New Dawn or same old Sunrise

If you wanted to discover just how desperate Arsenal had become you only needed to glance at the broadening mushroom of hysteria following their clinical performance at the Etihad last week.

In just under ten years the club had transformed from Invincible to Invisible; the decline of the barren years may have been slightly exaggerated and approached without an appropriate degree of reason but they were arid nonetheless.

Last season’s FA Cup victory may have finally put life back into the Emirate’s trophy cabinet but the club’s issues were deeper. Arsenal capitulated more than any respectable team in the Premiership on away journey’s to clubs they should have been striving to compete with at the top of the table.

Their closest competitors Everton easily disposed of them at Goodison Park. Despite David Moyes lowering the drawbridge over the Old Trafford Arsene Wenger’s men (or boys) still appeared meek and puny on the trip that once defined their season like no other.

These are the reasons why we can’t accept last Sunday’s game as a new dawn for Arsenal. A return to the old, ultra-competitive Arsenal will only come with consistent performances mirroring the City display and evidence of an aversion to defeat; something that left the club when Cesc Fabregas walked out the door to Barcelona (Arsenal had already gone six seasons without silverware by then).

As starts go however, this was extremely promising. Arsenal’s defenders, usually as frantic as a lost child in a crowded supermarket during games like this, were extremely comfortable over the course of the game. City were restricted to a series of attempts from wide areas; Arsenal allowed no shots from the area in front David Ospina’s goal.

Francis Coquelin tamed the influence of David Silva in a more alluring way than merely attaching himself to the Spaniard; instead he cut off the supply line by constantly positioned himself between the ball and the diminutive playmaker. On four separate occasions during the first half the alert Frenchman prevented the ball from reaching Silva as City’s widemen attempted to pull the ball back to him on the edge of the box.

Enough has been said about Santi Cazorla’s dazzling performance in centre of the park but if you wanted to pinpoint a moment that encapsulated the win it would not be the Asturian’s dainty feet caressing the ball to safety from the edge of his own box in the final quarter of the game; it would be him rebounding off the floor to jog back into position after Pablo Zabeleta bludgeoned the ball into his face.

Arsenal approached the game with a sense of reality this side has never displayed before. A compact, deep base was what was required against the defending Champions; a frenzied attack would have inevitably led to another wild scoreline like last season’s 6-3. Arsene Wenger has only resorted to such a reactive gameplan on one occasion before.

The club’s 2005 FA Cup triumph came after a dogged, but admittedly fortunate performance against Manchester United. With Thierry Henry injured Dennis Bergkamp lined up in front of a midfield five although on this occasion The Dutchman was simply there to make up the numbers.

The Gunners may have had most of the possession but only United offered a threat; they had eight shots on target compared to Arsenal’s one. After the game Wenger reluctantly accepted the victory; privately he vowed never to resort to such a regressive style of play again. It’s no coincidence that on the two occasions where the Frenchman has placed more of an emphasis on the opposition than his own team, Arsenal have succeeded.

It’s probably unwise to discuss Arsenal’s squad depth on the basis that they are synonymous with injuries. If however the majority of Wenger’s midfielders and attackers can stay fit it will be impossible to keep all of them content each weekend. If the players have a healthy attitude to this it will only benefit Arsenal.

Atletico’s Diego Simeone swears by competition within the squad; without it, he says, last season was not possible.

“There is only one form of motivation, the lifeline of any team: internal competition. If there is no competition between players, the team dies. It’s the only situation which strengthens the coach.”

The Argentine points to internal competition as the strongest factor behind improvement.

“Take Raúl García for instance – during the first leg of the Spanish Supercup against Barcelona he found himself out of the team. The next day, I arrive at the training ground at eight in the morning and he is already there training. And it’s not by sheer chance that after that, he was called up by the national team”.

If Wenger can foster this selfishness for the greater good while continuing to take a more pragmatic approach to games Arsenal will certainly challenge again in the future. Arsenal haven’t got a squad as good as Manchester City and Chelsea but the first step toward matching them is to be aware of your own inferiority and adapting.

A strong second half to the season should see them climb to third in an ailing league, while they were blessed with the easiest path to the Champions League quarter finals too. Success in the FA Cup, where they are now the bookies favourites, would prove the club are finally returning back to their rightful place amongst the best in England.

After watching the professional performance against City there’s only one thing that can stop them; themselves.

Spirits of the Invincible

Regardless of how well we cope with an unthinkable new dawn the spirits of our loved ones will continue to sneak into our perspective. Arsenal fans found it impossible to relate to almost a decade of footballing inadequacy, constantly buckling under any degree of pressure, annually forced into a dangerous state of repair with the sale of their most coveted gem. With every disastrous set-piece the famous back five of the George Graham Era sat to feast like Banquo’s ghost, every unimaginative attacking performance only heightened the desire to reminisce over The Invincibles. But now the circle appears to be rounding, with the ghosts of Arsene Wenger’s earlier teams having returned, channeled through the Frenchman himself.

