On Arsenal, artistry and acumen
Arsène Wenger won loads at Arsenal. The first double was special.
You never hear about shin splints anymore, do you?
On Arsenal, artistry and acumen
Some matches loom so large in football history that you remember them vividly, even as a neutral, decades later. Inconsequential details burrow between the layers of your skin, never to be forgotten for no reason whatsoever. Arsenal’s 4-0 win against Everton in May 1998 is one of those matches.
Arsenal had teams under long-serving manager Arsène Wenger that are more celebrated than the one that won the Premier League and FA Cup in 1997/98. Wenger also won the title in 2001/02 by winning an even more noted match against Manchester United at Old Trafford, and again in Arsenal’s historic unbeaten season two years later.
The Gunners built a reputation for attractive, innovative football as they emerged as one of England’s dominant forces at the turn of the millennium. Thierry Henry signed in 1999 and went on to become a Premier League icon.
Arsenal had a legion of greats in the first half-decade of the 2000s. Freddie Ljungberg, Kanu, Ashley Cole, Sylvain Wiltord, Robert Pires, Lauren, Edu, Sol Campbell, Gilberto Silva and Kolo Touré all joined the club between 1998 and 2002. The wave that followed were every bit their equal.
But the 1997/98 vintage had something about it. There was guts and industry to go with the swagger. If the younger players were slick and stylish, the experienced heads at the back were their solid foundations. Their manager made it work and more; Arsenal won their second domestic double and laid the groundwork for a third.
Wenger’s side dealt a hammer blow in March, beating leaders United on their own turf to really turn up the heat. The star performers that day were goalkeeper Alex Manninger, who kept Teddy Sheringham and Andy Cole at bay with the game goalless, and Marc Overmars. The now-disgraced Dutch winger was a thorn in United’s side all afternoon, his later evident knack for torment thankfully trained only on United defender John Curtis.
Overmars scored the only goal of the match, racing on to a Nicolas Anelka header before nodding the ball into space for himself and finishing smartly past Peter Schmeichel. Arsenal had been chasing down top spot for months and now, finally, had a realistic shot at the title.
They promptly saw off Sheffield Wednesday, Bolton Wanderers, Newcastle United, Blackburn Rovers, Wimbledon, Derby County and Barnsley before Everton visited Highbury with the destiny of the championship firmly in Wenger’s hands at the start of May.
Arsenal beat Everton 4-0, their tenth victory in a row, to seal the Premier League title with enough room to spare to accommodate a hammering against Liverpool and a loss at Aston Villa – courtesy of a famous Dwight Yorke penalty – in the week that followed.
Against Everton, though, Arsenal were exceptional. A Slaven Bilić own goal under pressure from stalwart defender Tony Adams got them going early and they gradually eased into party mode. Anelka assisted Overmars twice more, both times winning a contested ball in midfield to set his team-mate away to cap a fine run and a goal. The first finish was fortuitous, the second more assured.
I’m sure Arsenal supporters hold the third goal against the Toffees in high esteem but the truth is it wouldn’t have stuck in my memory, title or no title, without the goal that followed it. That was the moment. That was the strike that echoed down the ages.
Arsenal scored three times in transition on 3rd May 1998. Anelka to Overmars? Pah! Give me Steve Bould to Tony Adams any day of the week.
David Platt pinched the ball on the half-way line and it squirmed away to the retreating Bould. His captain was moving past him, in the opposite direction, at pace. The sight of Adams springing Everton’s offside trap to go clear, awkwardly but effectively controlling the bouncing ball with his hip and smashing it left-footed past goalkeeper Thomas Myhre will stay in my memory until the day I die.
“Would you believe it? That sums it all up. Arsenal, awesome!” enthused Sky Sports commentator Martin Tyler.
And we would believe it. This was Wenger’s Arsenal in its early days and its rawest form. Before his influence helped to progress their rivals. Before we knew the Invincibles were imminent. Before Henry. Long before the world football’s most resolutely online fanbase pulled itself apart in the latter stages of Wenger’s career.
They were the perfect synthesis of fire and steel, the new breed and the old dogs learning each other’s tricks. The run Adams made in behind the Everton defence at Highbury was so much more profound than the garbage time goal at the end of it. It was a glorious culmination and celebration of what Arsenal had become.
Adams was their leader, tough as old boots and older, too. Arsenal’s all-English back four featured Adams, Nigel Winterburn, Lee Dixon and Martin Keown. They were all in their thirties, as were goalkeeper Seaman and late substitute Bould.
The rest of the team were rather more cosmopolitan. Ray Parlour was there and it doesn’t get much more chic than that, but Overmars, Patrick Vieira, Emmanuel Petit, Anelka and Christopher Wreh gave it a go in the enforced absence of the legendary Dennis Bergkamp.
Wenger’s early alchemy was a masterful unification of styles not by force but by osmosis. Arsenal’s accomplished imports learned plenty from the feted back line and Adams made lung-busting last-minute runs beyond the defence like some sort of turbocharged Danny Blind. It was brilliant. They were brilliant.
Bergkamp’s contribution can’t be overstated. Only he, Overmars and Ian Wright made it into double figures in terms of Premier League goals in 1997/98.
Bergkamp supplemented 16 of those with 11 assists, which for all intents and purposes adds up to a goal contribution per game over the course of the 28 he played. It was his best season in an Arsenal shirt in that regard and, like Overmars, he registered his best Premier League ratio of goals to shots on target in 1997/98 too.
I’m not an Arsenal supporter. My choice of preferred Arsenal teams is neither here nor there. But admiring this particular team over one that went almost fifty Premier League matches without losing while redefining the aesthetics of top-flight English football presumably says something about me.
Passing perfection is fine. Blood and thunder? I’ll take it all day. But give me the electrifying collision of the two and I’m yours. The 1997/98 vintage was the start of something bigger and better but the high’s never the same the second time, is it?
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Salty beef extracts
Women's World Cup 2023: How female players have finally got the football kit they deserve (BBC Culture)
The girl who was too good: how Lauren James rose to World Cup stardom (The Guardian)
The enduring nature of a football club (The Football Fan)
Manchester City’s ownership tests the values and connection of a fanbase (The Guardian)
Jordan Henderson affair shows players must mean it when they take a stand (The Guardian)
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