The afternoon offered little further evidence of the ability of Arsène Wenger's side to win something, anything, this season beyond the fact that Robin van Persie's return to scoring form gives them a better chance of translating the craft and vision of Cesc Fábregas into goals. Van Persie completed his first hat-trick in England on Saturday, a feat long overdue and in spite of wafting a penalty over the bar.
Both players are essential to Arsenal's aim of again finishing in the top four of the Premier League if they do not actually win it. The defining moment of their season, the renewal of acquaintances with Barcelona in the Champions League, is less than a month away when Fábregas and Van Persie, along with Alex Song and Samir Nasri, will be required to co-exist with the best team on earth.
Arsenal will continue to seek trinkets in the cups while resting the legs of their leading players. The team Wenger puts out against Ipswich tomorrow in their Carling Cup semi-final should be strong enough to overcome the Championship side's 1-0 lead from the first leg without taking too many risks with the more precious limbs and the manager will approach Sunday's FA Cup fourth-round tie with Huddersfield in a similar way.
"We will rotate," Wenger said on Saturday. "We have no choice. We play nine games in January. It's the most we have ever played. But we have fantastic players on the bench and it is very important because we cannot play with the same eleven."
The only quibble Wenger could have had with Saturday's performance was that Arsenal should have put the match beyond Wigan's reach sooner than they did, which would have allowed him to relieve Fábregas and Van Persie much earlier than the 86th minute. That Arsenal led only 1-0 at half-time was a tribute to some heroic goalkeeping by Ali al-Habsi but also a reflection of their own profligacy. So long were Wigan penned in their own half that Wenger's goalkeeper and centre-backs could have got out the cards.
Yet with Fábregas the day will never be dull. Song found Van Persie who beat Wigan's flabby offside trap for the opening goal midway through the first half. But the glorious ball from Fábregas which dropped on to the Dutchman's instep for a smartly volleyed second just before the hour had Wenger enthusing that "I can watch it and watch it and watch it again. It was sheer class from start to finish". Theo Walcott cleverly held off Maynor Figueroa as Van Persie accepted another gift from Fábregas for his third goal.
While Wigan did not collapse as haplessly as they had done at the start of the season, when they let in 10 against Blackpool and Chelsea, they still looked more embarrassing when they had the ball than when they were chasing it. Their manager, Roberto Martínez, admitted that in the first half "we played with fear".
Martínez contented himself with accusing Fábregas of resorting to old Spanish customs in going down for the missed penalty, a decision which also saw Gary Caldwell sent off for a trip which deprived him of a scoring opportunity. "I know Cesc very well," Martínez said. "He is a wonderful player and very clever and he knows how to buy decisions off referees. There is contact but you don't know how much of it comes from Cesc looking for it or from Gary's leg. Cesc comes from a different culture when you do not cheat if you take a decision from the referee. It is because you are clever and you are getting something for your team."
A fortnight earlier Walcott had admitted diving in the area, unsuccessfully, against Leeds in the FA Cup but the way Fábregas was caught on Saturday will invariably lead to a legitimate penalty and a red card unless the offender is Gary Neville.
Source: David Lacey, The Guardian on 24 Jan 11
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