For years, faced with a growing body of evidence to the contrary, Arsène Wenger has tried to deny there is any kind of psychological malaise in the Arsenal dressing room. The symptoms seem to flare up at the first exposure to pressure or to heightened expectation, but Wenger is a denier. “We are mentally strong,” he has said on so many occasions.
It did not look that way in 2008, 2011 or 2014, when Arsenal led the table around this stage, only to crumble as the stakes were raised around February or March, and it certainly does not look that way now. Since going to Anfield as Barclays Premier League leaders on January 13, Wenger’s team have won just two out of eight league matches (three out of 11 in all competitions). Wednesday night looked like the perfect opportunity to rebuild confidence, as they took an early lead at home to a relegation-threatened Swansea City, but, no, another collapse, a 2-1 home defeat, and suddenly the suspicion grows that they will approach tomorrow’s north London derby at White Hart Lane like lambs to the slaughter.
“Like lions in the autumn, like lambs in the spring” — that was how Michel Platini used to characterise English footballers, suggesting that they were physically diminished over the course of a season without the respite of a winter break.
Similar could be said of the modern Arsenal, at least in those years when their ambitions extend beyond the safety net of a top-four finish. What is happening right now is history repeating itself — different players, in many cases, but the same old angst- ridden malaise resurfacing just when the need is for cool, calm, clear-headed conviction.
It is happening so often that even many of us who have been broadly supportive of Wenger — feeling that, while much maligned over the past decade, he has dragged Arsenal forward more than held them back — have begun to suspect he is approaching a tipping point.
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To fall short this season, with so many of their rivals out of the picture, would do serious, potentially irreparable damage to Wenger’s leadership of Arsenal. It would raise questions about whether this flaw can ever be eradicated without a change of manager.
Wenger might deny there is a wider problem, but a candid admission came yesterday from Alexis Sánchez, the Arsenal forward, who, having previously been at Barcelona, knows better than most what a winning mentality feels like.
“With the players we have, I believe we can win the Premier League,” Sánchez said in an interview with DirecTV, the American-based television station. “However, sometimes we lack the hunger, the mentality that we are winning 1-0 when we go out on to the pitch. Sometimes we lack this hunger to believe that we can be champion.”
The interview was recorded last Friday, but the defeats by Swansea and Manchester United can have only reinforced Sánchez’s suspicions and fears about whatever it is that Arsenal lack.
“The question about Arsenal is, have they got the balls to go [to Tottenham Hotspur] and win a game after the two results they’ve just had?” asked Paul Scholes, the former United and England midfielder, on BT Sport on Wednesday night. “I doubt whether they’ve got the bottle or the balls to go on and do it.”
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It is as if there is some kind of flaw that stops Arsenal going above or below a certain level. In the past ten seasons they have never finished higher than third or lower than fourth in the Premier League. It is a similar situation in the Champions League, where they consistently progress to the first knockout stage, but no further.
On one level, their consistency is admirable, given the competition, financial restraints and rebuilding programme Arsenal faced in the years immediately after the move to the Emirates Stadium; as Chelsea, Liverpool and United have shown, securing a top-four finish in the Premier League is not easy when you are encountering difficulties.
What grates is their apparent inability to finish the job in those seasons when faced with the opportunity to go beyond those basic expectations. There is always, under pressure, an Arsenal nosedive: two wins in 13 in all competitions between mid-February and mid-April in 2008; two wins in their final 13 games in 2010-11; two wins in nine Premier League games between early February and early April in 2013-14.
One reason why this season promised to be different is that, with so many of the other big clubs underperforming, the bar has been set lower. Arsenal, though, are finding ways to fall short of even lowered expectations. To finish behind United and Chelsea with a young team in 2008 was not a failure. To finish behind Leicester City or Tottenham this season would, in different ways, represent a humiliation.
“This season I think I was a little bit conned by Arsenal,” Scholes said. “I thought they had added a bit of steel with [Petr] Cech, and [Mesut] Özil was really coming into his own, and I had a slight feeling that they might go on to win it. But … they always seem to lose their bottle. They can’t produce in big games.”
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If ever there was a time and a place for Arsenal to prove otherwise, it is
tomorrow lunchtime at White Hart Lane. It is an occasion that calls for character, for courage, for leadership, for resilience — for balls, as Scholes put it in that marvellously blunt way of his. It says much about this extraordinary season that, after losing a quarter of their Premier League games, Arsenal are still third, still only six points off the top, but they certainly cannot afford to wilt again tomorrow in the white heat of a north London derby.
Stars who have lost form at crucial time
Before and after Christmas this season in Premier League:
Alexis Sánchez
Goals
Before: 6 in 14 games
After: 0 in 6 games
Aaron Ramsey
Chances created per 90mins
Before: 1.7
After: 0.9
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Mesut Özil
Assists
Before: 15 in 15 games
After: 3 in 11 games
Olivier Giroud
Goals
Before: 10 in 17 games
After: 2 in 11 games