For nine years and counting Arsenal’s seasons have resembled the Russian folk song Kalinika, fluctuating on an almost weekly basis from scintillating performances threatening to over-whelm every challenger to tepid, resoundingly vulnerable displays. However this season, following the club’s most recent nadir of a home defeat to Aston Villa, The Gunners have found the consistency they’ve lacked in recent years. Following eight games they sit top of the league and while it’s probably premature to consider them concrete title contenders, this side does appear to possess the variety needed in attack to sustain a challenge over the course of a demanding season.

The primary reason for Arsenal’s improvement has been the recent addition of the apparition of the Non Flying Dutchman. In Mesut Ozil Wenger’s side have acquired a genuinely world class talent and arguably the best player in England. Ozil is incapable of errors, every choice he has to make on the pitch echoes perfection. The direction of his running, the weight of passing; his vision, enthusiasm and ability to find a pocket of space in the final third of the pitch is unmatched in Europe. A premier ten like Ozil is, regardless of the lazy moniker, a vintage Arsenal player. Having watched Robin van Persie soar and inspire Manchester United to the Premiership title last season Arsene Wenger and Ivan Gazidas knew that when a player of the German’s seemingly effortless calibre becomes available you act first and think about where he will fit later. As Brian Phillips noted, the signing was Wenger waving his middle finger to the pragmatism that suggested he could only restore his legacy in North London by shifting his emphasis to those who pick the fruits rather than those who group them into an appetising bowl.

Ozil doesn’t act alone however. Wenger has gathered a collection of attacking playmakers, allowing him to vary his tactical options going forward. The Alsatian selected a team comprised purely of intelligent ball-players against Napoli in the absence of the threat brought by the frantic and frenzied Theo Walcott. For a manager often bizarrely criticized for his lack of tactical intuition Wenger deserves full credit for handing his players the offensive liberty they have started the campaign with. On Saturday against Norwich the alchemy of the attacking trident of Jack Wilshere, Santi Cazorla and Ozil (sprinkled with a pinch of the unrecognizable Aaron Ramsey of this year) was brewed in Wenger’s raunchiest dreams.

Naturally this results in a lack of clean sheets. However that just makes this team even more compelling. You score two and we’ll score three football is what we aspire to see when we sit down to watch sports.

Wenger has persevered with much over the past decade. Financially the club was handcuffed to the goalposts, forced to watch cherished friends frolic towards pastures new. Cesc Fabregas, van Persie, even ginger stepsons like Alex Song and Emmanuel Adebayor were lured away from The Emirates’ pristine surface by artificially greener grass elsewhere. If Samir Nasri is to be believed (I know, like handing Bernie Madoff a suitcase with forty thousand pounds in it and asking him to drive to the nearest Audi dealership to pick you up a sparkling A6, just hear me out) Wenger has been forced to sell assets at the orders of Stan Kroenke. "Wenger told me that, if Cesc left, I would stay, but Kroenke wanted the money”, Nasri claimed while looking idle in Manchester.

In the midst of his most challenging seasons yet fans wanted the stubborn Frenchman to open up, admit his errors and change his ways. Ramsey was a mid-table write-off, Olivier Giroud proof of the deficiencies in the club's once admired scouting system. Both players have been integral in the opening months of the current campaign. Giroud has enjoyed torturing opposition centre-halves on a weekly basis, holding the ball up with distinction and redirecting passes to teammates when he’s been bored. It is Ramsey however who is rewarding Wenger the most. After years of average displays and shifts out wide his form has been sensational, as well as boasting a goal-return similar to Cesc Fabregas's break-out campaign in 2007/08. The Welshman protects and passes the ball similarly to Arteta, however he also provides composure in front of goal nowadays and a thrust from the centre of the pitch.

Naturally at this early stage it’s too early to claim Arsenal are the finished article, particularly having been gifted the easiest opening fixtures the league has to offer (it can’t last forever, but maybe it can last until next week’s clash with Crystal Palace). However in a league where no team at the top appears to be considerably better than another, Arsenal can claim to have as good a chance as any of their competitors. Aside from the litter of creative midfielders the squad is light on bodies , with a huge onus on Giroud as the club’s single proven striker, while Mathieu Flamini’s absence restored the uncertainty in Arsenal’s defence after his enforced substitution at the weekend. However compared to recent seasons Arsenal are enjoying a Caribbean cruise rather than a Himalayan hike.

Arsene Wenger has made mistakes in the last few years and like any romantic he will continue to do so. He knows each one and how he could have rectified them too, he’s just too stubborn to admit it. However the best thing Arsenal fans can do is to persevere with Wenger for as long as he pleases, because the longer his epoch goes on and on, the odds on his ghost looming over North London in the future get smaller and smaller. You don't know what you've got until it's gone.

