Big Man, or Big Man in the Pub. Black November
Champions
By Howard Cunnell
December 7 2004
After Arsenal’s defeat at Liverpool just over a week ago, my eight-year old daughter Lily asked me, "Are Liverpool any good Dad?"
Although Lily was taken to Highbury when she was just seven days old (and was breastfed in the Clock End by her mother in front of astonished Gooners who, presumably, thought that they might have escaped precisely this kind of thing by getting out of the house and going to the football), she has only come to her love of Arsenal recently. She plays football twice a week and watches the Arsenal on the TV when she can; playing and watching are done wearing the same shirt, last season’s away shirt with Lily 8 on the back (Dad’s says Arsene 3). She has pictures of Kolo and Freddie on her bedroom wall. Because Lily only really started following Arsenal last season she isn’t used to us losing; hence the question, "Are Liverpool any good Dad?" The way she asked it suggested that she hadn’t really got to grips with the idea that we might lose; her experience of watching Arsenal is that we turn up, trash the opposition, score at least three contenders for goal of the season in each game and look cool doing it. Football? It’s easy. After the Man United game the case was made that it wasn’t fair, Arsenal were kicked off the pitch, so it didn’t count. But when Liverpool won, well something had clearly gone wrong; Arsenal didn’t lose, certainly not twice. Lily struggled to understand it, and so she asked a question that in its innocence summed up the exalted position from which Arsenal fans have been watching football for the last few years. So brilliantly have Arsenal played that it can be legitimately asked of , arguably, the most successful club side in English football history, who beat us for the first time since that Cup Final, are they any good Dad? The same kind of attitude among fans, some of whom have been going to games for longer than I have by the look of them (and I’ve been going for 27 years), is less forgiveable. In all the talk of a crisis, of no Plan B, of goalkeepers, and of Thierry Henry not being a big time player, there seems to me to be a childish undertone to a lot of the criticism; it’s not fair that Arsenal are five points behind Chelsea. You know the kind of thing, Rooney dived, Ferdinand shouldn’t have been on the pitch, Pascal’s cursed, Chelsea have got too much money, and Liverpool only won because the reserve team carthorse striker got lucky on the end of a hoof from the keeper. All of this is true, but it’s not the point. The point, as Freddie pointed out, is attitude. If I say that I don’t think Arsenal would have lost against Man United if Gilberto Silva had been playing but that by the Liverpool game I don’t believe the criminally undervalued Brazilian World Cup winner would have made much of a difference, it’s because the team’s attitude for 70 minutes of that game was so badly wrong, and stunk the place out so completely, that even Gilberto’s metronomic, steadying influence on the team would not have made a difference. What was wrong with the team’s attitude against Liverpool? Simply that we didn’t compete. Arsenal went 49 games unbeaten for lots of reasons. Two of the most important were that we always defended from the front, and, in turn, this meant that teams playing against us had to get through forwards who hassled them when they had the ball, after which they would come up against Pat and Gilberto, and if you got through that, then Sol or Kolo (re-inventing the role of the centre-half last season, not so this) would get you. The ball would be won by the team’s spine, and then spread out to the wings at pace; midfielders would flood forward. Goals were scored, records broken. The way Arsenal play is deceptively simple, but make no mistake, the team play to a system; it’s not some Harlem Globetrotters free for all that’s made up on the spot. This is not happening just now. A combination of injuries, a thin squad, and individual players form taking a dip mean that we are clearly struggling to meet the standards set so memorably during the unbeaten run. In the short term, the personnel are not going to change; if anything, the team is going to be as weak on paper as it has been all season going into tonight’s game against Rosenborg and the showdown against the Russians on Sunday. It is not easy to be confident going into that game in particular with the vastly promising but physically frail Fabregas and the yet to impress Flamini starting in central midfield. So what is going to win us these games? Attitude, fight, determination, getting your tackles in, playing the pressing game, never say die, call it what you like, but it seems to me that these are all qualities synonymous with Arsenal Football Club. From the off against Chelsea, we have got to get stuck in. Winning tackles gets the crowd behind you and gives you the confidence to play football. The Chelsea game in particular will be won by the team who is up for it more. Before we were brilliant, we won trophies precisely because of these qualities, and if you doubt that I suggest you dust off a copy of the 1987 League Cup Final or 1994 Cup Winners Cup Final. To retain the Championship, and to progress in Europe, Arsenal players have to remember who they’re playing for, they have to roll their sleeves up and, to use an old fashioned expression, they have to fight for the shirt. Maybe Pat should get Ray Parlour or TA to give the team talk, or maybe he should just repeat whatever he said at half time against Liverpool last year. It’s time to walk tall. Like my old diving partner Mike used to say: you can be a big man, or a big man in the pub. H. Cunnell. 7/12/4.