Arsènal (27 page)

There was improvement in other respects too. The team became less prone to succumbing to the rumbustious style of opponents like Bolton which in recent seasons they had found difficult to combat. Firstly, the zip of the passing and movement was working so well that more often than not opponents weren't able to get close enough to disrupt the fluidity of the play with crude challenges. Secondly, the resilience of the side took a turn for the better with the presence of Mathieu Flamini alongside Cesc Fàbregas. With his sleeves rolled up and his combative approach he reminded older fans of Peter Storey from the 1970/71 double team. Much more of a battler than Gilberto, when the going got rough he could give as good as Arsenal got. Now into the final year of his contract, Wenger had actually given Flamini the option of leaving during the summer due to an anticipated lack of first-team opportunities, but the player elected to stay and fight for his place and both parties were glad that he did. Not that Cesc Fabregas was a shrinking violet. Still only 20, he began to show a steely side to his instinctive imagination and passing skill. Further, his finishing became far more incisive, so that his efforts were rewarded far more frequently than his meagre return of four goals the season before.

With Flamini and Fabregas prepared to battle in midfield, the team actually comprised a more robust spine from defence to attack, and it was on this basis that the logic of making William Gallas the captain made some kind of sense. He may have missed his on-field arguments with Jens Lehmann, but at least with the more amenable Almunia in goal, he could concentrate his aggression on the opposition. And in attack, Robin van Persie did not lack the ability to get beneath the skin of opponents, with a streak of aggression he shared with his illustrious predecessor Dennis Bergkamp, an attribute not uncommon in mercurial Dutch forwards.

Progress in the Champions League was equally positive, with the qualifying round against Sparta Prague handled comfortably. A kind group stage draw then matched Arsenal with Sevilla, Steaua Bucharest and Sparta's neighbours Slavia. They started like a train with nine points from the first three matches, including a 7–0 demolition of Slavia. However, as good as qualified, in the concluding three fixtures Wenger then fielded weaker selections with the result that they ended the group in second place, inviting a tougher draw in the last 16 and foregoing results bonuses of €900,000 (approximately £700,000 given the exchange rate at the time) through dropped points.

But there is always a cloud somewhere on the horizon, and early on it took the form of uncertainty over Arsène Wenger's future. His contract only lasted until the end of the season and, as usual, he seemed in no rush to sign a new one. And if he went he could be followed by an exodus of the talent he had developed. It was not as if the board had any kind of succession plan in place. How would Arsenal compete then? With money? Not for a while yet. Stability was desperately needed. “We're talking and usually when we talk, there's always a positive outcome,” Wenger said when pressed on the matter at the start of the season. “What I think when I'm negotiating the deal is whether I have the freedom to work the way I want to,” he added. “I always had that with David Dein and, since David has gone, I still have it. That is, for me, the most important thing.” In truth, Wenger had already made up his mind. As long ago as April, he and Annie had settled on their daughter Léa's secondary school. It was only David Dein's exit that rocked the boat but with the aid of his friend's encouragement the turbulence soon passed.

And so the Frenchman, only a month into the campaign, signed on for a further three years' tour of foreign duty. “Since the beginning of the season something has been happening in this team,” he enthused when the news was announced. “They fight for each other, they have a great togetherness and love for the game. I have a responsibility to the players to help turn our potential into prizes.”

On occasion, the team's play was so adroit and flexible as to warrant the plaudits of being the arch exponents of ‘Total Football'; the standard filtered down to the Carling Cup second-stringers, whose difficult ties against first-choice Premier League line-ups were successfully negotiated and the club progressed to the semi-final for the fourth time in five seasons. Players who were not able to break into the starting line-up at the weekends performed in an equally dominant and watchable manner; their versatility was such that they looked at ease whatever part of the pitch they appeared in. After the mostly younger squad members had convincingly accounted for a full-strength Newcastle side, long-time supporter Brian Dawes expressed the view “We don't need to buy another player for ten years!” The kids would go on to defeat a full-strength Blackburn Rovers away, despite being reduced to ten men. Meanwhile, their elders and betters remained undefeated and top of the league, two points clear of their free-spending rivals behind in the chasing pack. Arsenal were not only contenders for the title once again, as time progressed they became the bookies' favourites.

