The moment when Arsène Wenger pinched his nose, rolled up his trouser legs and jumped into the swamp of transfer deadline day was a late compromise with reality. Suspended, for a day or two, was the Arsenal manager's disdain for the crowded market place, with its desperate remedies and snap decisions.
In 24 hours on Wednesday English football witnessed a form of humbling for the most idealistic of coaches. It was not that Arsenal's transfer targets were picked out randomly in some painful sleepless night. More, it was the haste in Wenger's willingness to grab at reinforcements which spoke of a conversion, either temporary or permanent, from the Kew Gardens principle of quiet cultivation.
For years Arsenal's greatest leader had disavowed "financial doping" and sugar daddy lunges at the world's most famous players. To buy a ready-made star had come to seem vulgar. All laid out at the university of London Colney were the means to shape globally scouted youngsters with rich, natural talent in Wenger's own image. Then came a run of two wins in 14 Premier League games, an 8-2 massacre at Manchester United and a jump into the sweaty dramas of Wednesday night.
When it was over Arsenal had borrowed Yossi Benayoun from Chelsea, coaxed Mikel Arteta away from Everton and confirmed the signings of Park Chu-young (striker) from Monaco, André Santos (attacking left-back) from Fenerbahce and Per Mertesacker (centre-back) from Werder Bremen. This phalanx joined a group of players bought much earlier and in more orderly fashion: principally, Gervinho, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Carl Jenkinson, the teenage full-back who made eight appearances for Charlton Athletic and four for Eastbourne Borough before being asked to stop the left-sided raids of Liverpool and Manchester United.
Park is a 26-year-old South Korean who scored 25 times in 91 appearances at Monaco. He takes the No9 shirt. Benayoun, who played only eight times last season, was a makeweight in Chelsea's rejected offer of £40m to Spurs for Luka Modric. Arteta struck the most romantic chord of the night, telling Everton shortly before 9pm that he was ready to take a pay cut in order to leave Goodison Park and play in the Champions League.
A different complexion is placed on Arsenal's frantic efforts by a report by Bild in Germany claiming that Wenger filed a £35m bid for Borussia Dortmund's Mario Götze, who would have been a straight replacement for Cesc Fábregas, himself one half of a double saga Wenger now describes as "draining". With the Götze offer turned down, Arsenal have effectively replaced Fábregas and Samir Nasri with Arteta and Benayoun: not like for like, on the quality scale, but with a dramatic shift in emphasis towards experience, age and toughness.
The most juicy question now is whether Wenger has turned his face away from slowly maturing youth or has merely sent out for help to allow them even more time to deliver. The artistic project was to build a continuum of homemade dazzlers who would conquer the sport with sweeping one-touch football. This was Wenger's riposte to Manchester United's imperial power and the wealth of Roman Abramovich (Chelsea) and Sheikh Mansour (Manchester City).
Wenger was sending an idea into battle against a vast army of limitless cash. Neutrals applauded his audacity and retain their admiration even as Arsenal have to loan one of Abramovich's cast-offs. Worse still, Chelsea's big summer signing, Juan Mata, is on a long list of targets Arsenal coveted but failed to acquire as a consequence of financial squeamishness or moving too slowly.
Most Arsenal fans are glad to see extremism on the retreat. "Too kind" is how Nasri described Wenger's attitude to underachieving youngsters. The allegation of softness at the heart of this Arsenal side flies in from all angles: supporters, the media and former players, who are under-represented in the current Arsenal coaching set-up.
The call by Lee Dixon, Alan Smith and others to promote Steve Bould from youth coach to first-team defence strategist runs into the problem of Wenger's pride, his reluctance to concede defeat. Martin Keown is among those who say Arsenal have "too many technical players" at the back and too few who simply want to defend. The pursuit of Bolton Wanderers' Gary Cahill was half‑hearted and late.
Arsenal's followers see Patrick Vieira influencing impressionable players at Manchester City and wonder why he is not dispensing that wisdom at the Emirates. There is a sense all around the club that Arsenal have travelled too far from their original hard, stubborn, cussed selves. Other Premier League managers express relief at no longer having to send their strikers in against Tony Adams, Sol Campbell, Bould, Keown or authentic guard-dog midfielders such as Vieira or Gilberto Silva.
The beautiful football excuse Keown accused some of these players of hiding behind has fallen away, too, because Arsenal no longer entertain to compensate for their deficiencies. Nor are they adept at keeping 11 players on the pitch. Many seasons ago, after a ruinous run of dismissals, Wenger called his squad together after Oleg Luzhny had been sent off and told them it had to stop. Three red cards in successive league games this term point to a loss of personal responsibility and discipline.
But immense strengths are concealed by all this unhappiness. A clear-out has removed Emmanuel Eboué, Armand Traoré, Denílson, Carlos Vela and Nicklas Bendtner, who has moved to Sunderland to tell the people of Wearside he is a genius. Many will feel Wenger took the right step with his trolley dash. It was just that the trauma of the 8-2 defeat in Manchester forced him to shop more manically than he would have liked.
A core of names now offers hope of recovery. Jack Wilshere, Aaron Ramsey, Emmanuel Frimpong (if he learns self‑control), Arteta, Thomas Vermaelen, Gervinho and Robin van Persie are talents to build a new side around while Mertesacker brings knowledge to the back line and Park will aim to be an upgrade on Marouane Chamakh.
Wenger may have had to hold his nose on Wednesday but the air is freshening.
Source: Paul Hayward, The Guardian on 3 Sep 11
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