Written by Lindsay Melrose Wednesday, 15 December 2010 17:35

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Compiled by Graham Yates

The media big wigs pundits have all been having their say on just what Sunday’s match illustrated about the Arsenal. Here are 4. What do you think? Warning – tough reads ahead.

 

At least nobody patronised Arsenal for idealism in defeat. There was nothing at all beguiling about the manner in which they lost to Manchester United at Old Trafford last night. Disappointed fans ought at least to have been prepared. They understand better than anyone that the side do not suffer purely because they have to lead their life in the hard-bitten surroundings of the Premier League.

There was hardly any imagination or capacity for surprise in Arsène Wenger's players, even among those who are supposed to be the defining traits of his team. The United midfielder Park Ji-sung adapted best of

all to the demands of the moment by scoring the only goal with an excellent header after he had needed to adjust to a deflection on the cross. 

Arsenal can be a devastating side but their statistics now have to be handled with care. Only United have outscored them in the Premier League but Wenger's side are still prone to seizing up. Since late November of last year they have had five meetings with Manchester United and Chelsea and scored only once. And that goal came when Sir Alex Ferguson's players were 3-0 in front at the Emirates in January.

With that backdrop in mind, one can appreciate why Wenger was reduced to complaining about the Old Trafford pitch. Although they have been accused of brittleness over the years, the defence did not shatter yesterday. The centre-half Thomas Vermaelen has not played since late August because of a pernicious achilles injury but Arsenal, to some extent, have adapted to living without him.

The back four generally coped quite well against United although any manager other than Wenger would have detailed someone to double up with Gaël Clichy to pin down the best player on the field, Nani. Arsenal, in the end, did not concentrate fully on either denying United or putting them under threat. It was to be a second-rate game and that is as much Ferguson's fault as Wenger's.

"So this is our El Clásico," someone grumbled at half-time. United did not have it in mind to turn the match into a spectacle but Ferguson knows where his team's strengths must lie until Wayne Rooney, who squandered a penalty kick against Arsenal, regains full force. With Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic in harness, the side have kept clean sheets against apparent challengers Arsenal, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur, with the trial of Stamford Bridge to be faced on Sunday.

Praise for the checking of Arsenal has to be restricted because they almost stifled themselves. It made sense for Wenger to look for a focal point but at present the summer purchase Marouane Chamakh is not so much an orthodox centre-forward as a mundane one. Circumstances are against the manager, too, with Robin van Persie, who came on as a substitute at Old Trafford, rooting around for form after a troublesome ankle injury. Arsenal's frustration, however, stretches back further than the medical history of a single player.

The sterility of the line-up on these sorts of occasion would account, too, for the dropping of Denílson, who was an unused substitute at Old Trafford. The Brazilian can no longer be so confident of selection now that an opening in the line-up has to be made for the teenager Jack Wilshere. All the same the Englishman is not ready yet to alarm United on their own pitch.

Wenger was badly let down by those from whom more is to be expected. Andrey Arshavin has started to peeve the fans as he appears to ration his involvement in the game. That charge cannot be levelled against Samir Nasri, who had been at the peak of his form, but he looked stranded on the wing for periods of the match against United, who enjoyed great effort from the energetic Park as he denied opponents a moment to compose themselves.

Alterations are not readily available to Arsenal. The manager, after all, has recently taken to using Theo Walcott as a substitute for the impact his pace might have when others are wearying. He did score a splendid goal against Partizan Belgrade last week but it would be a lack of alternatives rather than a genuine change of heart that saw Walcott reinstated to the starting line-up for the match with Stoke City at the Emirates on Saturday.

Everyone assumed there were barriers to be smashed if Arsenal were to come back to the fore. Defences do still fall before them but not in the more prominent games. The obstacles they cannot yet surmount are in their own minds as much as on the pitches of Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge.

 

Patrice Evra could not help but grin at the final whistle like a gloating child who had just been handed the class prize as he celebrated Manchester United's 1-0 win over Arsenal.

The full-back is one of the most outspoken characters in football and managed to rile Arsenal supporters last week by claiming the Gunners are simply a "training centre" and slamming their recent record as "a load of rubbish".

Infuriatingly for Arsenal fans worldwide, Arsene Wenger’s side then went out and once again proved him right.

Arsenal are not so much academy as they are kindergarten when it comes to the games that really matter against the big boys.

When it was put to Wenger that perhaps Evra was right, the Arsenal manager brushed off the question by claiming he could only make an "objective judgement" on the game.

If the Frenchman wants to draw verdicts on objective analysis based on evidence then someone better tell him that his side have now lost 10 and drawn one of their last 11 games against Manchester United and Chelsea in all competitions, scoring only five goals in those games. Even the solitary draw was against Sir Alex Ferguson's side when they needed just a point to win the title.

