One of Arsene Wenger’s great strengths has been his ability to not only polish rough diamonds but to also shift the positioning of a player.

The vast majority of players that have passed through the doors of Highbury and the Emirates under Arsene Wenger’s reign go through an evolution, not just in terms of quality but also in the essence of their style.

Thierry Henry’s shift from a left winger to one of Europe’s most feared strikers is just the tip of a gargantuan iceberg.

Wenger’s vision is to harness the potential of a team capable of delivering the fluid, flowing attacking football which he espouses.

Utilizing players that are comfortable in many areas of the pitch helps to maintain the desired level of fluidity – at least in an attacking sense.

When you look at Arsenal’s first choice XI, a fair proportion of them have been moulded to new positions.
Lukas Podolski and Theo Walcott started out as central forwards but have impressed out wide for Arsenal – although both have also occupied the wing at national team level.

At youth level Jack Wilshere was more of a No 10 but has been placed further back since he burst onto the scene at senior level, while Mikel Arteta has been converted into a ball-playing defensive midfielder and Santi Cazorla has become a creative hub in central areas after spending much of his career on the wing.

Positional mutations

The back four have tended to maintain their traditional positions, although Kieran Gibbs was a left-winger when he first emerged four years ago and Thomas Vermaelen has occasionally deputised at left-full, away from his favoured central spot.

Positional mutations are also apparent in the rest of the squad from playmakers turned attacking wide midfielders in Tomas Rosicky and Andre Arshavin to a winger turned occasional striker in Gervinho.

Aaron Ramsey is the latest player to be experimented upon. A box-to-box midfielder by trade prior to his leg break three years ago, the Welshman has found himself at right midfield and a holding role at times this season.

Ramsey has been underwhelming in his adopted positions, but for the most part Wenger’s attempts to tinker with a player’s genetic code usually works on an individual basis.

However, those alterations can affect a team’s shape and cohesion defensively. As the bulk of the team go in search of pockets of space without a natural inclination for defending, the Gunners remain highly susceptible to the counter-attack when players are caught out of position high up the field and lose their shape.

This is more apparent at Arsenal because Wenger has not identified a naturally defensive player that he can convert into a midfield lynchpin for quite some time.

For all their attacking worth, the likes of Wilshere, Arteta and Abou Diaby (whose injury plight will go into 2014) lack the defensive mindset to position themselves correctly out of possession.

New Gilberto Silva

Last season, Wenger could call upon Alex Song – a centre-back turned defensive midfielder – but he lacked the positional discipline to carry out the role effectively and in fact proved more useful as a quarter-back of sorts, looping passes over opposing defences for Robin Van Persie – another player moulded by Wenger from a No 10 to a centre-forward.

Rather than just concentrating on wholesale changes at centre-back, identifying a new Gilberto Silva will be a key acquisition for the future.

The Brazilian World Cup winner was a key component of the ‘Invincibles’ side providing defensive balance – so lacking at the Emirates in recent years - at the heart of midfield. A converted centre-back, he had the natural inclination to provide cover as his team-mates bombed forwards.

There have been calls for Wenger to bring in a tough-tackling midfielder but that is not a solution if that player turns out to possess poor technical and distribution skills.

Barcelona could also have had this issue because they also possess a squad where players such as Jordi Alba and Javier Mascherano do not play in the positions where they started their careers – but they do have Sergio Busquets, the prototype of player that would be useful at Arsenal.

Of course, a change of personnel would not improve the defensive situation alone. Diligently working on shape and defensive positioning on the training ground would achieve as much if not more in the same way that Pep Guardiola masked Barca’s frailities with a team-oriented pressing system.