Emblazoned across The Emirates, incorporated on the team kits, ‘Victoria Concordia Crescit’ is a principle, a motto, a standard. Its roots stretch deep – six and half decades deep. It encapsulates what we envisage Arsenal to be – a team playing free-flowing, harmonious football, who reflect that in the boardroom. But nowadays do we really?
On the back of Saturday’s performance and a stirring AGM the tides seem to have turned in the red half of North London. As unorganised off the pitch, as they are on it – questions have been raised by fans and shareholders alike. Where is the solidity of nearly ten years ago?
The Invincibles, the 49ers, that record-breaking team – the name of the class of 2004 may have varied, but the opinion shared by football fans was the same – sensational. A team bursting at the seams with talent. It was the perfect blend of British brute and foreign flair. They were unstoppable, they were unbeatable.
It’s that team that has made Arsenal who they and built their reputation to make it what it is. As much good as it may have done, it’s dealt its fair share of negative blows that people may not have noticed. However, the bruises are now there to be seen.
They set the standard so high, that any team after wouldn’t have the capability to emulate it, and forever be compared to them. The team of nine seasons ago put the name of the club on so high a pedestal that it was inevitable that one day they’d lose balance and have people wondering what ever went wrong.
There was one man responsible for leaving a cannon-shaped imprint on the Annals of footballing history – Arsène Wenger. You may have heard of him. He has been a permanent fixture in overseeing this transition from extraordinary, to rather ordinary. Although, while his recent teams have tried their best to tarnish his name, he has single-handedly revolutionised modern football. That’s why he boasts the small title of being World Coach of the Decade.
Whether unearthing talent, creating it or on the rare occasion, buying it – his teams have always possessed it. But that team on Saturday afternoon seemed to lack it. On paper it had one of the best midfields in world football, a Ligue 1 top-scorer, an international captain, and centurion. Not all doom and gloom, correct? Wrong.
A team is much more than a combination of individuals – and Arsenal more than anybody know that; but the 2-1 loss seemed to show a level of ignorance to that. Gooners have been deprived of the fight and fire they had recently been accustomed to. There was no Tony Adams or Patrick Vieira to compose and control the troops after conceding so early on. There was no Thierry Henry to create something from nothing.
Those are the players that made Arsenal versus United games the highlight of any football season, as a whole. There was tenacity, there was determination, and there was excellence in abundance. More importantly, there was competition. Predicting an outcome was as easy as predicting David Beckham’s next hairstyle. Just virtually impossible. Because it was more than quality that dictated the games.
Welcome to 2012, where Arsenal fans were expectant of absolutely nothing, before the trip to Old Trafford. Wenger starting Aaron Ramsey – a natural midfielder – on the wing, rather than the midweek hat-trick hero, Theo Walcott, epitomises the ambition as a club. It seems the Professor himself didn’t expect much. Newly-promoted Southampton showed more ingenuity against the Red Devils than Arsenal could have imagined.
They lacked any cutting edge. To be frank, they lacked any edge at all. United dominated and played their London opponents off the park. It was a shambolic performance from the three-time Premier League Champions. Robin van Persie smelt success in Manchester and he leapt at the chance. It is clear that these were his intentions after Wenger told the media that the Dutchman had turned down a £300k per week salary at The Etihad. Loyalty aside, that doesn’t seem that bad a decision, now, on the face of it. Perhaps that’s why André Santos covered more ground to get his shirt, than he did that entire first half.
That brings me to the topic that the Brazilian full-back highlights in glowing resplendence. The quality of some of the players at Arsenal is simply unacceptable. As Andy Dunn had mentioned, it’s as though some of them feel fortunate to be playing at such high a level. It has reached the point that when André Santos uses the hash-tag #ArsenalForever in his Tweets, I genuinely fear for the club’s future.