Purple pimpernels falling apart?
by Myles Palmer
FEATURES
THE ARSENAL AGM - FULL WRITE UP
FIVE REASONS: ARSENAL COULD WIN IN BARCELONA
CARLTON AND ITV UPSET US AGAIN
JEKYLL AND HYDE PLAY THE NOU CAMP
Arsenal will beat Fiorentina at Wembley. The purple pimpernels are falling apart, so there has never been a better time to play them.
If Arsenal lose tonight they will be out of the Champions League. And maybe they were never really in the Champions League anyway.
Who have they beaten? They have not beaten Lens or Dynamo Kiev, let alone Barcelona, so they are a long way from being up there with Real Madrid, Milan, Bayern and Manchester Uited.
But never fear. Because Arsenal will thrash Fiorentina tonight. They have the spirit. They have King Kanu in omnipotent form. They at last have their Wembley crowd behind them, a crowd who played far better than the team did last week.
Emmannuel Petit is back. Petit can make Overmars more penetrating by finding him with those long passes. He can make Vieira more dominating by backing him up with tackles and short passes.
Petit can give the back four the protection they lacked against Barcelona last week.And he can support the attack with those cavalier sprints into the penalty area.
The Golden Ponytail has been badly missed. He adds tempo to a game.
He is a dynamic player who uses his energy to get the ball, then knocks it off. He makes the ball do the work, like the Barca players did last week.
Petit played 60 minutes for the reserves, 60 minutes against Chelsea, and looked good. That backheel flick to Parlour, which we saw on Match of the Day, was a touch of class. It was a confident pass that said:" Im back and playing like I've never been away. It was a pass that said:" I've played a lot of training games. It was a pass that said: "Mr Wenger has taken his time and picked exactly the right moment to bring me back."
When the game is won, Petit is good at slowing it down and keeping the ball. He has an instinctive games sense, an ability to read situations. So having him back will be like signing a new £25 million player.
A more high-tempo game will suit Bergkamp because his vision creates more openings in a fast game.
In an energetic, open game, Bergkamp can murder you. In a slow tactical game, Kanu is probably better.
Fiorentina are in crisis this week but a win might end their crisis. Coach Giovanni Trapattoni offered his resignation after an abysmal performance on Sunday when they lost at Piacenza, the bottom club.
They went down 2-0 and slipped to 11th in the table. They had lost their two previous league games at home after being unbeaten at the Artemio Franchi stadium for 22 months.
Trapattoni's resignation was not accepted by managing director Luciano Luna. Clearly, the club could not dispense with the coach three days before a make-or-break Champions League game.
In terms of international status Fiorentina are in roughly the same space as Arsenal, and if they cannot beat Arsenal then they are not really in the Champions League either.
They are pretenders who, like the Gunners, have not beaten anybody decent in the competition. Obviously, tonight is a big night. A very big night. Arsenal have a much stronger squad this season, so another early elimination might raise doubts about Arsene Wenger's abilities as a tactician.
He has so far proved to be a brilliant man-manager, an innovative scientific fitness coach, a charming PR man, and a very perceptive chief scout, but questions occasionally surface about his tactics.
Basically, he loves his 4-4-2 system. He knows it, coaches it, trusts it, and signs players for it, although, of course, there are minor variations on a theme.
When Bergkamp could not get to Salonica in Northern Greece by road or rail, he paired Ian Wright and Nicolas Anelka, two incompatible strikers against PAOK.
Before that match I believed he was right to stick to 4-4-2 because changing the system would have thrown away eight weeks work.
And I thought Arsenal were good enough to beat PAOK.
And with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight we can say he should have played a cagey game with five in midfield, including David Platt, and dropping Anelka, a novice, to the bench.
He should have plotted the game like Hoddle did in Rome, using Wrighty as his first defender, chasing their defenders for a 0-0. Instead, Arsenal lost 1-0 and then drew 0-0 at Highbury.
Should Arsenal fear Gabriel Batistuta?
No.
Batistuta is the kind of striker they understand. He is a bang!bang! player.
Like Ian Wright, like early Shearer, like Hasselbaink, Batistuta shoots from anywhere. He scores a lot of goals because he is selfish and not scared to miss.
Giancarlo Carlotti told me last week that Florence is a schizophrenic city where the fans are the most fanatical in Italy and the most unforgiving.
He said Fiorentina are unpredictable, a mercurial team with an egomaniac president, Vittorio Cecche Gori, the film and TV mogul, who inherited the club from his very shrewd father.
