Post by Salem6 on Oct 18, 2003 8:58:03 GMT
By Paul Hayward (Filed: 18/10/2003)
When Chelsea last beat Arsenal in the league, Nigel Spackman in the blue corner was sent off for punching Martin Keown in the red. The other day, Keown wrote to the Highbury board to apologise for his part in the team's disciplinary meltdown at Manchester United. This makes him the glue of history: the one constant in a violently changing game. It was 1995 when Spackman unloaded his jab.
In London football, there are two things you can depend on: Keown will be at the eye of any Arsenal-related bother, and the Gunners always beat the Blues. There have been 15 League encounters since a Mark Hughes goal last gave Chelsea all three points in the struggle between north and west. Then, Glenn Hoddle was Chelsea manager (he's been to England, Southampton, THFC and the dole queue since), and the fans were greeting Ruud Gullit's arrival the way the cast responded to the descent of the spaceship in Close Encounters. Those were the days when 'abroad' began at Putney.
After their Anglo-Dutch period, Chelsea moved effortlessly into their Italian phase, and thence to the great Russian epoch that confronts Arsenal at Highbury today as the Premiership's top two teams wrestle on the perch. After a few hard lessons in the futility of over-statement, you learn not to ascribe season-defining importance to a single match. The championship will be won when the trees are back in bud. Today their leaves are curling. Still: this afternoon Chelski's latest costume change comes under its heaviest scrutiny. In the language of Moscow politics, we're about to find out whether they're more Bolshoi than Bear.
More so than when they faced Liverpool on the opening weekend - or when Besiktas gave Roman Abramovich and his money men their first dispiriting jolt, in the Champions League. Infinite wealth does not equate with boundless character, or continuity, or harmony or organisational strength. Here, it seems to me, is the difference between these two London heavyweights: Arsenal are a club constructed over many decades from the bottom up, whereas the modern Chelsea have been built in a decade from the top down. Can Mount Olympus be built from the peak first - or are Arsenal, Man Utd and Liverpool blessed with a stronger sense of identity, a greater love for the badge? If so, can they block the Tsunami of Russian money?
So, stoical English aristocrats who are horribly overdrawn at the bank play Soviet state assets reconstituted as King's Road Euro-swank. Look at it that way and the old Manchester United-Liverpool hate-carnival seems like a boring old feud in a pub. At a push you could say that today's London derby is a contest between English football as it always was and the game as it is unquestionably going to be. Arsenal went continental, too, but not like this. They went to Alsace to grab Arsene Wenger, not into the vast subterranean oceans of Russia's oil reserves.
Fortunately for us neutrals, the common theme in both London postcodes is talent: the investment and faith in talent. This gives us a beautifully poised contest between two sides who have each played eight, won six and drawn two. Home advantage for Arsenal is partly negated by the loss of Patrick Vieira to suspension. Unlike Chelsea, Wenger's men are sitting on a disciplinary arms dump of nine separate misconduct charges. Against that, incredibly, it will be Feb 21 before Arsenal next play a fellow superpower (Chelsea, again, at Stamford Bridge). In their winter of discontent, the fixtures computer has been kind.
On present form, a combined Arsenal-Chelsea team might contain four reds and seven blues - with the important proviso that Pires, Ljungberg and Campbell would be pushing hard for inclusion if they regained their finest form. My starting XI would be: Cudicini (Chelsea), Lauren (Arsenal), Terry, Gallas (both Chelsea), Cole (Arsenal); Lampard, Makelele (both Chelsea), Vieira (Arsenal), Duff (Chelsea); Mutu (Chelsea) and Henry (Arsenal). In his prime, Desailly would have come in for Gallas or Terry.
But never mind joining forces. Chelsea's task today is to conquer their own mental block about beating Arsenal. "Sometimes we dominate them but they score on the counter-attack, so I have spoken a lot of times to my players about that," says Claudio Ranieri, the Chelsea coach, whose team displaced Arsenal with a 0-0 draw at Birmingham on Tuesday. A "disappointing" result, Chelsea called it. "We've got to get that out of system and be fully focused on going to Highbury looking for the win," Terry said. "We don't go anywhere playing for the draw."
Hear, hear. How could a team with £115 million worth of fresh talent justify a Uriah Heep impersonation? "Ever so 'umble" is not an appropriate mindset. If Wenger's team have one unbreakable advantage, it's surely stability, a constant raison d'etre. At Highbury, they all know how it works; what they're there for; what the shape of the team is going to be; what the manager stands for; and who will play if everyone is fit. Down at Chelsea, the players can expect four or five changes a game as well as tactical improvisation and diplomatic substitutions.
Against Besiktas, Ranieri played three centre-halves and baffled his own defence. At Birmingham, he deployed a midfield diamond without success. "Mind-blowing," is how Steve Bruce, the opposing manager, described Ranieri's range of options. The trouble is, it can be mind-blowing for his players, too. The same goes for the constant speculation about who will be next as Abramovich opens his endless Russian doll. Yesterday, Pires claimed: "They [Chelsea] made me a proposition and wanted to sign me." Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerrard and the Brazilian defender Lucio have also been mentioned recently. "There will be a constant review of our playing squad," confirmed Paul Smith, Chelsea's interim chief executive.
We can say all this without mentioning Ranieri's own position, and the widespread assumption that he is auditioning for his own job, which must filter through to his players. Money builds but it can also undermine (just ask half the world's pop groups). Arsenal don't have much of it these days, but they know who and what they are.
