Arsène Wenger was an innovative genius in the making at the age of 46 when he arrived at Arsenal and modernized football in England with his training techniques and a beautiful style of football. 

Eighteen years later, Arsenal continues its astonishing run of top-4 finishes in the Premier League to remain in the Champions League by beating up on the mid-table clubs of England with their superior pure football ability in which their pace, possession and precision can run unfettered. Yet Arsenal remains an irrelevant empty vessel for an idealized version of the game they no longer can play against worthy competition.

Twenty-six points out of a possible 93 against the Champions League sides of England over the last five years is a substantial enough sample size to judge Wenger’s ability to construct an Arsenal roster capable of getting results against opponents in their weight class in this era.

For all of their top-4 finishes, Arsenal hasn’t had a top-2 finish since the 04-05 season when they finished 12 points behind Chelsea in José Mourinho’s first season with the club.

Wenger was the epitome of a stubborn old man when he physically confronted Mourinho during an early match tackle from Gary Cahill on Alexis Sánchez in Sunday’s 2-0 loss to Chelsea.

While Wenger is the physically more imposing and tougher figure in sideline brawl situations, Mourinho has accomplished more in just over a year since returning to Chelsea than Wenger has in a decade. Mourinho also knows how to put on a side that will scrap and win matches in a multiple of ways, while Arsenal never has a viable Plan B.

“I wanted to head from A to B and I was interrupted,” said Wenger about the incident and that’s exactly a microcosm for what Arsenal is dealing with in this longlasting era of relative futility.

Wenger and Stan Kroenke have finally spent substantial money on transfers in moves for Mesut Özil and Alexis Sánchez, but they’ve joined a crowded pool of attacking players while their fundamental flaw at defensive midfield remains entirely unanswered. Wenger has tried to fix the issue piecemeal around Mathieu Flamini, but not signing any of the host of options in the summer entering the season was an egregious mistake. Abou Diaby is unlikely to become a viable option coming back from injury and transitioning to the position at this stage of his career.

Comparing Wenger to Mourinho, Chelsea acquired Nemanja Matic in January before the glamour moves for Diego Costa and Cesc Fàbregas. Matic gives cover for Fàbregas in his deep-lying position and those two players open up space for Eden Hazard and André Schürrle to operate wide.

The main difference between Wenger and Mourinho is perhaps the impatience of the latter. Mourinho is constantly sandblasting his roster and is unwilling to wait for players to develop if they won’t match his timeline, or if he’s simply uncertain if they’ll ever be good enough to play at the level he’s operating on.

If Wenger was operating Chelsea, he would have let Romelu Lukaku become his first choice striker, kept Juan Mata instead of selling him to Manchester United and would have thought Matic wasn’t worth the £21 million fee. Chelsea is already in firm control of the Premier League specifically because adding Matic, Fàbregas and Costa has turned the pieces they already had in Hazard, Oscar and Schürrle, along with a highly organized and competent back-four from good to great.

For the reputation Wenger cultivated early in his career for developing younger players, this also hasn’t happened in recent seasons. Their list of high priced sales of younger players within the last five years strictly consists of Samir Nasri to Manchester City, while the sale of Carlos Vela to Real Sociedad was a move they seemed to want to have back.

Their big purchases haven’t been from the likes of second tier clubs who can’t afford to keep their stars, but from the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Manchester United, who considered Özil, Alexis and Danny Welbeck to either not be good enough, or expensive spare parts.

Less than two months into working Alexis into their side, Wenger is realizing that he slows down Arsenal’s passing.

Wenger suggested after Sunday's match that Mourinho has a financial advantage at Chelsea, which true in theory but absurd in practice. Wenger has plenty of resources at Arsenal and has had significantly more time to execute his vision several times over.

Wenger is getting both his tactics and transfers wrong while trying to play a possession style that lacks the athleticism and strength to win matches against like competitions. Unlike the Invicibles, Arsenal lacks the type of overwhelming pace to dominate opponents and control the match. They are too slow to in their buildup and are ill-equipped to quickly win the ball back when they lose it.

Arsenal has Hull, Sunderland, Burnley and Swansea in their next four EPL matches before ending the month of November against Manchester United and West Brom. Collecting 15 points from those matches is well within reason and Arsenal will appear to have it figured out again until another match against elite competition and they don’t.