Arsène Wenger says the age of the specialist defensive midfielder is over.
The 'Makelele role' - named after the former France international, Claude - has become a staple of tactical talk and describes players who tend to eschew attacking play in favour of protecting their defence.
When Wenger sold Alex Song in the summer he was tipped by some to replace the Cameroon star with a traditional 'holding' player, but instead Mikel Arteta has excelled since dropping into a deeper role.
"There are no defensive midfield players at the moment," explained Wenger.
"We try to find the defensive balance collectively. We have fewer players who are purely defenders but some are physically strong in defending like Diaby, some are tactically strong like Arteta.
"At the moment we have the balance because everybody participates, but we have fewer specialists, purely defenders. We are more versatile going forward because everyone has the potential to go forward."
Wenger knows that his team's balance will have to be just right if Arsenal are to prevail against Chelsea on Saturday.
"If you have a defensive balance, yes, that is what is at stake against Chelsea," he said. "Will you be strong enough defensively, in midfield as well, to deal with them? That's where one of the tests will be."
As much as this article makes me feel like this
it certainly offers an insight into what our dear leader believes and ultimately for me where the flaws lie.I think what we've all been crying out for to be delivered to the club are the "specialist" players. The likes of a De Jong who fulfills a specific role on the pitch.
Today we saw Gervinho and Walcott who specialise in "pace" (unfortunately not a lot else) and who have both been shunted into a wide variety of positions to promote versatility . Gervinho up top and Ramsey on the left are perfect examples of this "versatility" that is costing us so dearly.
Play a left winger on the left,a right winger on the right etc
Instead what we have is a mix of players playing out of position and no one to focus on a specific role within the team.
As for the age of the "specialist" defensive midfielder being over I think last years title winners were quite fond of having a certain Nigel De Jong sitting in front of their defence and it worked pretty well for them.
fraud of a manager should be hanging his fucking head in shame - West Ham, Norwich and QPR - two of those three can't buy a win and as for West Ham; they are probably the only team with less strikers than us
