Wenger has betrayed his own legacy following a last-gasp rush to bring in players before the transfer window closed
Arsenal used to be referred to as "The Arsenal", like they were the definite article. For a postwar generation of football-mad schoolboys the ultimate in security could be defined in three ways. Things were as safe as the Rock of Gibraltar, the Bank of England or the Arsenal defence.
Born too late to admire the prewar solidity of George Male and Eddie Hapgood, Herbie Roberts, Jack Crayston and the granite-like Wilf Copping, they grew up with headlines and newsreels recording the deeds of Walley Barnes, Laurie Scott, Leslie Compton, Alex Forbes and Joe Mercer. Arsenal might have scored goals by the bucketful but everything stemmed from the organisation and discipline of their defending.
When Arsène Wenger's team lost 8-2 at Old Trafford last Sunday, Gary Neville, who as a former Manchester United player could have been forgiven a certain degree of schadenfreude, sat in the Sky studio sadly shaking his head. A heavy defeat is one thing, outright humiliation another. This was like watching the Tower of London being bulldozed to make way for a new Tesco.
Wenger has reacted with three days of hectic activity, otherwise know as panic-buying, before the transfer deadline. By the time the bar came down a Brazilian left-back, André Santos, a German centre-back, Per Mertesacker, and a Spanish midfielder, Everton's Mikel Arteta, had joined a South Korean striker, Park Chu-young, on the last-minute shopping list along with an Israeli, Yossi Benayoun, who was signed from Chelsea on loan.
It would appear, then, that Sunday's catastrophe has turned Wenger from abstemious buyer into transfer junkie. Whereas previously he had put his faith in the natural growth of youthful talent he is now attempting to buy his team a new spinal column. He may be successful, although Mertesacker's strength in the air is offset by a lack of pace and Arteta has had bad luck with injuries, while expecting newcomers from abroad to settle quickly into the high intensity of the Premier League is a mite optimistic.
Arsenal's collapse at Old Trafford, where Manchester United showed what Germany might have done to England in Bloemfontein last year had they not been saving their legs for the World Cup quarter-finals, was not simply the result of losing players to injuries. It was as much about a state of mind which has developed in the side over a number of seasons. Players no longer track back when possession is lost and the art of closing opponents down and denying them space has been forgotten.
When an unbeaten Arsenal won the championship in 2003-04 they showed that having a strong defence does not mean playing defensively. That season they were the Premier League's highest scorers and most parsimonious defenders. Only three times did they concede more than one goal in a league game and never more than two. Wenger has not betrayed the legacies of past Arsenal managers so much as his own.
He could do worse than retrieve a film clip of the 1952 FA Cup final, which Arsenal lost 1-0 to Newcastle United after playing for more than an hour with 10 men, Barnes having gone off with damaged knee ligaments. During that game Newcastle's Bobby Mitchell dribbled past four opponents only to be tackled by Mercer, who had doubled back to cover, before he could shoot. This is what Arsenal's defending should always be about.
The 8-0 defeat suffered by Woolwich Arsenal at Loughborough Town in 1896 is a distant curiosity. Arsenal's reaction to losing 7-1 at Sunderland in the autumn of 1953 strikes a more relevant chord now because it also happened at a time when the supporters felt the team needed strengthening. Tom Whittaker's side had been champions the previous season but were getting on a bit and had begun the new campaign with six defeats and two draws.
The manager's response to the rout at Roker Park was to sign an ageing legend, the 34-year-old Tommy Lawton, from Brentford, where he was not having much success as player-manager. It took Lawton seven months to score his first league goal for Arsenal and although the team quickly shook off the Sunderland trauma by winning nine of their next 12 fixtures, Highbury did not see another trophy for 17 years.
The Emirates should not have to wait that long. All the same, Wenger's worry lines are beginning to resemble a contour map of the Himalayas and the last time Swansea City, their next opponents, came up to the top-flight, they beat Arsenal twice.
Source: David Lacey, The Guardian on 2 Sep 11
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