Patrick Barclay: Arsenal may be bruised but are still the main contenders

 
16 December 2013

Arsene Wenger’s attempt to convince Manchester City that they began the Premier League weekend under “negative pressure” was, it is fair to reflect, spectacularly unsuccessful.

Among the burdens of which Manuel Pellegrini’s title favourites even made light was that of maintaining a four-goal average at home. And they did it at Arsenal’s expense. Almost as if punishing the latest visitors to the Etihad for the defiance that made for a gloriously entertaining match, City airily slammed in an extra two.

For Arsenal the closing stages naturally revived memories of a painful experience on the other side of Manchester. Not that there was any comparison to be made with the 8-2 thrashing by United in 2011; a 6-3 defeat leaves Wenger’s men a little bruised but still serious candidates to finish top of a League table they now lead by two points.

To the list of rivals must be added Liverpool, who, quite apart from the stunning quality of their triumph at Tottenham, have the massive advantage of no European distraction, and United, who were my favourites on the season’s eve because I expected them instantly to deliver David Moyes performances such as brought victory at Aston Villa yesterday.

If Arsenal are to prevail, however, they will also have to end the season above Chelsea and the clash of London’s leading contenders at the Emirates a week today will tell us much about Wenger’s latest team — because there will be no excuses this time.

Wenger, though in public he made little of Arsenal’s lack of time to prepare for the City match, will have noticed more clearly than anyone that a certain heaviness of leg and mind contributed to the inferiority of his key men Mesut Ozil and Olivier Giroud to the likes of Yaya Toure and Sergio Aguero.

Perhaps the Arsenal manager’s reluctance to complain owed something to the fact that Pellegrini made a priority of Saturday’s collision, omitting Toure, Aguero and others from the Champions League fixture away to Bayern Munich, while Wenger (though he did spare Aaron Ramsey three-quarters of the match in Naples) made Ozil, Giroud and Mathieu Flamini plough on.

Fair enough. It’s his decision. He sees the players in training. And, if Wenger is greedily ambitious enough to believe his squad can handle both Premier and Champions League, let’s not forget that it is a characteristic that has done him no harm in a past featuring two domestic Doubles. Only Sir Alex Ferguson, with three Doubles, has emulated that.

But I do think Europe’s winter hibernation has come at a good time for Arsenal. Now the draw has been made for the first knock-out round, they can forget both this and the FA Cup collision with Spurs and concentrate on fitness for the Chelsea match.

It’s a seasonally hectic spell for every club afterwards but Arsenal need to go into it relieved of a suspicion that the bigger clubs still have too much for them.

Although, unlike Spurs, they have a home victory over Liverpool to their credit, a second defeat in Manchester enhances the view that their points total hitherto was flattered by the initial kindness of the Premier League fixture computer.

Now the time is coming for theories to evaporate and substance to emerge.And if, come February and March, the title campaign remains alive, a fresh look can be taken at how Wenger’s resources can be allocated.

At the moment his squad look neither strong nor deep enough to fight on two fronts.

After the welcome return to contention of Theo Walcott, he can expect to have it further augmented by returns to fitness of Lukas Podolski and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, so any activity on the winter transfer scene seems likely to be defensive.

Strategically, a mood of optimism should survive the Etihad. But right now only the next match matters.

Levy shows that he is a great believer… in fairytales

At least Daniel Levy had the good grace to look embarrassed yesterday. The Tottenham chairman appears genuinely to love the club he runs and, like every other supporter, must have been about as comfortable as you or I would have been had a long-awaited date simply not turned up.

As the minutes went by and bad turned to worse, the realisation dawned that there was no reassuring explanation — and Andre Villas-Boas paid the ultimate price today. Time, which fellow managers (including Steve Clarke) might believe Villas-Boas deserved, was not allowed to heal certain wounds and the Portuguese had suddenly become about as acceptable to White Hart Lane as Roy Hodgson once was to Anfield.

But was there any self-examination in Levy’s expression? If so, a list of those others whom he had appointed only to disappoint might have arisen in his mind: Jacques Santini and Juande Ramos as well as those, such as Martin Jol and Harry Redknapp, whom many supporters might welcome back.

Levy, who has twice tried to engage Jose Mourinho, seems to believe there is a genius out there ready to drop everything in order to make Spurs a major Champions League force — despite a maximum crowd of 36,000 and an owner who, unlike Chelsea’s, prefers not to throw his money around.

In other words, Levy and the owner, Joe Lewis, seem to believe in fairytales.

Villas-Boas was merely the latest to fail to write one against the clock. With Gareth Bale, he would have been better equipped to combat Luis Suarez yesterday. But Bale went and the money was spent on maybes. Results have been much as a reasonable person would expect but with extra goals leaked as new and bewildered heads dropped in the face of outstanding performances by Manchester City and Liverpool.

Whoever now takes over in the manager’s office, Levy and Lewis must fulfil their own functions.

While the new stadium remains a mirage — a thing of hoardings, brochures, plastic models and pipedreams — Spurs will lack the weight to land consistent punches such as Inter famously felt in Redknapp’s day. They need a Champions League home.

Fernandinho justifies tag

Anyone claiming he could see the excellence of Manchester City’s Fernandinho as soon as the Brazilian set foot on Premier League turf would have to be as good a judge as Manuel Pellegrini — and much better than Big Phil Scolari, who consistently overlooks the midfielder when naming his nation’s squads. But Saturday showed why Fernandinho cost £34million. He plays with the team sense that once made Gilberto Silva such an important part of Arsenal. If only Jack Wilshere could acquire it.

How Halsey is missed

The rights and wrongs of Mark Halsey’s absence from the BT commentary team — the former referee claims to have been dropped because of Premier League complaints — matters less than the void it leaves. By acquiring an authoritative voice on officials’ decisions almost as they were given, BT found a gap in Sky’s otherwise impressive armour. Now, once again, we are left with the musings of match commentators and their ex-player aides. ‘’Well, it was certainly a late flag…’’ Halsey could explain.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in