The way the team were playing and the results achieved appeared a total vindication of the manager's methods. On limited resources, he had produced a group of artists and artisans, the sum total of whom was more than the contributing parts. How else can you explain the creation of a world-class team with obvious individual deficiencies (Almunia, Senderos and Eboue being salient examples). Wenger had compiled his side as a balanced unit so that even the absence of a key component did not disrupt the strategy, Gallas and Rosicky both being out of action for some of the early fixtures.

A measure of the progress made was gauged when Arsenal travelled to Anfield at the end of October. In March, they had sunk to a humiliating 4–1 defeat there. A few months on, and Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez, despite overseeing the only other unbeaten top-flight team, opted to prioritise defence and set up a counter-attacking gameplan, regardless of home advantage. “Maybe Liverpool were a little bit afraid of us,” opined William Gallas in the aftermath of the 1–1 draw.

Robin van Persie succumbed again to injury after scoring five goals in seven appearances. It was fortunate then that his first-choice partner Emmanuel Adebayor had an even better strike rate, with six goals. The failure of Togo to qualify for the African Cup of Nations was an unexpected bonus, as Van Persie did not reappear regularly until mid-March (earlier attempts to return him to the fray merely aggravated his ailments). However, the squad did lose Kolo Toure, Emmanuel Eboue and Alexandre Song to the competition for a few weeks in January and February. As Adebayor's rich vein of form continued, he often found himself playing as a lone striker, although occasionally Eduardo was drafted in to partner him.

With the team topping the table despite a first league defeat in December away to Middlesbrough, Wenger was faced with the dilemma of whether to strengthen his hand in the January transfer window. He told an acquaintance in December, “I am the happiest I have ever been with the team. This group of players has the potential to be the best I've ever worked with.” He was most pleased with the development of Mathieu Flamini and, as a result, his final summer signing Lassana Diarra found himself in the unlikely position of being selected for his country, but unable to displace his then uncapped compatriot in Arsenal's eleven. Together with Gilberto, Abou Diaby and Denilson, the manager had a surfeit of midfield cover, which may have influenced his decision to sell Diarra to Portsmouth for a profit of £3 million. All the same, he was a talented and versatile player who could fill in at full back and anywhere across the midfield. To have picked up a French international so cheaply was a bargain, especially when Chelsea, of all clubs, could afford to hang on to him even if they had no intention of utilising his talents except in an emergency.

However, as Wenger later reflected, “I came to the conclusion that Diarra could not cope with the fact that he was behind the other players in midfield. If he had been able to be patient he would have got his chance. He wasn't capable of that.” Matters came to a head when Diarra was reluctant to play in an FA Cup tie at Burnley. This eventually turned out to be a stroke of luck for him, Portsmouth ultimately winning the competition for the first time in 69 years and Diarra, a key element in his new team, feted as a hero, However, true to form, his start at Fratton Park was hardly auspicious. He announced that he would be using his new club as a stepping stone to greater things. “The people at Portsmouth know I will not spend my life at this club,” he said. “If I shine, if a really big club wants me, I know already that everything will go well.” How to win friends and influence people. The surprising conclusion from the episode was that Arsène Wenger brought in someone who rocked the boat to such an extent that he was forced to move him on at the first available opportunity.

With or without the Diarra money, there was a lot of cash in the kitty to strengthen the squad for the remainder of the season. Figures released by the club in 2008 revealed a cash balance of £69 million at the end of November 2007, of which £25 million was available to the manager for spending on new players and their wages. It remained unused. Wenger subsequently explained, “You have to keep the balance right between having competition and having too many players. The squad did not look light at any time.” However, at the conclusion of the season he admitted that his statistics had shown that his team had conceded more goals from long balls played into his central defence than any of his main rivals. “We gave more goals on direct balls, in the air, through the middle, and most of the time on second balls.” With hindsight, he might have taken a chance on Jonathan Woodgate from Middlesbrough, the 28-year-old England defender reputedly interested in joining the club, but who ultimately signed for Tottenham for a fee of £8 million.

