have us believe that Arsenal has entered an inescapable historical decline that can only be halted by a regime change, i.e. Wenger out. But would Jose Mourinho or Pep Guardiola really have had any significant influence on the miniscule split second interventions of fate that led to Arsenal losing, rather than winning, at Blackburn on Saturday?

In my respectful submission, they would not, and we would be unwise to join the stampeding mob demanding Wenger’s head in reaction to events that simply cannot be controlled.

Wenger is not perfect, he has certainly dithered in the transfer market at times, and yes, the defence needs to be  properly organised. But it is perhaps to a defensive coach such as Martin Keown that Arsenal fans should be looking, rather than adopting the destructive theories of those who have written off both Wenger and his empire because it simply fits “the Story” or some perceived pattern of cause and effect.