How Ajax Can Provide The Model for Arsenal For Talent Identification in the Age of COVID-19

Football and more importantly, Arsenal are set to return to live action in about a week-and-a-half. With about three months gone since they last kicked a ball in anger, how Arsenal will look is anyone’s best guess.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic beyond just the playing performances is also yet to be fully realised. How it impacts the financial aspect of the game is still unknown and how it impacts the transfer market is still up in the air.

There is plenty of speculation about what the financial situation for Arsenal looks like coming out of the pandemic. Arsenal are the only club to get its players to agree to a reduction in their salary and there were also rumours circulating that Kroenke Sports Entertainment were putting some funds to support the operational side of the club.

If all this is true, then what does this mean for Arsenal and the transfer window? Currently sitting outside of the European spots, missing Europe altogether combined with the bleak financial prospects post-COVID-19 could hurt the club’s ability to begin the overhaul to give Mikel Arteta the players he wants.

Assuming the speculation is right, then what can the Gunners do? In the past, we’ve made the case for Arsenal to follow the Dortmund model in terms of scouting young, raw talent and turning them into players of some ability and selling on to help grow the club’s coffers and ability to purchase quality first-teamers. There are stories circulating out in the press that Arsenal have laid off their scouts, which would hamper that ability. Even though the release of the scouts looks to be a seasonal event, tied to the lack of signing youth players throughout Europe, what would happen to the Gunners then if they couldn’t dig up talents like Gabriel Martinelli?

Let’s assume scouting were reduced or Raul solely depended on his Rolodex to get players that would kill the ability to utilise a model like Dortmund’s. Perhaps the Gunners could turn to another legendary European club to strengthen its first team? Perhaps Arsenal could look to Holland and emulate the famed Ajax academy at De Toekomst.

De Toekomst

Cruyff, van Basten, and Bergkamp are just some of the names of players that have graduated from the famed Ajax academy at De Toekomst. It is as famous as any youth academy in the world and its whole purpose is to be a talent factory for the first team and beyond.

Currently, the academy boasts approximate 220 players. Of all the first-team players in the Eredivisie, 30% of them will have, at some point attended the academy at De Toekomst. The best measurement of its success is measured in the number of players who add value to the first team.

The hallmark of the De Toekomst is a 3-pillar approach to the academy. The first pillar has to do with communal success and everyone at Ajax describes the club as ‘we.’ It reinforces the idea of everyone in it together. The next pillar is based on the principles of total football and that of always being an offensive, attacking force on the pitch

“According to the Ajax way of thinking, results without beauty are boring and beauty without results is senseless.” – ECA Report on Youth Academies

The final pillar is that the academy is a source for of players for the first team. Under this pillar, the club relies on its own ability to develop players and only goes out to buy players if they have not managed to develop a player at any given time. However, its desire is to promote an average of up to three academy graduates to the first team every other season.

In during their time at the academy a player shows promise, then they are guaranteed first-team status, regardless of their age.

Ajax demand four fundamental requirements from all players within their academy, a system known as TIPS – technique, intelligence/insight, personality, and speed.

Technique is the number one requirement for an Ajax player. All Ajax players must be technically good with the ball. The Ajax way is to play in the opposition’s half of the pitch, this means players playing in tight space, which means that the player must be able to play using good technique.

Football intelligence is vital for the Ajax style of play. Ajax players must be able to understand instructions and follow out these instructions. Ajax players must know what to do with the ball in given situations, such as when to hold on to the ball, and when to release the ball. They must know how to create space and when to move into space.

Personality is necessary for a team player. Players need strength of character and leadership qualities. The club look for personality in players – to see if they are confident, if they can influence other players, and most importantly if they can work within a group. Ajax players must be able to gel with the other players in the team and not be an individual. The Ajax team must be as one.

Speed of thought and speed of action is a characteristic of Ajax players. Ajax players must be able to sum up situations quickly to problem solve on the pitch. The only running Ajax do in training is 20 to 30-yard sprints, there are no long-distance runs. A lot of work is done on the players running technique working on short and long-running strides. A lot of training is performed on improving the players’ acceleration and to make the players more explosive.

Concentration on Style/System of Play

Ajax’s first team plays a 4-3-3 and follow the approach invented by Rinus Michels. In their play. Each first-team coach can add their own elements to the style and system of play but adhering to the basic principles of Total Futbol are a must.

Why? Because at every level within the club from the first team down to the Onderbouw (age group 7-12), they are working on elements of the principles of play as it relates to the 4-3-3.

