When Arsène Wenger reflected that a mark of a great player lies in an ability to produce something special when least expected, it summed up José Antonio Reyes’s afternoon on February 15 to perfection.
As the clock reached 56 minutes it was possible to imagine the young Spaniard emerging as the match-winner only if he followed his effort at Middlesbrough by scoring an own goal, this time sealing victory for Chelsea.
Hard as he was trying, the recent arrival from Sevilla looked lost as an intense cup tie swirled around him. With Arsenal trailing and time running out, many home fans must have been thinking how much their team missed Thierry Henry and that Reyes still needed plenty of time to adapt.
As against Southampton recently, Reyes’s impact was minimal. He was struggling not only with the frenetic pace, but also to get on the same wavelength as his teammates and adjust to his role up front, having spent most of his career out wide. Only once did he look remotely like scoring. His most notable contributions lay in a willingness to chase and try to win tackles.
Then, in five startling minutes, Reyes scored twice to change the course of this match and demonstrate why Arsenal have paid an initial £7-million for him and could end up giving the Spanish club twice that.
His first goal, arrowed brilliantly and unstoppably into the top corner from 23m, may well prove to be a turning point for more than this tie. It has the look of the moment when Reyes will feel he ‘arrived” in England.
Wenger watched Reyes — or had him watched — 54 times before buying him and surely cannot have seen a better finish. As confidence coursed through the Spanish international, he found the net a second time. His excellently timed run left Mario Melchiot marooned, Patrick Vieira’s pass was perfect and Reyes dispatched the ball before disappearing under a heap of bodies.
‘To score my first goals for Arsenal in a match such as this was fantastic,” he said through an interpreter. ‘It’s the best feeling in the world. To score two goals to qualify for the next round of the FA Cup is wonderful.”
From the moment Reyes brought Arsenal level, the change in his play was marked. The expectation has been huge and immediately he showed far more willingness to get involved, drifting wide and dragging defenders about, as Henry does so effectively. ‘You could see a different player straight away,” said Wenger.
His goals apart, Reyes by no means reached the level of which he is capable, but that will surely come. He is still getting used to English football and to playing more with his back to goal, and ideally would be used as a link player alongside Henry or someone of that type. Here he was partnered by Dennis Bergkamp.
Claudio Ranieri understandably complained that his players had given Reyes too much time to approach and shoot for the opening goal. Perhaps they had not expected him to produce such a finish. Certainly Wenger had not. He was asked whether Reyes’s intervention had come as a surprise.
‘I always expect the goods from my players but, considering how he played in the first half, yes,” he said. ‘I didn’t expect him to have the courage to take the ball and do something special. But that’s the sign of a great player: when you don’t expect it, they do something special.
‘The first goal was a lift for him but overall I preferred the second goal because the quality of the movement is great and the quality of the pass is great. It’s very interesting to have a striker like that.
‘I think there’s a lot more to come. The boy is 20 years old and he has just arrived from Sevilla. He doesn’t speak the language and he’s had only three games. But there has been a change in the last few days.
‘He feels more comfortable in the team. It’s not easy when you don’t speak the language and you come into a team with so many great players and have to integrate. There’s a lot of work to be done, but you can see there’s talent.”
Reyes could well return to the bench against Chelsea on Saturday but he has made his mark. He has also set high standards by which he will be judged. As this showed, Arsenal fans should be patient. —