ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE:ARSENE WENGER had a lot to say after his Arsenal team had been beaten 3-0 at home by Chelsea in the Premier League on November 29th, and most of it was held up as sounding one-eyed at best, deluded at worst.
He suggested that Didier Drogba, Chelsea’s two-goal match-winner, “doesn’t do a lot”, he raged at refereeing injustice in the form of the decision to disallow an effort from Andrey Arshavin and insisted the final result was a “very unfair reflection of the game”.
It was his hopes for the future, though, that had many people in attendance listening for the sound of the wailing ambulance siren.
The defeat, Arsenal’s fourth of the Premier League season, meant they trailed Chelsea by 11 points, albeit having played one game fewer.
“I’m used to definite conclusions from people who see the score and have a great knowledge,” Wenger said, waspishly. “That’s what you get in an excessive world. I believe in what I saw. I never had the impression that we couldn’t win this game and we were quite a lot on top. I don’t think it’s all over. The problem we will face now is that people will not believe in us and we have to make sure that lack of belief doesn’t diminish our belief. I’m convinced that Chelsea can still drop points.”
Wenger was wheeled away . . . sorry, got up and exited the Emirates Stadium’s press conference theatre to begin a bout of soul-searching. Tomas Rosicky, the midfielder, would catch the mood in the team’s dressingroom. “It will be very difficult for us to win the title now, we know that,” he said.
Move forward to Wednesday night at the Emirates, in the same press suite, and the contrast was eye-opening, with Wenger’s rosiness even extending to the wryest of acknowledgements. “At the time,” he said, “it looked a bit ludicrous to say we’d come back.” It might have threatened to get worse for the Frenchman before it got better – witness his touchline spat with Mark Hughes during Arsenal’s 3-0 League Cup defeat at Manchester City on December 2nd – but it most surely has got better.
The 4-2 victory over Bolton Wanderers meant that his team have taken 23 points from an available 27. Chelsea, meanwhile, have dropped points and Arsenal, top of the table on goal difference, albeit having played one game more than Chelsea, are not only back from the brink but they sense the possibility of something remarkable.
“It shows, first of all, that it can change quickly,” Wenger said. “When you keep that belief, no matter what people say, it can strengthen the belief in the heads of my players and get them stronger. The players have played with that belief and we believe we have a real chance. We will have a real go.”
Rosicky was asked whether he could have envisaged being back on top so soon after the Chelsea defeat. “It’s difficult to say,” he said. “But since that game, we started something new again. The other clubs can see that we are there, we want to win it and everybody will have to compete with us. I think you can see that this team has great mental strength.”
There is little doubt as to the location of the turning point for Arsenal. When they were losing 1-0 at half-time to Liverpool at Anfield in the middle of last month, Wenger put everything on the line to criticise his players savagely. They responded with an improved second-half performance and emerged as 2-1 winners, with Arshavin scoring the winner.
Driven by the captain, Cesc Fabregas, who has hit a rich vein of form, and with Arshavin’s mercurial ability to the fore, there appears to be greater steel about the team in every sense this season. Comeback victories and vital late goals have emphasised their character and they did not shy from the physical fight in either of their fixtures against Bolton over this past week.
“We are certainly much more physically resistant,” Wenger said. “Physically, you’re never better tested than against Bolton. You cannot find a team better than Bolton in doing what they do in terms of man-to-man marking and not giving us an inch of space.”
Wenger will demand more of the same in the FA Cup fourth-round tie at Stoke City on Sunday, a match in which he will rotate his personnel, and then the defining period looms. Arsenal face four Premier League matches in the space of 14 days, beginning on Wednesday with the trip to Aston Villa. Thereafter, they play Manchester United (home), Chelsea (away) and Liverpool (home).
“Everybody knows that the coming weeks are the critical ones in the whole season,” Rosicky said. “On the other hand, the team always lacked a bit of consistency so we look game by game, because that is what we need. We are definitely up for the title and we want to do it.” Arsenal for the title no longer sounds so ludicrous.
Guardian Service
