 "Arsene Wenger")
The brow was more furrowed than usual. As he made his way to shake hands with Louis Van Gaal after the full time whistle, Arsene Wenger was unusually morose. In the background, a half empty Emirates was silently mumbling “Same old, same old”. Yes that's what it was. It wasn’t exactly drab. There were moments in the game against Manchester United on Saturday when Arsenal took the bull by the horns and raided the opposition territory at will. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain ran rings around the United defence like an unbelievably talented 15-year-old kid playing in his local park. But the sombre mood at the Emirates at the end of 90 minutes told its own story. In all fairness, Arsenal fans have seen this far too often to even feel sorry for themselves.
Before Kieran Gibbs had excruciatingly found the back of his own net, Arsenal had tried and been thwarted by a resolute United defence. And then in the blink of an eye, they were torn apart by a rampaging United counter-attack. After Wayne Rooney switched the ball from one foot to another and delightfully dinked the ball over Arsenal’s substitute keeper Emiliano Martinez , the game was a foregone conclusion. Arsenal were still the better team ,and one would have expected them to make a fist of it. But this was Arsenal. Staging comebacks against the big teams hasn’t been their thing ever since Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp stopped roaming the hallowed Highbury turf.
Wenger, meanwhile paced up and down the Arsenal touchline with a seemingly haunted expression all evening, failing to inspire his team. There is no doubting that Wenger is a great coach. But with the exceptional talent comes an obstinance that is difficult to ignore. A sense of stubbornness that is hard to fathom, one of the main reasons for Arsenal’s rather barren trophy cabinet in the last few years.
Over the past seasons, the most astounding has been Wenger’s tactical naivety. Last season, he put out a side devoid of any physicality against a robust and well-drilled Chelsea side. The outcome was an embarrassing 6-0 thrashing at the hands of their fellow Londoners. The Frenchman wasn’t exactly tactically naive on Sunday. Surprisingly, Arsenal came into this one well-prepared. For a major part of the first half, they battered United with high-tempo football. They made the most of Van Gaal’s perplexing decision to play with a back three, easily finding holes through the middle of the United defence. But it all came to naught as they failed to take their chances. Playing eye-catching football is one thing, winning crunch games playing that way quite the other.
Wenger, so often in the past has struggled to strike a balance between the two. Arsenal now have not beaten United 1,302 days, Chelsea in 1,122 days and Manchester City in 838 days. Going by these numbers, maybe Wenger does not want to a strike a balance. He simply wants his team to dazzle the crowd with intricate, mindless passing and scramble for a Champions League place at the end of every season. Not the ideal way a top club should be going about their business.
Arsenal may be light in certain facets of attack, but Alexis Sanchez, Jack Wilshere and Chamberlain are more than capable of winning matches on their own. Thus, quality is not such a serious problem. The lack of desire and hunger is. “Cutting edge” is a word that has long gone missing from the Arsenal dictionary. The Patrick Vieiras and Tony Adams’ of this world are sorely being missed. Despite financial hindrances, Wenger has waged on in his battle to make Arsenal one of the top clubs in Europe. To his credit, he has been successful in doing that. He is the very colossus who has built this club over the last decade and a half. But he may have run his race. Fresh ideas and a brand new identity would do them a world of good. Jurgen Klopp, anyone?
