ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE:THE FIRST thing to understand about Patrick Vieira is that he is not the box-to-box midfielder of those nine years at Arsenal when his meaning to English football could fairly be described as immense. Vieira has had to adapt his game, just as his old foe Roy Keane did when he, too, reached that age when retirement started to appear on the horizon like a slow-descending fog.
Vieira will be 34 in June, not old enough to be considered as shot but an age nonetheless when there have to be misgivings about whether this formidable competitor has been reduced by the years and the injuries and the sheer toll, even before we get to his time in Italy, of being both the sinew and the spirit of Arsenal in their most dominant years.
The question is whether Vieira is still equipped to take hold of a game and bend it to his will, and the Frenchman is aware he will be under great scrutiny if a sore calf he suffered in his final game for Internazionale on Wednesday is not troublesome enough to deprive him of a Manchester City debut at home to Blackburn Rovers on Monday.
A few minutes before that tall, familiar figure walked into the media room at City’s training ground yesterday, he was introduced to one of the club’s heroes.
“It was the legend Mike Summerbee,” Vieira reported, “and he wanted to tell me that he had played until the age of 40. Maybe I will, too. I might not be as quick as I was at 20, but my brain is still going really fast and it’s not as if I am 40 or 45.
“Football is not all about running or speed, it is about using your brain. I have no doubt that I can cope with it, no problems. Is the Premier League faster? Probably. Can I cope with the changes? Yes, of course I can.”
The doubts are given credence because those expressing them include two of his former Arsenal team-mates, Lee Dixon and Nigel Winterburn, both of whom have questioned whether this is a player on the wane.
“Everyone is allowed to give their opinion,” Vieira responded. “But it is one of thousands of opinions. I have nothing to prove to anybody, to Dixon or Winterburn. I just have to believe in myself. I know what I am capable of and I am back in England because I feel I still have something to offer. And City believe in me as well.”
He had missed the Premier League, he said, including those famous battles with Keane, a man he remembered generously as “a pleasure to play against”.
Earlier Harry Redknapp, the Tottenham Hotspur manager, had put a thousand north London cats among the pigeons by claiming that Vieira, for all his Arsenal history, had tried to get a move to White Hart Lane last summer.
“So many clubs were interested in me and Redknapp is someone I admire a lot,” the player confirmed. “I like the way that he manages. He has been really successful with Portsmouth and he’s now doing well with Spurs. I like him a lot.”
So it was true? “It would have been difficult to go there as an ex-Arsenal player.”
Arsenal had also explored the possibilities of bringing him back from Milan, though Vieira could not even remember the last time he was in contact with Arsene Wenger. “It’s been a long time,” he finally said.
Then the subject of Manchester United came up. “I remember my last kick for Arsenal was the winning penalty against United in the (2005) FA Cup final,” he said. “That is a good memory and maybe a good omen. But this is a different United now. It is not the same United.
“They don’t dominate the Premier League as much as they used to because now you have Chelsea, Liverpool, as well as Arsenal, plus City and Aston Villa. There are so many teams now who can finish in the top four and that has made it really difficult for United to dominate. They don’t look as strong as they used to.”
Roberto Mancini’s immaculate win record since replacing Mark Hughes has left City fifth in the Premier League, 10 points behind Chelsea but with a game in hand.
“I strongly believe we are not out of the race for the title,” Vieira continued. “At Arsenal one year we won the title from 15 points behind at Christmas. Everything is possible.
“The squad is packed full of quality and the ambition should be high. We should not be afraid of saying we are good enough to win the league. For starters, I don’t believe there is another team in the Premier League that have the quality of strikers that we have.”
Mancini has been reunited with a player he signed for Inter from Juventus.
“Patrick is a world-class midfielder with a winner’s mentality and will fit into this group very well,” the manager said. “He knows me and my staff well and importantly he also knows what the Premier League is all about. He will not need much time to settle in. Patrick is one of the great players of his era.”
He has signed a six-month contract, with the option of another year to follow, by which time Vieira hopes to have played well enough to deserve a place in France’s World Cup squad.
In the meantime, it would be little surprise if Mancini decides to replace Kolo Toure as captain with a player whose CV includes three league titles and FA Cups with Arsenal, three Serie A championships (four had it not been for the Juventus match-fixing scandal), as well as being part of France’s 1998 World Cup and Euro 2000-winning sides.
- Guardian Service