Early on, when a player starts at the academy they are immediately exposed to the ideals of the club. For instance, the Under-8 group playing 4 v 4 is likely to focus on passing, movement, and finesse, with individual confidence on the ball always the priority.

Regardless of the age group, all players are learning principles that would build a solid foundation for a player playing in the 4-3-3.

All players are encouraged through training to get into and excel in 1 v 1 situations. The focus then becomes on ensuring every player has good technique when under pressure with a desire for every Ajax player to have better individual technique than the opposition players they will encounter.

Every player from the moment they first step into De Toekomst to the time they leave will have detailed records of their development. At the start of each season, each player receives an indication of whether or not they are meeting the requirements of their development and are to be retained within the academy system.  For others though, they are told that they are at risk of being “sent home” the coming spring.

This “rough” system is intended to aid in the development of the player by toughening them up both mentally and physically. The whole purpose is to ensure that they can adjust to life as a first-team player and all the demands that go with it as soon as they are able.

Hopefully, players who’ve matured through the academy, playing in the same system over time with all the stresses and pressures placed upon them are at an advantage when they finally get the call to the first team.

In the case of Ajax that development process also leads to big fees for players who’ve developed quite well over time. Given their status in Europe’s overall football hierarchy (outside of Holland), this is a necessary requirement for a club that wants to compete but doesn’t have the funds or means to hold off the biggest names out there.

Arsenal’s Academy

 Arsene Wenger once said, “the focus is only on quality.”

The Hale End Academy is one of the bright spots in England. Like De Toekomst, it wants to develop players for Arsenal’s first team. However, the economics of football in England up until the pandemic, have been such that hardly any of the academy prospects have matured into first-team players.

The last academy player to make a significant breakthrough to the first team was Jack Wilshire, since that time, the Arsenal roster has been littered with promising young players that have never managed to break through with the exception of Alex Iwobi who was sold at the start of this season.

Like the Ajax academy, the Hale End training centre’s key aims are:

• To develop first-team players
• Maintain a professional and ethical way of operating
• Maintain self-sufficiency

Ideally, Arsenal are looking to develop players that can become stars through their own talent, their intelligence, and motivation.

On the surface, it isn’t too dissimilar from Ajax but unlike De Toekomst, Arsenal are under huge commercial pressure to be successful and that sometimes means that patience for the development of younger players is non-existent due to the need to be at the highest level of the game in England and on the continent.

Instead of developing players, contracts are left to run out or the promising players are sold for a modest fee to build up the coffers – even on a small scale. Their place in the first team taken by a star name who may be more inclined to help deliver and provide value immediately.

This is all likely to change in the wake of the pandemic.

Even before the pandemic hit, Per Mertesacker began to preside over a restructuring of the Academy with as he states the desire to fulfil the legacy and development structure inspired by past manager Arsene Wenger.

“I just want to build on that legacy and thank him [Wenger] for what he did for myself, for the club and give it a real go towards the titles we expect,” he says, leaning forward in his chair in a hotel in St Albans.

“To be world class again, that is what I am looking at. He built the expectations of the club, he built the profile of this club.”

The restructuring has seen a major overhaul on the leadership of the Academy with Mertesacker sacking Steve Morrow and five others who had highly involved at the academy for years.

Now there is a whole new team and an emphasis on the approach that talented players are identified, brought into the Hale End and nurtured into the first team.

With the impact of COVD-19 on transfers unknown, having a good academy may suddenly become an important feature of the English game, for all teams.

After a few barren years in terms of academy players making an impact, the first team has seen its ranks supported with the likes of Reiss Nelson, Bukayo Saka, Joe Willocks, and Emile Smith-Rowe. Further down the development line Folarin Balogun, Miguel Azeez, and Sam Greenwood are showing promise as the next batch to come through.

If Mertesacker can align the academy to the first team in terms of ideals, philosophy, and structure it in a way that creates players already in tune with how the first team plays, then the transition to first-team may be easier – like Ajax as previously seen.

This doesn’t negate the need for big names. Arsenal are a “win now” club. Using a steady influx of Academy products requires patience and that doesn’t go hand-in-hand with “winning now.”

Still, Arsenal can create a systemic culture from top to bottom that begins to create more talent that make it than gets “discarded.” There is a benefit to both Mertesacker and Arteta being on such good terms with each other and they can drive this forward.

Conclusion

How Arsenal responds to the need to develop its squad in the wake of COVID-19 will be instrumental in their ability to challenge. They will need a blend of the practical and the pragmatic. They can still scout for diamonds in the rough. They can still sell big names of the purchase of bigger names but more importantly they, like the Ajax model, can look to their own Academy to produce more of is own stars.