Fiorentina needed to build judiciously on what they had last season.
But they did not do that. The team has been unbalanced by the arrival of Enrico Chiesa from Parma, and Predrag Mijatovic from Real Madrid, who may or may not have been signed by the interventionist Cecche Gori, against the wishes of Trap.
Mijatovic is a tricky, fiery, provocative Yugoslav who wriggles, bumps, barges, dives and complains.
He is a player of fantastic talent who may give Arsenal more problems than Batistuta or Chiesa.
But he has a foot injury, sustained against AIK Solna, and may not play.
Chiesa is a bouncy striker with an explosive shot. Batistuta prefers playing with him to playing with Mijatovic, although they are similar in style.
For the past four years the main axis of the team was Rui Costa/Batistuta.
The Portuguese playmaker got the ball, waltzed past a couple of opponents and put Batistuta through for a shot, or crossed for him try one of his booming headers.
To have a player of Rui Costa's creative ability playing a deeper role, with defensive duties, is stupid and self-defeating.
Arsenal dominated the first game and were unlucky when a penalty was refused when Peirini brought Bergkamp down in the box.
Overmars had given Ljungberg an early chance, which Toldo saved, although the ball almost dribbled in off his body.
When Overmars put the Swede in again with another crafty cross, Toldo brought Ljungberg down, but was not sent off. A red card would have been harsh, although it was a clear penalty.
Kanu took it, and Toldo saved and it finished 0-0.
Arsenal know they should have won in Florence. Three points there would have removed the need for three points tonight.
However, they will take heart from the fact that they won most of the important duels six weeks ago.
Overmars baffled Di Livio, Keown shut down Batistuta, and Luzhny overpowered speedy wingback Jorg Heinrich.
Dave Seaman will be under the microscope. Some say he is over the hill, others say he used to be awesome and now he is just very good.
Seaman needs a clean sheet in this game because he has yet to keep a clean sheet in the Champions League. If any shots from outside the penalty area go past him, he might be dropped.
And if he is dropped he might ask for a transfer.
With Vieira and Petit back in harness, Wenger may feel he can play Ljungberg rather than Parlour. Ljungberg offers more of a goal threat, and is more skilful.
The runs he makes off the ball, in from the right wing, are like those that Conte makes for Juventus.
At this level that type of run by a brave flank player can be crucial.
Ljungberg could become an important source of goals, like Conte.
Before Arsenal started this six match mini-league, Wenger said the club has yet to earn a place among the European elite."It's a real regret to me that Arsenal have not yet played to their full potential in the Champions' League and have never done so.
"We need to establish the club as one of the top teams in that league. Historically, that's what the club is missing. You are not a great team until you have done that. Everyone abroad knows that is our situation. But this season we have a stronger squad, one that can do better than last season."
He also said, "Fiorentina are a typical Italian side in that they wait for the right moment to strike. They play a cautious game. I expect to be underpressure, but only for short spells and then it is intense. They play quite deep. They are like snakes, they have spurts and in five minutes they can kill you."
All other things being equal, Trapattoni might have been the man to outwit Wenger in a tight, tactical poker-game.
His CV is astonishing. He has won the European Cup, the Cup Winners' Cup, three UEFA Cups, and lifted the Italian title seven times. He also won the Bundesliga with Bayern Munich.
But maybe tactics are over-rated. Maybe Mr Wenger believes that big games are decided by performances on the night, rather than planning for three days before.
Few would deny that the most detailed tactical plans can be made obsolete in seconds by the events of a match.
When Fiorentina played AIK Solna in Stockholm, Batistuta scored with a deflected shot after five minutes.
As Solna coach Staurt Baxter said: "It was a nightmare-like beginning. We had to chase a team who were able to play relaxed."
As we know, luck plays a big part, and goals falsify matches. However, if Arsenal cannot beat Fiorentina they don't deserve to be in the Champions League.
Let's face it, Arsenal is not a super-club. They are a medium-sized club with a great team.
But the great team has failed, in seven games, to beat Lens, Kiev, Barcelona and Fiorentina away.
You cannot blame bad luck in seven games. In one or two maybe, but not seven.
So Arsenal are under pressure to deliver tonight. To make a statement of intent. To announce their arrival among the big boys.
I'm sure they will do that. I expect a handsome 2-0 victory.
Interestingly, Trapattoni was the Juventus coach in 1980 when Arsenal won 1-0 in Turin.
That legendary header by Paul Vaessen secured a place in the Cup Winners' Cup Final.
Tuesday October 26th 1999