Arsenal's defence is the topic of the hour – can they possibly recapture the Premier League title with such an uninspiring unit? – but tonight they were not expected to have much defending to do against a side who conceded 10 goals while losing all five of their group matches before their arrival in London for the concluding fixture.
Already lacking the injured Thomas Vermaelen, the home side's back four lost Gaël Clichy before the kick-off, the French left-back suffering from some sort of seasonal complaint, allowing Kieran Gibbs to take his place as the token Englishman.
Andrey Arshavin was candid about the team's shortcomings during an interview on the eve of the match, quite sensibly attempting to lay the blame on defensive teamwork – the organisation and diligence of the whole side, in other words – rather than the defenders alone. His own covering of his partner on the left flank, he admitted, sometimes left a good deal to be desired.
But the Russian had nothing to do, by either commission or omission, with the injury that removed poor Gibbs from the contest after a quarter of an hour. The 21-year-old England international was attempting to close down Almami Moreira, Partizan's playmaker from Guinea-Bissau, when he turned his ankle and fell to the ground with his arm immediately raised in a signal for urgent assistance. Carried off, he got back to his feet and returned to the field but he was limping heavily and clearly in discomfort when, eight minutes later, he was replaced by Emmanuel Eboué.
The Ivorian's arrival at least restored the all-Francophone nature of Arsène Wenger's rearguard. It is useful, of course, for the back four to be able to communicate with each other, but the manager's default measure of filling a defensive hole with a French speaker does not suggest that he combs the corners of the earth for suitable players. Neither Laurent Koscielny nor Sébastien Squillaci, born in Tulle and Toulon respectively, was an obvious choice, or an inspiring one. The currently injured Johan Djourou, a Swiss national, was born in Abidjan and has French as his first language, while one imagines that Vermaelen, although a Flamand rather than a Walloon, must have picked up something of Belgium's other tongue.
It even seems a strange anomaly that there has been no French or French-speaking goalkeeper at Arsenal during Wenger's 14 years in charge. Not within sniffing distance of the first team, anyway, although a few years ago he called Guillaume Warmuz of Lens into the squad. Wenger was also linked for a while with Mickaël Landreau, the captain of Nantes, a gifted technician who ultimately proved not quite tall enough for the very top flight.
This summer, trying to confront the most serious deficiency in his current squad, Wenger was linked with Hugo Lloris, but the current France international remained with Olympique Lyonnais, leaving the manager to choose between Manuel Almunia and tonight's choice, Lukasz Fabianski. Lloris's father, a Monaco-based merchant banker, is a friend of the Arsenal manager and, acting as his son's agent, is said to have planned Lloris's career in three-year stages: three years with Nice, followed by three years with Lyon. This is his third year at the Stade Gerland, and it seems highly likely that he will be starting next season at the Emirates, thus increasing the ability of the defence to share their thoughts in the language of Descartes and Balzac.
Tonight the current line-up was tested principally by the combination of Moreira and Cléverson Gabriel Córdova, better known as Cléo, a tall, long-haired 25-year-old Brazilian who last year became the first player in 20 years to transfer to Partizan from their bitter local rivals FC Crvena zvezda, formerly Red Star Belgrade. Cléo's first goal for his new club came on his debut against Rhyl. Seven days later, in the return leg, he scored his first hat-trick, opening with a bicycle kick.
The goal with which he equalised was nowhere near as spectacular, but rather more relevant, considering the quality of the opposition. Sasa Ilic was allowed to play a neat square pass across the area from the left to the Brazilian, who feinted to put Squillaci off balance before shooting from 20 yards and seeing the ball spin off the centre-back's foot to defeat Fabianski's dive.
The failure of Alexandre Song and Denílson to make any sort of intervention was perhaps more significant than Squillaci's inability to produce an effective block. Once again Arsenal's deficiencies in the area of the holding midfield player, evident since the unwise decision to pension off Gilberto Silva, were exposed.
The construction of a great football team involves every aspect of the game, and it is hard to excuse Wenger's refusal to take seriously the piecing together of an effective rearguard, particularly when they concede a goal like Cléo's equaliser, which left Arsenal's supporters praying that Sporting Braga would not snatch a win in Ukraine.
But then, 20 fretful minutes later, came the smooth volley from Theo Walcott and the nimble finish from Samir Nasri that quieted, once again, the familiar misgivings.
Source: Richard Williams, The Guardian on 8 Dec 10
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