‘Standing on the Shoulders of Giants’ – it’s the most underwhelming studio album that Oasis ever made, also the inscription on the outside of the £2.00 coin. More famously it’s a quote by Isaac Newton to accusations by fellow scientist Robert Hooke that his ideas on optics had borrowed heavily from his own. In essence, it is a metaphor which translates as developing future intellectual pursuits by putting to good use the research and works of notable thinkers of the past. In 1996 Arsene Wenger had six giants of his own. They were David Seaman, Lee Dixon, Nigel Winterburn, Tony Adams, Steve Bould and Martin Keown. They were products of an earlier genius in the art of defence, George Graham. All six had surpassed the age of 30, a landmark which back then was only surpassed by very few defenders in top level football.
More than a few observers of the game had believed that their time would be up with Wenger’s arrival; however their professionalism meant that they were more than receptive to the professors’ new ideas on training, dietary requirements and with a newly teetotal Tony Adams, a ban on the booze. All six had experienced an Indian summer in top flight football as a direct result; there was however very little Wenger could teach them on defending. One does not after all teach a senior citizen how to suck eggs. It bought Wenger time to build on this foundation and play to his strengths – the unearthing of raw and untapped talent in the attacking sphere. Patrick Vieira, Nicholas Anelka, Emmanuel Petit, Thierry Henry, Freddie Ljungberg – all either complete unknowns or all not playing to their full potential in a position other than where they were to find their niche at Arsenal. It is simultaneously notable however that Wenger had much less success unearthing defensive talent.
Wenger has developed an image of being miserly with the club’s finances and having a natural aversion to profligacy. On the pitch Arsenal seem to have been the opposite on Wenger’s watch. He brought to English football skilful attacking full backs In Sylvinho, Ashley Cole, Gael Clichy and maybe soon Keiran Gibbs. However with unearthing meat-and-drink solid centre halves and a pair of safe hands between the sticks Wenger’s record is far less impressive. The catalogue of disasters includes Pascal Cygan, Oleg Luzhny, Rami Shabaan, Phillippe Senderos and February 2001’s suppressed trauma of seeing Gilles Grimandi and Igor Stepanovs helplessly on the receiving end of a Dwight Yorke not seen so rampant since a night in a hotel room with a young Katie Price and some blue pills.
In some cases Wenger got lucky; the headless chicken act of Kolo Toure had mellowed for a few years in the mid noughties and worked well with Sol Campbell in 2004. Sol was by far Wenger’s greatest defensive signing, it was however hardly an act of managerial genius. Most people with Championship Manager 2 and a PC would have tried to sign an out of contract Campbell in 2001, all it needed was enough wedge to match the likes of United, Liverpool, Barca and Madrid for wages, something Arsenal have lacked since that particular summer onwards with the Ashburton Grove project.
It doesn’t take a financial genius to work out that Arsenal’s hands have been tied financially since the move from Highbury; however the finances that have been available since have not been distributed proportionately throughout the squad. For all its faults the midfield and attack can still hold up to the rigours of sustaining an interest in challenging for silverware, the defensive five on the other hand have been woefully inept and threadbare. Of the talent that has been there Vermaelen cannot handle the threat of a Drogba or a Rooney in the way Keown used to deal with Van Nistleroy and Gallas had often lacked mental coolness in the heat of the battle. Almunia and Jens filled the number one shirt at times adequately but were never good enough as a custodian for a Champions League side.
In reserve we’ve had Silvestre, a nightmare that has thankfully passed, however with Koscielny by his own admission needing time to adapt to the Premier League and Djourou prone to injury, Kyle Bartley on loan, Hardvard Nordtveit an unknown quantity and the ever present fear of seeing Fabianski’s name on the starting line up, there is little to suggest our defence frailties are any less than they were last season. The upshot is that few people are convinced that Wenger has even scratched the surface of addressing the decline of Arsenal’s defence since the last of his inherited six giants hung up their Arsenal boots in 2004. If Wenger allows the transfer window to close on 31st August with no significant additions he must be held to account for this.
Much has been said about the financial position of Arsenal, however Liverpool have still retained much of their talent, Spurs have a Champions League foothold and Man City have plenty of money to throw around. Arsenal’s business plan for Ashburton Grove has always been reliant on Champions League qualification, the threat of failure to do so would be Arsenal’s financial equivalent of the SS Richard Montgomery, the sunken Thames Estuary warship off Sheerness which holds enough explosives to equate to a nuclear explosion. It’s a threat of cataclysmic disaster that’s ever present and could blow up at any minute, though many have perennially lived comfortably with its presence choosing not to dwell too much on the time bomb that lives in their midst. Should Arsene and the board fail to be pro-active in nullifying this threat by spending on defensive measures by the end of this calendar month the residents of small seaside town in Kent may well have their own metaphorical example of what happens when you ignore a time bomb.
Source: Robert Exley, The Online Gooner on 17 Aug 10
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