Indeed, their only victory so far this season in a game of note was a 3-0 win at Manchester City in October and that was not a challenging task after Dedryck Boyata was sent off for the hosts just four minutes into the game. Had the Belgian stayed on the pitch, then their record so far this season against their direct competitors would be nigh on embarrassing.

Somehow, Arsenal have managed to hang on in the title race despite failing against their biggest rivals time and again, even including a humiliating 3-2 home defeat by Tottenham after they had taken a two-goal lead.

If Evra does not think the Gunners warrant a second look, it's because he does not see them as challengers to United.

Why should he? Arsenal have not won a single trophy since he arrived in Manchester and have been limited to a role as also-rans behind United and Chelsea. The Londoners may not be in 'crisis' – as Evra provocatively claimed – but they are far too fragile.

In fact, Arsenal have taken just 11 points out of a possible 30 from 10 games against the Premier League's current top 11 and all three of their victories came against 10 men.

The lack of leadership and authority of their side was highlighted by the choice of Tomas Rosicky as captain on Monday night as Cesc Fabregas was not ruled fit enough to start. You can't win the title with kids, and nor can you win it with wimps.

Arsenal players snapped into tackles from the first minute at Old Trafford as if they had a point to prove, and Evra might have reflected that he was more likely to get 'knocked out' by a flying boot than the visitors' attractive football.

But after Park Ji-Sung looped home his clever header it was effectively game over as United slammed the door shut and Arsenal lost their belief save for a brief spell of pressure in the second half.

It was a familiar result for Wenger's side and could have been even worse had Wayne Rooney not blasted his penalty high into the stands. The Arsenal boss seemed to hang his head in resignation towards the end of the game, but no-one realised he was actually blaming the pitch for his side's failure.

The only novelty factor was the presence of Wojciech Szczesny making his Premier League debut in the Arsenal goal. The 20-year-old Pole was solid with his handling but the mere fact that he was thrust into the side on such a big occasion highlights Arsenal's long-held problem between the sticks.

What will hurt Arsenal is that United seem so ready to swat them away, to write them off as nothing more than an irritant that will disappear around the end of March when the heat is cranked up a notch. But you can hardly blame them.

Wenger's team came into the game with best away record in the Premier League but once again failed to beat a big team – a psychological ailment as much as it is a blow.

As usual, they had possession and stroked the ball around in midfield, but they were completely lacking in penetration against a United side that was well organised but below its best.

Evra's only concession to the Gunners had been that they play nice football, but he might even be forced to re-appraise that judgement after such a toothless performance.

It has become too much of a recurring theme to try to excuse Arsenal's regular defeats to United and thrashings at the hands of Chelsea.

Such is the inconsistency of their performances, the Gunners teeter between a potentially excellent side and a collapsing pack of cards from week to week.

It would be no surprise if Arsenal cruise past Stoke on Saturday at the Emirates, but it is equally predictable that they will again surrender against Chelsea on December 27.

Arsenal are so desperate for a trophy that they are even trying in the League Cup this season, a tacit acknowledgement from Wenger that his side need to build some kind of winning mentality. After all, it's already been five years and the club's trophy cabinet has picked up a few layers of dust.

Maybe, one day, Arsenal with have the last laugh.

But for now they are nothing more than an aesthetically pleasing side that don't have the capacity to perform on the big occasion or the mentality to mount a title challenge. Evra was right.

 

Arsene Wenger may have blamed the pitch for Arsenal’s 1-0 defeat to Manchester United on Monday night, but Gunners supporters are pointing their fingers firmly at the Frenchman and crying ‘J’accuse!’

Patience is running out among the Arsenal faithful after the defeat to United, despite the fact their club is second in the Premier League, in the semi-final of the Carling Cup and through to the last 16 of the Champions League. This is the first season Wenger has taken the Carling Cup seriously, an indication perhaps that he realises it’s Arsenal’s best hoping of winning their first trophy since the 2005 FA Cup.

So what’s the problem? Well, that loss at Old Trafford on Monday means that Arsenal have failed to beat either United or Chelsea in their last 11 meetings, which rather blows to smithereens Wenger’s claim that the Gunners are now worthy of comparison with England’s most successful two clubs of the last decade.

Not only that, but in those 11 matches – 10 defeats and a draw – Arsenal have conceded 23 goals and scored just five. A risible figure for a club that likes to claim it’s the most attacking in the Premier League.