Up front there was no need for reinforcements. Eduardo was given a run in the team after Christmas and did so well he was actually rested in the two Carling Cup semi-final clashes with Tottenham to preserve him for the league. His goal-poaching was badly missed as Spurs recorded victory over their neighbours in the second leg for the first time since the turn of the millennium. According to David Dein, “Arsène has a remarkable ability to communicate in a foreign language.” Brevity was Wenger's forte as he summed up his response to that Spurs defeat to a friend. “The defence . . . mamma mia!” (More inventive was his use of the word the French had coined, ‘footballistic', turning it into an English adverb to describe the talent of the then 16-year-old Fàbregas. After impressing in the 2003/04 Carling Cup, his manager enthused, “Footballistically, he's ready for the first team.”) Nevertheless, Wenger could argue that the Carling Cup run had served its purpose as Lukasz Fabianski, Alexandre Song, Armand Traore, Denilson and others experienced first-team action.

Following three successive victories consolidating their position at the top of the table, four days before they were due to face Milan in the Champions League, Arsenal had to negotiate an FA Cup fifth-round away trip to Manchester United, their closest challengers in the Premier League. Would the manager stick with the first team or twist with rotation? Perhaps when the club's official website announced the application details for tickets, they should have reminded the thousands of paying punters intending to make the long trip north of Arsène Wenger's words from the previous March: “The FA Cup is a competition we love but [in 2006] when we went out early, we reached the final of the Champions League. [In 2007] we had two replays in the FA Cup, one just before the PSV Champions League tie and one right in between that and the next [leg]. We had already given a lot, playing 17 games in December and January. Also, we had no possibility to rotate the side because we had many injuries and then suspensions. So I think it was a mistake on my part. When we drew Blackburn at home we didn't think we would go to a replay. When you have 60,000 fans in your own stadium you can never say you will sacrifice the game. But the replay? Perhaps I should have sacrificed it.”

Sacrifice: the concept in Wenger's interpretation of deliberately giving something up in order to gain an advantage. By the time that the Old Trafford match kicked off, he knew that the next two scheduled FA Cup weekends could ensure league fixtures for his team if they were eliminated, with their opponents (Wigan and Liverpool) both already knocked out. If the road to Wembley was halted now it might be a blessing in disguise; midweeks could be the sole preserve of Champions League commitments, with domestic encounters in the Premier League limited to weekends. He couldn't have planned it better if he tried, although maybe this idea was picked up by his players. In losing 4–0, once the first goal had been conceded most of them didn't appear to try very hard at all. It was one of the most lacklustre displays the fans had ever witnessed from a Wenger team.

The fact that Wenger had rested a few players provided little comfort or mitigation, as Alex Ferguson had done likewise. Four regulars returned for the visit of Champions League holders AC Milan. Milan might have been group-stage winners, but in failing to top their own quartet Arsenal had become the runners-up none of the big boys fancied. Milan, content to return home with a clean sheet, showed limited attacking ambition. For Arsenal the 0–0 result would only be seen as a good one if they could avoid defeat in the return leg, but on the night the abiding feeling was one of what might have been had Emmanuel Adebayor not headed against the crossbar with the goal gaping in second-half injury time.

However, according to the manager's rationale – less commitments, improving odds – the outlook in the Premier League remained optimistic. Wenger's Arsenal teams had historically performed at their best domestically after the turn of the year. When league points were dropped, it was often in the first months of the season with the onset of winter bringing with it an air of vulnerability. So the two humiliating cup exits to Tottenham and Manchester United could be brushed aside as long as the ends ultimately justified the means. The pursuit of the Premier League crown was certainly on track, with a sequence of wins that showed the absent African internationals were not missed. The Adebayor/ Eduardo partnership was developing nicely so that the loss of Robin van Persie was not unduly felt. With 12 fixtures of the 38 outstanding, Arsenal led their nearest rivals by five points, having suffered a solitary defeat. So on the weekend of the Carling Cup Final, it would not have been unrealistic to envisage an eight-point lead with a victory at Birmingham. For instead of a training session in preparation for a trip to Wembley, Arsenal had a commitment at St Andrew's on Saturday lunchtime due to its selection for live transmission on Sky.