BRIAN GLANVILLE
writes for worldsoccer.com each week.
WHAT GOES AROUND...
16/04/08
What goes around in soccer surely comes around. A manager as experienced as Arsene Wenger should know that well enough. Which makes his recent lamentations about Arsenal’s ill luck and ill treatment somewhat surprising if not misdirected.
Yes, they were hard done by at Birmingham, where they had the shocking misfortune to lose Eduardo. Yes, they should certainly have had a penalty against Liverpool in London on the occasion of the first leg of the European Cup Semi-Final and they were arguably unlucky after playing so much dazzling football to go down 4-2 at Anfield. But when it came to Old Trafford, after which Wenger was sunk in gloom and seemed to be hinting at conspiracy, he might have remembered that the goal with which Arsenal took the lead through Emmanuel Adebayor was surely blemished by his handling.
Moreover, Wenger himself is hardly free from criticism after those last hectic weeks with his team. The Walcott affair, for one. First, for some time, Wenger insisted that the youngster’s proper role was as a striker, rather than a winger. But when he brought him on twice against Milan in the European Cup, somewhat late as a substitute it was as an orthodox right-winger that he excelled. At the Emirates, he laid on a goal on a plate for Adebayor, who contrived to head against the bar. In the return at San Siro, having left his man standing, he provided this time a low cross from which Adebayor could hardly miss. And at Anfield, again coming on as a substitute, he capped a glorious 80-yard run by setting up still another goal for Adebayor.
So why wasn’t he on in all these games from the beginning? Wenger’s dubious argument is that he isn’t ready for it yet, that he and his energies need to be saved for later in the game. Yet by the time he comes on, a game may well have been compromised; even lost. And if Wenger is so sure that Walcott isn’t capable of lasting a full match, then what is to stop him letting Walcott start the game, taking him off only if he appears to run out of steam? By which time, with any luck. He would have used his electric pace to have given the Gunners a sustainable lead.
Then there is the defensive question. Philippe Senderos had a very good game in Milan but a dreadful game at Anfield, where he could have been blamed for two of the Liverpool goals. It made scant sense to move the quick and dependable Toure out of the middle for those three important games. Eboue, preferred as a starter each time to Walcott, is essentially an attacking full back, rather than a genuine winger. Why could he not have figured therefore in defence, with Toure alongside him and Walcott on the wing? Wenger over the years has had his problems at centre half.
It never made much sense to sell young Matthew Upson, who trained on into an England centre back, while keeping the error prone, lanky Frenchman, Pascal Cygan, who had cost an excessive £2.1 million. A fee which Wenger seemed hell bent on justifying, in the face of all the evidence. I still have in my mind the excruciating picture of Cygan, in a Euro Cup tie at Highbury, heading powerfully past his own goalkeeper.
Alexandre Song played at centre back at Old Trafford, had a shaky first half but did better in the second. Yet surely the lesson of the recent African Nations Cup was that he is at his best in central midfield, where he might have taken some of the strain off Cesc Fabregas and Flamini; who was missing at Anfield. In Ghana, young Song, nephew of the experienced international defender Rigobert, revitalised the Cameroon side when put on in midfield, his play, both solid and supportive, doing much to take them to the Final, after a crushing initial 4-1 defeat by Egypt. Who beat them in that final by a solitary goal, and might well not have done so had Alexandre Song not been injured early on.
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Reports from South Africa are increasingly alarming. A horrific catalogue of rape and murder. So much so that a senior woman minister has even urged the police to shoot to kill. A chilling measure of desperation.
Things certainly won’t be any better when it comes to the World Cup finals of 2010 and the decision to stage them in South Africa seems crazier than ever. There recently seemed a glimmer of hope when it was reported that FIFA had set aside a huge contingency sum. But then, Andreas Herrren – how sad it would be if this competent and honest man were to be replaced, as has lately been rumoured – announced that the allocation had no significance but was merely part of normal procedure.
It was only thanks to the maverick vote of an elderly New Zealander that we were spared having the World Cup staged in South Africa in 2006. It went to Germany, who made a predictably good job of it; just as they had done in 1974. No analogies meanwhile should be drawn with cricket and rugby world cups, tournaments of minor spread and scope when contrasted with the top heavy, over populated, soccer World Cups. Players, officials and blazers will no doubt be protected, and saved from the streets with their menace. But what of the unfortunate, unprotected fans? And are we to believe that the colossal infrastructure, the massive communications, demanded by a World Cup, which seemed in deep doubt not long ago, will be sufficient and reliable in 2010?
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Among the eulogistic admirers of Theo Walcott after his superb slalom at Anfield was Fabio Capello, with implications that Walcott might be picked in May against the United States. Quite how one can reconcile Capello’s enthusiasm with his fatuous deployment of the one paced, one trick Beckham for 63 minutes in Paris, ask me not. He now has at his disposal at least three swift and talented young right-wingers who can do the job. But there may still be no cure for Beckhamitis.
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Brian's latest book is England Managers. The book is published by Headline and is available online and in all good bookstores.
A new revised edition of Brian Glanville's definitive World Cup book, The Story of the World Cup, has just been published and is available from all good bookshops.
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