Ten minutes after the final whistle, with Chelsea’s fans chirruping ‘Champions League, you’re having a laugh†to a near-empty stadium, the cheery fellow who mans the Highbury Tannoy announced that ‘the games still come thick and fastâ€.
Not as fast as they might have. Tannoy man was referring to the fact that Arsenal host Liverpool in the Premiership on Friday afternoon and then go to St James’ Park 48 hours later, but those fixtures hardly answer the full depth of the question being asked in north London: what now for Arsenal?
Not so long ago it would have been construed as hysterical, but on Wednesday morning it felt as if two defeats in the space of four days really did constitute a crisis. The treble became the double became a single in the time it takes for Saturday afternoon to become Tuesday night.
A deflated Arsène Wenger said afterwards of Arsenal’s great unfulfilled European potential, ‘there is always a question mark about a team as long as you don’t do itâ€. That question mark hangs over other issues at Highbury now.
Wenger admitted that Saturday’s 1-0 FA Cup semifinal defeat by Manchester United had drained the players more than he had thought — and not just their legs.
‘When you are on such a long unbeaten run it’s a big blow to lose,†he said. ‘It’s strange. Once you hit the wall it’s hard to recover.â€
The wall has been thumped and Arsenal have to prove they can recover as quickly as José Antonio Reyes’s ligaments. The crest of a wave became the crest of a slump and even the single achievement of winning the Premiership remains theoretical. Chelsea, after all, are the team closest to Wenger’s.
Arsenal relinquished an eight-point lead in last season’s league race and Wenger was not being deliberately bleak when he said: ‘The league is far from won. The most difficult thing is in front of us; it’s a big weekend.â€
So nothing can be taken for granted where Arsenal are concerned. Only a week ago quite a lot was, and even after Saturday there was some certainty about them reaching a first-ever European Cup semi. The squad is too good not to, that was the logic.
Arsenal’s bout of introspection is sure to include a look at the size of those bank loans for the Ashburton Grove project. That Everest-sized figure of £357-million is bound to look even more daunting now that the enticing semifinal — lots of glamour, pots of cash — is revealed as an assumption too far.
And the £357-million is sure to appear ever larger when the inevitable speculation about the three musketeers starts. A 60 000 stadium would be easy to fill with Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira and Robert Pires in full flow. It is considerably harder without, and the French trio are sure to brood all the way into Euro 2004 after this.
Wenger said this will be harder to stomach than the exit to Valencia on the away-goal rule three years ago, even though he added: ‘I’m always confident we can bounce back next season.†It was delivered in a flat tone. Wenger knows there is work to be done on his team, even one that has brought such pleasure as this one. —