Paolo Di Can'tio

It was a managerial style destined to produce as many casualties as the final scene of King Lear. A man going about his business like Denzel Washington in the final hour of Man on Fire with the crazed intent of a teenage psychopath finally getting his hands on Grand Theft Auto at a friend’s house after his own parents dared to say no. And yet the whole farce was as predictable as an Italian political scandal.

Paolo Di Canio’s appointment at the Stadium of Light at the tail-end of last season stands alone at the top of the podium for “Genuinely Horrific Managerial Appointments” in the Premier League’s life-time. Watching the situation in the North-East for the past six months has been like watching You’ve Been Framed for ten years and persisting with it, fully aware that Grandad will fall off his chair and plant his face into the birthday cake. The fact there seems to be a universal approval of Ellis Short’s decision to rid his team of its head-coach after a mere 12 league games highlights just how disastrous the Italian’s reign has been.

Di Canio may have topped his coaching class at home in Italy but whatever skills he might possibly possess in a tactical sense will never transmit to his players as a result of his immature, egotistical personality. The precursors were there; the two large elephants in the room waving and making advances at the Sunderland board prior to their final decision to charge Di Canio with the responsibility of keeping The Mackems’ head above water in a season where half a dozen teams could have staked a claim as worthy relegation-fodder. Not only was the Italian temperamental on the pitch with a chequered past of controversy but also a somewhat successful, yet ultimately tumultuous debut in the dugout in charge of Swindon Town; “management by hand grenade” in the words of chief executive Nick Watkins.

There was the public row with a goalkeeper following a premature substitution after twenty minutes, constant ultimatums towards the board, the youth team coach forced to take time off work due to high stress levels under Di Canio, and any time in between involved falling-out with his new signings whose agent’s fees added up to 46% of League Two’s total figures.

Yet Short expected the egos of Premiership footballers and that of a cocksure ex-pro to gel in matrimony. The writing was on the wall in the first week, the club’s vice-chairman and son of a Jewish immigrant David Miliband resigned from his post as a result of the new man’s political history and possibly due to the Fascist edition of the Bayeux Tapestry tattooed onto the former West Ham striker’s back. Even amidst protests from the Durham Miners’ Association the manager refused to deny or denounce his position at the high-right side of the political compass.

The Sunderland faithful will always have their 3-0 victory over an abysmal Newcastle side in Di Canio’s second game in charge but in truth it merely papered over the cracks. Dismal teams like Aston Villa and West Brom were capable of making Sunderland appear embarrassingly toothless in attack and as helpless as the runt of the pack in defence.

30 million pounds was spent during the summer to bring in a total of 14 new players while other leading figures like Simon Mignolet and Danny Rose were either sold or handed back to their parent club. Di Canio was never expected to mould his new squad together in the first month of the season however his methods never would have. Criticising your own players tends to be a recipe for disaster, there’s a reason Arsene Wenger and Alex Ferguson tend to over-achieve with the squads at their disposal. In order to criticise players even in private you must first earn their respect. Di Canio completely neglected this. Conor Wickham was “the playboy model”, the foreign signings criticised for a lack of English, while he ridiculed the idea that he apologised to John O’Shea after describing the captain’s sending-off in the limp loss to Crystal Palace as "absolutely poor and unacceptable". Di Canio was the self-righteous GAA supporter frowning upon soccer stars due to the money they earn, completely ignorant to the fact that they, as human being can be rubbed the wrong, and indeed the right way.

In his defence he likened his approach to that of Ferguson, pointing to the fourth rule in the Scot’s recent blueprint for successful management, “never, ever cede control”. However point five negated Di Canio’s argument. “No one likes to be criticised. Most respond to encouragement. For any human being there is nothing better than hearing 'Well done'”. Ferguson was the master of motivating his players through a mixture of private criticism and public backing. Andy Cole tells a story of being absolutely berated in the dressing room by his manager only to be on the receiving end of friendly jokes for the rest of the week leading up to the next match. Such warmth gave his players an extra 20% in Cole’s opinion.

Last season Stephane Sessegnon was beginning to show signs of discontent around the squad, a decline running parallel with Sunderland’s slide southwards in the league table. While Martin O’Neill’s tactical approach had gone stale, his vigorous ability to spark motivation into his men still lingered over the squad. After a comforting conversation with his manager the Benin international regained his status as the team’s figurehead and sole creative outlet. This was something Di Canio could never and will never be able to replicate. Once the sacking was announced last night West Brom’s Gareth McAuley and Norwich’s Anthony Pilkington began tweeting of celebrations in the Sunderland squad, clearly aware of the discontent in the dressing room. One young recruit, El Hadji Ba was blunt in his reaction. “LOL”.

Sessegnon was one of the lucky ones who got away from the former Lazio leader’s talons. Fortunately he was shipped off to West Brom where, inspired by having his reputation slurred in the Italian’s press conference, he aptly delivered the last rights to Il Duce’s managerial career. A little motivation can go a long way.