The growing criticism of Wenger is twofold. First, there is his tactical savoir-faire, so utterly exposed by Alex Ferguson on Monday. The United boss guessed it would be the same approach from Arsenal, their smooth passing game in midfield, looking to put players into space, so what did Ferguson do? He instructed his back-four to remain tight and he deployed a five-man midfield to put the squeeze on Samir Nasri and Jack Wilshere, Arsenal’s two main play-makers.

And it worked. Nasri had his least effective game of the season because he had no space in which to work and likewise Wilshere was largely anonymous in front of the watching England coach Fabio Capello. On the few occasions Arsenal did move it wide and look to cross the ball on to the head of Marouane Chamakh, the delivery wasn’t up to standard.

In short, teams know what they’re going to get from Arsenal and while the likes of Wolves and West Ham haven’t the quality of player to counter it, Manchester United and Chelsea have, and do so with ease.

Then there’s the Arsenal defence, which has leaked 19 goals this season in the Premier League - more than United, Chelsea and Manchester City. Even more than Sunderland down in seventh place. Watertight it ain’t, which leads us on to the second source of anger with Wenger among Arsenal fans – his dealings in the transfer market.

Centre-backs Sebastien Squillaci and Laurent Koscielny were Wenger’s big buys of the summer (along with Chamakh) and it took Arsenal fans about a month to realise neither was going to go down in the pantheon of Gunners defenders alongside Pat Rice, David O’Leary, Tony Adams or Steve Bould. Both lack pace, both lack presence and both lack positional sense.

Compare their performance on Monday with that of Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic, the United centre-backs, who so effectively dealt with the Arsenal attack. In contrast, Squillaci and Koscielny allowed the 5ft 7in Ji-Sung Park the time and space to head the crucial goal. Embarrassing.

Wenger needs to swallow his Gallic pride and admit he bought badly. Chamakh has started well – though he seems to struggle against really good defences – but Squillaci and Koscielny are not centre-backs around which a title-winning side can be built.

But will Wenger dabble in the January transfer market? Last month he appeared to rule it out, saying: “'My policy is to stick to the squad I have, we will not be on the market.”

That was before the United defeat, however, and even he must surely now recognise that the time has come to find two world-class defenders and a defensive-minded midfielder to complement the more attacking instincts of Nasri, Cesc Fabregas and Wilshere.

How Arsenal could do with a young Patrick Vieira or Emmanuel Petit. Instead they have to make do with Denilson and Alex Song, which just about sums up this current Arsenal team. 

 

The problem for Arsenal is that the longer this continues - this run of nearly, of almost, of what might be - the harder it becomes to rebuff the claim of Patrice Evra that Arsenal have mutated into no more than football’s greatest finishing school.

There has to be an end product, measured in trophies won, if this is not to be another season of useless beauty. At times, Arsenal’s football is so exceptional it feels almost sacrilegious to question the direction of Arsene Wenger. Yet this was not one of those times.

Arriving at Old Trafford top of the League, Arsenal failed to put it up to Manchester United, forcing barely a save from goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar. The margin was small but the best team won. Had Wayne Rooney scored his penalty, two goals would have separated the teams, a more accurate reflection of United’s superiority.

In this way, it was a depressing evening. The same old failings may pull Arsenal up short again, and that is a source of continued frustration. Whatever Wenger might think, his team could do with a major signing in the transfer window, they could do with the match-winning quality an outlay of £30million might bring, and they could do with a world-class goalkeeper. 

Evra’s words were disrespectful considering Arsenal’s wonderful contribution to the Premier League, but he is not alone in regarding Arsenal as a college rather than a challenge. Jose Mourinho is perhaps the most openly disparaging of Wenger’s project, but others are equally dismissive, if not publicly.

Here is one theory, advanced to me by a senior football man only recently. Wenger does not buy big because then he will have to deliver a trophy. While he chooses to build his team on a self-imposed budget, based on youth development, there will always be mitigation for nights like this.

The moment he throws money at it, like Sir Alex Ferguson, Carlo Ancelotti and Roberto Mancini at Manchester United, Chelsea and Manchester City, there will be no excuses. He loses at Old Trafford then and there is no hiding place.

We seem to spend each season highlighting the same deficiencies at Arsenal. How many times has the pedigree of the goalkeepers been debated? And here we go again. Arsenal did not lose to Manchester United because Wojciech Szczesny, a 20-year-old from Warsaw, was in goal, but even so, should he have been?

Wenger’s refusal to address an obvious weakness in his squad is nothing if not curious. Szczesny has talent and potential and made two excellent saves in the second half, but he should not have been exposed to this.

Wenger should have secured a world-class goalkeeper for Arsenal long ago; instead they were reduced to bickering over the fee for Fulham’s Mark Schwarzer in the summer. The difference in valuation between the clubs was said to be as little as £1million. Winning the league is worth at least 30 times that; hardly makes sense, does it?

