The most commanding club in the Premiership at last began to exercise a quivering influence on their own fate in the Champions League. Minds inflamed by Ashley Cole’s late winner were in no condition for immediate calculations, but Arsenal will go through to the knockout stage if they win both of their remaining group games.
There is, of course, a snag for the side who are presently fourth. They have to overcome Internazionale in Milan before they can attend to Lokomotiv Moscow at this stadium. Simply resuscitating themselves in the competition is already a minor feat, consider the unlikely identity of their scorer.
The left-back’s name was absent from all prior discussion of the men who ought to share the goal-gathering duties with Thierry Henry. Desperation must have impelled him as the crowd bayed and the time remaining approached vanishing point. The substitute Sylvain Wiltord crossed from a deep position and, once the ball had grazed over Henry and Sergei Fedorov, Cole came bursting through to send a diving header into the net.
In that instant, the stadium ceased to be a shrine to Arsenal’s Champions League woe. The team entered this game without a home win in the tournament for 14 months, having been so spooked on their own territory that they seemed to need an exorcist as much as a groundsman.
Cole put the demons to flight in an enthralling match in which a hyperactive Arsenal landed 10 efforts on target and put another 13 wide. There was, all the same, just that solitary goal, a fact which helped explain why Arsène Wenger’s team had been without a win in eight previous Champions League fixtures.
Kiev, attacking more selectively, had good openings of their own and the true improvement of Arsenal lay in the fervour of their onslaught. The visitors, known to be uncertain travellers, had to resist with a robustness at surprising odds with the personality of their coach.
While Walter Smith was manager of Rangers he reduced the club’s AGM to mirth with his laconic, euphemistic observation that Alexei Mikhailichenko had ‘great economy of movement”. Despite that languid past, the former Ibrox midfielder is evidently capable of calling forth doggedness from his men.
Goran Gavrancic, above all, rallied the team from the heart of the defence, deflecting attacks despite the pace and appetite of Wenger’s side. With the speed cranked up, there was a reduction in Arsenal’s customary poise, but they might still have jostled their way into a much earlier lead.
Kiev were taken aback, in the seventh minute, by the eagerness with which Robert Pires broke. The goalkeeper Oleksander Shovkovskyi was a little fortunate that his outsretched leg happened to block a shot from Freddie Ljungberg, who was full of threat until his energies ebbed.
Arsenal nearly made the breakthrough after 33 minutes as they summoned up a moment of grace at pace.
Gilberto Silva fired a fine pass to Henry, who picked out Ljungberg’s break into the area. Shovkovskyi impressed by responding sharply to block at the Swede’s feet. A minute later the goalkeeper was powerless and Ljungberg would have given Arsenal the lead as he met a Henry corner-kick had it not been for Gavrancic’s goal-line clearance.
With Pires especially fluent and eager, Arsenal were making the transition from the knockabout Premiership to the more sophisticated demands of the Champions League. They were very nearly where they wanted to be three minutes after the interval.
Henry, acting as a target man, leapt to head down a long ball and put Dennis Bergkamp through but, although the Dutchman paused to steady himself, he still cracked his drive off the legs of the goalkeeper.
Bergkamp’s chance had its rousing effects on both sides and there was a proliferation of thrills and fears.
In the end, however, Arsenal did not succumb to another night of self-reproach and disappointment. —