Source:-
www.sport.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2003/10/18/sfnhay18.xml&sSheet=/sport/2003/10/18/ixsport.html
When Chelsea last beat Arsenal in the league, Nigel Spackman in the blue corner was sent off for punching Martin Keown in the red. The other day, Keown wrote to the Highbury board to apologise for his part in the team's disciplinary meltdown at Manchester United. This makes him the glue of history: the one constant in a violently changing game. It was 1995 when Spackman unloaded his jab.
In London football, there are two things you can depend on: Keown will be at the eye of any Arsenal-related bother, and the Gunners always beat the Blues. There have been 15 League encounters since a Mark Hughes goal last gave Chelsea all three points in the struggle between north and west. Then, Glenn Hoddle was Chelsea manager (he's been to England, Southampton, THFC and the dole queue since), and the fans were greeting Ruud Gullit's arrival the way the cast responded to the descent of the spaceship in Close Encounters. Those were the days when 'abroad' began at Putney.
After their Anglo-Dutch period, Chelsea moved effortlessly into their Italian phase, and thence to the great Russian epoch that confronts Arsenal at Highbury today as the Premiership's top two teams wrestle on the perch. After a few hard lessons in the futility of over-statement, you learn not to ascribe season-defining importance to a single match. The championship will be won when the trees are back in bud. Today their leaves are curling. Still: this afternoon Chelski's latest costume change comes under its heaviest scrutiny. In the language of Moscow politics, we're about to find out whether they're more Bolshoi than Bear.
More so than when they faced Liverpool on the opening weekend - or when Besiktas gave Roman Abramovich and his money men their first dispiriting jolt, in the Champions League. Infinite wealth does not equate with boundless character, or continuity, or harmony or organisational strength. Here, it seems to me, is the difference between these two London heavyweights: Arsenal are a club constructed over many decades from the bottom up, whereas the modern Chelsea have been built in a decade from the top down. Can Mount Olympus be built from the peak first - or are Arsenal, Man Utd and Liverpool blessed with a stronger sense of identity, a greater love for the badge? If so, can they block the Tsunami of Russian money?
So, stoical English aristocrats who are horribly overdrawn at the bank play Soviet state assets reconstituted as King's Road Euro-swank. Look at it that way and the old Manchester United-Liverpool hate-carnival seems like a boring old feud in a pub. At a push you could say that today's London derby is a contest between English football as it always was and the game as it is unquestionably going to be. Arsenal went continental, too, but not like this. They went to Alsace to grab Arsene Wenger, not into the vast subterranean oceans of Russia's oil reserves.
Fortunately for us neutrals, the common theme in both London postcodes is talent: the investment and faith in talent. This gives us a beautifully poised contest between two sides who have each played eight, won six and drawn two. Home advantage for Arsenal is partly negated by the loss of Patrick Vieira to suspension. Unlike Chelsea, Wenger's men are sitting on a disciplinary arms dump of nine separate misconduct charges. Against that, incredibly, it will be Feb 21 before Arsenal next play a fellow superpower (Chelsea, again, at Stamford Bridge). In their winter of discontent, the fixtures computer has been kind.
On present form, a combined Arsenal-Chelsea team might contain four reds and seven blues - with the important proviso that Pires, Ljungberg and Campbell would be pushing hard for inclusion if they regained their finest form. My starting XI would be: Cudicini (Chelsea), Lauren (Arsenal), Terry, Gallas (both Chelsea), Cole (Arsenal); Lampard, Makelele (both Chelsea), Vieira (Arsenal), Duff (Chelsea); Mutu (Chelsea) and Henry (Arsenal). In his prime, Desailly would have come in for Gallas or Terry.
But never mind joining forces. Chelsea's task today is to conquer their own mental block about beating Arsenal. "Sometimes we dominate them but they score on the counter-attack, so I have spoken a lot of times to my players about that," says Claudio Ranieri, the Chelsea coach, whose team displaced Arsenal with a 0-0 draw at Birmingham on Tuesday. A "disappointing" result, Chelsea called it. "We've got to get that out of system and be fully focused on going to Highbury looking for the win," Terry said. "We don't go anywhere playing for the draw."
Hear, hear. How could a team with £115 million worth of fresh talent justify a Uriah Heep impersonation? "Ever so 'umble" is not an appropriate mindset. If Wenger's team have one unbreakable advantage, it's surely stability, a constant raison d'etre. At Highbury, they all know how it works; what they're there for; what the shape of the team is going to be; what the manager stands for; and who will play if everyone is fit. Down at Chelsea, the players can expect four or five changes a game as well as tactical improvisation and diplomatic substitutions.
Against Besiktas, Ranieri played three centre-halves and baffled his own defence. At Birmingham, he deployed a midfield diamond without success. "Mind-blowing," is how Steve Bruce, the opposing manager, described Ranieri's range of options. The trouble is, it can be mind-blowing for his players, too. The same goes for the constant speculation about who will be next as Abramovich opens his endless Russian doll. Yesterday, Pires claimed: "They [Chelsea] made me a proposition and wanted to sign me." Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerrard and the Brazilian defender Lucio have also been mentioned recently. "There will be a constant review of our playing squad," confirmed Paul Smith, Chelsea's interim chief executive.
We can say all this without mentioning Ranieri's own position, and the widespread assumption that he is auditioning for his own job, which must filter through to his players. Money builds but it can also undermine (just ask half the world's pop groups). Arsenal don't have much of it these days, but they know who and what they are.
Source:-
www.sport.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2003/10/18/sfnhay18.xml&sSheet=/sport/2003/10/18/ixsport.html