True, Manchester United’s winner looped into Arsenal’s goal as much by luck as judgment and, for any other team, that would be dismissed as just one of those things. But this is not any other team. This is Arsenal and these players are on the brink of delivering on all of Wenger’s most fanciful predictions. They just need one last push.  

The problem for Arsenal is that the longer this continues - this run of nearly, of almost, of what might be - the harder it becomes to rebuff the claim of Patrice Evra that Arsenal have mutated into no more than football’s greatest finishing school.

There has to be an end product, measured in trophies won, if this is not to be another season of useless beauty. At times, Arsenal’s football is so exceptional it feels almost sacrilegious to question the direction of Arsene Wenger. Yet this was not one of those times.

Arriving at Old Trafford top of the League, Arsenal failed to put it up to Manchester United, forcing barely a save from goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar. The margin was small but the best team won. Had Wayne Rooney scored his penalty, two goals would have separated the teams, a more accurate reflection of United’s superiority.

In this way, it was a depressing evening. The same old failings may pull Arsenal up short again, and that is a source of continued frustration. Whatever Wenger might think, his team could do with a major signing in the transfer window, they could do with the match-winning quality an outlay of £30million might bring, and they could do with a world-class goalkeeper.

Evra’s words were disrespectful considering Arsenal’s wonderful contribution to the Premier League, but he is not alone in regarding Arsenal as a college rather than a challenge. Jose Mourinho is perhaps the most openly disparaging of Wenger’s project, but others are equally dismissive, if not publicly.

Here is one theory, advanced to me by a senior football man only recently. Wenger does not buy big because then he will have to deliver a trophy. While he chooses to build his team on a self-imposed budget, based on youth development, there will always be mitigation for nights like this.

The moment he throws money at it, like Sir Alex Ferguson, Carlo Ancelotti and Roberto Mancini at Manchester United, Chelsea and Manchester City, there will be no excuses. He loses at Old Trafford then and there is no hiding place.

We seem to spend each season highlighting the same deficiencies at Arsenal. How many times has the pedigree of the goalkeepers been debated? And here we go again. Arsenal did not lose to Manchester United because Wojciech Szczesny, a 20-year-old from Warsaw, was in goal, but even so, should he have been?

Wenger’s refusal to address an obvious weakness in his squad is nothing if not curious. Szczesny has talent and potential and made two excellent saves in the second half, but he should not have been exposed to this.

Wenger should have secured a world-class goalkeeper for Arsenal long ago; instead they were reduced to bickering over the fee for Fulham’s Mark Schwarzer in the summer. The difference in valuation between the clubs was said to be as little as £1million. Winning the league is worth at least 30 times that; hardly makes sense, does it?

True, Manchester United’s winner looped into Arsenal’s goal as much by luck as judgment and, for any other team, that would be dismissed as just one of those things. But this is not any other team. This is Arsenal and these players are on the brink of delivering on all of Wenger’s most fanciful predictions. They just need one last push.  

So, when they go down by one goal at Old Trafford and surrender the summit of the Premier League, we look for clues. And there in Arsenal’s goal is Szczesny — a fine prospect and yet to concede in the Carling Cup this season, but this is Manchester United away, and it is his Premier League debut. He is half the age of Van der Sar at the opposite end. Is this any way to win a title?

Arsenal had rotten luck with injuries prior to this game, no doubt about that. Manuel Almunia is out of favour and, when his understudy Lukasz Fabianski picked up a knock, Wenger had little option but to relegate him to the bench and pick the third choice instead.

Yet, looking along that cast list, is there anyone in Arsenal’s goalkeeping roster with the pedigree of a title winner? Think Van der Sar, Petr Cech, imposing figures who have long been regarded among the best in the world. Then consider that Arsenal’s first choice is not even a squad player for Spain, and their second conceded a goal last season when he turned his back on the play to argue a decision with the referee.

Then there is Szczesny: a callow reserve thrown into one of the biggest matches of the season. He made a fine save when Anderson was put in by Wayne Rooney early in the second half and denied a vicious chip from Rooney, but his positioning for the goal was unfortunate and his distribution nervous in the extreme.

His first kick went straight to a red shirt 30 yards from goal and in the first half he did a better job picking out United’s forward line than some of Ferguson’s midfield.

For the goal, he was in no man’s land, not far enough off his line to influence the play, not back protecting his goal. The ball arrived with Park Ji-sung courtesy of a fortuitous deflection, which did not help, but any header that goes in soft and loopy will be a frustration to a goalkeeper.

It was not Szczesny’s fault that Arsenal lost, but whether he should have been in that predicament is another question, A recurring one, unfortunately.

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