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Invincibles? Gunners played like invisibles
Painful end to Wenger’s Champions League dream
THEY were always going to score.
We were never going to get three.
Manchester United are the champions of the world, while Arsenal lost to Hull at home. But forget all that, Tuesday night felt brutal.
Rarely has a season been so soundly extinguished and in such humiliating circumstances.
For 10 minutes the Emirates had thundered.
Flags flew in the evening sun and continental whistles drowned out the travelling support. United looked rattled.
It was the chance to chip a bit of character into this shiny new stadium and to exorcise some demons too.
Ryan Giggs and his stupid shirt-waving celebration; Wayne “remember the name” Rooney and that irritating three-finger salute that Teddy Sheringham felt he had to share with the world when United won the treble.
But any dizzy day dreams of revenge were shattered before the jumbo hot dogs had been properly digested.
Fans sat shaking their heads, flags between legs, staring blankly into space as the horror unfolded.
Arsenal’s frailties, so often exposed, were evident across the pitch.
It was 80 minutes flailing in the deep-end without armbands.
Emmanuel Adebayor again failed to make an impact, Theo Walcott tricked himself into knots and, like the lightweight Samir Nasri, was routinely squatted by Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand.
Kieran Gibbs, arguably Arsenal’s best player in the away leg at Old Trafford, inexplicably slipped and fell on a perfect pitch.
Another telling difference was United’s substitutions: Giggs, Paul Scholes and Dimitar Berbatov. Endless experience.
“This is so easy,” sang the away fans.
And they were right.
Arsene Wenger looked desolate in the press conference.
Not from being out of the European Cup, but by the huge gulf in quality between the sides.
He said: “Most difficult thing is that we do not have a feeling that we played a Champions League semi-final because we were out after 10 minutes.
“The party was over before it started.
“The fans were really up for a big night and to watch what happened was so difficult to accept. I want to make some distance from this season.”
An uncharacteristic concession that Project Youth had failed.
Since the break-up of the Invincibles, Arsenal have been routinely dumped out of the big competitions by the Premiership big boys.
The man of the season has been the cup-tied Andrey Arshavin, a proven goal-scorer that Wenger was prepared to spend big on.
A few more signings like that and there is no reason why Arsenal cannot regain their glory.
It is easy to forget that just two months ago fans were facing down a season in the Europa League, playing teams like Hertha Berlin, Slavia Prague or Tottenham on Channel 5.
It is thanks to Aston Villa’s capitulation and a relatively easy run of games that Arsenal can return for another pot-shot at the elusive prize next season.
Sir Alex Ferguson was magnanimous in victory.
He said: “I know what it is like for Arsene because before Barcelona I was being judged on not winning the European Cup.
“I do not think winning the European Cup makes you a top manager, but the press do, and that’s a fact of life.
“Arsene deserves success. The problem for him is the longer you are in the game the more you are judged on success or failure. It is the same for me.
“If you are losing you are useless. If you are winning you are a genius. It just gets worse the longer you are in the game.”
The good news, of which there was little, came right at the end of the night when Wenger dismissed rumours from the Spanish journalists that he was on the verge of leaving for Real Madrid.
“My contract is until 2011,” he said. |
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