Chelsea's success in winning the FA Cup last season was lent added distinction by Ruud Gullit becoming the first foreign manager to lead a team to victory in the final. Obviously the possibility of Arsene Wenger following suit this time will grow stronger with every tie Arsenal win.
To the casual eye the serene quality of Arsenal's football in the first hour of Saturday's fourth round tie at Middlesbrough must have made them a sound Cup bet. The authority of Tony Adams had been restored to the defence and Dennis Bergkamp's passing across a muddy surface endowed the Riverside pitch with the properties of a bowling green.
With sharper finishing Arsenal might have been four or five up by half-time. As it was they won rather more narrowly, 2-1, and would have been taken back to Highbury for a replay had Mikkel Beck scored from Paul Merson's excellent return pass in the 87th minute.
In the nearby Yorkshire Dales there is a village called Beck Hole which at that moment is where the Dane might have felt like burying himself. Among Teesside supporters there would probably have been more than one pair of hands willing to assist in the interment.
Yet such had been the ambivalence of Middlesbrough's approach to the tie that when Alex Manninger, Arsenal's Austrian alternative to the injured David Seaman, saved Beck's poorlystruck shot the home bench might just have been suppressing a smile. For while defeat was a disappointment the last thing Middlesbrough wanted was a replay.
Having insisted before the game that promotion back to the Premier League was the club's principle aim this season Middlesbrough proved as good as their word. Bryan Robson started the game with Beck, Craig Hignett and Vladimir Kinder on the bench and faced Arsenal with two raw 18-year-olds, Andy Campbell and Anthony Ormerod. Also missing was Nigel Pearson, without whom the defence is always liable to cave in.
This is precisely what happened. Within little more than a minute Bergkamp had sent Marc Overmars through a spreadeagled back four give Arsenal the lead. Another 17 minutes and with Middlesbrough caught upfield following a free kick Adams's long clearance reached Nicolas Anelka, who cleverly found Ray Parlour surging through on the right to score a second goal. Only indifferent finishing and a sharp piece of defending by Steve Baker, who doubled back to deflect the ball wide after Mark Schwarzer had been beaten, prevented Overmars completing a hat-trick. The contest should have been over before the match was an hour old.
The fact that it became a contest at all was due almost entirely to Merson's determination to show Wenger that selling him last summer was wrong. Once Middlesbrough managed to lend him support without his having to come deep to find the ball Merson certainly made out a case to answer.
His goal, taken astutely a minute past the hour from Robbie Mustoe's pass, was helped by a rash charge beyond the penalty area by Manninger which bore echoes of a similar mistake by Seaman that had cost Arsenal a goal against Leicester on St Stephen's Day. Manninger was redeemed both by his late save from Beck and the agility he had shown during the first half in keeping out an attempted lob from the Bolivian Jamie Moreno.
If the header Mustoe put over the bar, from Moreno's cross, early in the second half is taken into account it is almost possible to argue a case for a Middlesbrough vic tory, although Robson himself admitted that "we didn't deserve to pinch it." But the fact that they came so close to saving the game once Beck and Hignett had been brought on posed pertinent questions about their initial approach to what was ostensibly the tie of the day.
Last season still rankles with Middlesbrough, mostly because of the three Premier League points they had deducted after failing to turn up at Blackburn, claiming they could not raise a team of recognisable strength. Their struggle to stay up, moreover, became bogged down with cup games, 16 all told, and they finished threetime losers - beaten in both the domestic cup finals and relegated to boot.
This time Middlesbrough's priorities are clear and it is hard to argue with them. But when a club from a lower division meets a team of Arsenal's standing in the fourth round of the FA Cup and puts out an under-strength side as a matter of policy then the world's oldest knockout competition can only be demeaned.
What sort of team will Robson field at Anfield tomorrow in the opening leg of the League Cup semi-final? Last season Middlesbrough knocked out Liverpool in the fifth round. With one chance of a reappearance at Wembley so close dare he pick the kids again?
Arsenal meet Chelsea in the other semi-final at Highbury the following night. Arsenal can take or leave the League Cup, but with the championship a distant prospect Wenger will surely pursue the FA Cup with greater zeal.
Saturday's victory was encouraging for Arsenal after the anxieties of the shoot-out at Port Vale in the third round, but judgment on Arsenal's FA Cup prospects will have to wait until they again encounter opponents whose ambitions lie in the same direction.
Middlesbrough: Schwarzer, Maddison, Harrison, Festa, Vickers, Mustoe, Ormerod, Townsend, Moreno, Merson, Campbell (Baker 29). Subs Not Used: Kinder, Summerbell, Hignett, Beck. Booked: Festa, Baker. Goals: Merson 62.
Arsenal: Manninger, Dixon (Grimandi 87), Winterburn, Vieira, Bould, Adams, Anelka, Bergkamp, Overmars, Parlour, Petit. Subs Not Used: Wreh, Boa Morte, Lukic, Hughes. Goals: Overmars 2, Parlour 19.
Guardian Service.
