Four reasons for Euro-failure
and prospects for progress
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
Bad luck? Was it bad luck that Arsenal missed six chances against Fiorentina and then lost to an exceptional goal by Gabriel Batistuta?
Not really.
Luck plays a part in all matches, but there were four other factors in the defeat.
The first factor was anxiety. The players were probably more anxious than for the Dynamo Kiev game, the Lens game or the Barcelona game.
The Fiorentina match was always going to be peculiar, a strange hybrid of cup tie and last day relegation battle.
The tension was obvious as Bergkamp (2), Kanu, Vieira (2) and Keown missed those chances.
Bergkamp had an airshot when Parlour crossed, and put another shot wide when he should have drilled it into the bottom corner.
Kanu ran onto Bergkamp's chip-lob and tried an extremely difficult drop-goal on a ball he might have volloyed. To let that ball hit the ground, and half-volley it, was virtually impossible.
Romario, the little Brazilian genius,who operates in micro-angles and millimetres, would have needed, on his best day, five takes on that chance to score once.
Kanu showed remarkable skill to catch the ball as sweetly as he did, even though his shot flew a yard over the bar.
So individuals, inhibited by a fear of failure, were unable to score the vital first goal which would have opened the game up.
Bergkamp, Kanu and Overmars are not technically inferior to Batistuta and Chiesa, but the situation in the group, in this fifth match, made them tighten up .
Arsenal had drawn 1-1 in Barcelona, and lost at Wembley, so drawing away 0-0 to Fiorentina and then losing at home was always a possibility.
If the first game is 0-0, you expect a low scoring second game, probably a 1-0. So the first goal in this game was as important as the first goal in any game the club have played in the last decade.
If Arsenal scored it, the game would still not have been an open game. If Fiorentina got it, goodnight.
This particular Champions League encounter was always going to be a night of high anxiety.
Secondly, Wembley is a wide, long pitch which does not suit Arsenal's pressing style.
The players did not like Wembley the year before, and by the second season most of them hated it, and were on record saying so.
They missed the ambience of Highbury, the familiarity of home.
Football is like music in that the ambience of the venue influences the mood of the performers.
Arsenal were always likely to pay a high price for playing all their games away from home.
Thirdly, Fiorentina outsmarted them tactically. Italian players have played more games balanced on a knife-edge, waiting for the chance to score the winning goal.
The later the goal, the more they like it. Because, having won the game once, Fiorentina did not want the hassle, if Arsenal equalised, of having to win it again.
Unfortunately, Arsenal played right into their hands by pairing Bergkamp with Kanu. The decision was logical (because you do not drop a man who has just scored a spectacular hat-trick at Chelsea) but it was wrong tactically.
Bergkamp and Suker is a better blend, and Arsenal needed to score first.
Could Wenger have played Kanu elsewhere?
Could he have played him wide on the right against Heinrich?
Paulo Maldini said the Milan players watched the Chelsea-Arsenal game on TV before going out to play Inter in the derby that night. The Milan skipper, one of the world's greatest deenders, said they could not believe that Chelsea lost the game after being 2-0 up, but that comment reflects the defensive mentality of Serie A.
Maldini, whose father Cesare was Milan's centre half in the Sixties, was brought up to believe that when Milan are winning 2-0 the game is over, and, for a decade, it usually was.
For the last two years Arsenal have badly needed a centre forward who can score with headers.
I asked Wenger about this at the 1998 FA Cup Final press conference and he said:"That's a good question. That was 17 months ago, after Arsenal had won the double by adding Overmars' pace to Anelka's pace.
The main thing that has happened in those seventeen months is that they have not replaced Anelka's pace.
Why is that so important? Because Anelka's pace was what allowed Arsenal's strikers to get away with not heading the ball. You have to have one or the other.
You have to have pace or heading ability. Unless, like Manchester United, you have both.
Anelka could not head the ball for toffee, Caballero was not good enough, and neither was Diawara, although he was aggressive and might have improved gradually.
Those three strikers have all been sold, as was the slow, belligerent but brave John Hartson.
Kanu is 6 foot 5 inches tall, and very creative when he has the ball, but is often too static, unable to reach crosses.
Bergkamp only heads the ball in the box once a season, and Overmars is five foot eight.
Suker is better than Bergkamp in the air, but he will not crash
through a crowd of bodies like Dublin, Shearer or Cole. Suker
waits and hovers,
working by stealth, not collision.
When Wenger was at Monaco he coached George Weah and Jurgen Klinsmann, who were brilliant in the air, as well as being awesome all-round team players.
Piacenza had exploited Fiorentina's predilection for ball-watching last Sunday and beat them 2-0, but Arsenal were ill-equipped to do the same.
They had only two notable offensive headers in the whole game. One by Adams, when a foul was given anyway, and one by Keown, which was easily saved by Toldo.
Arsenal's most promising attacker was Overmars, who tied Di Livio in knots again. So the canny Gionanni Trapattoni took off Cois at half time, moved Di Livio inside and bought on Adani, a bruiser who marked the winger more effectively.
Wenger seemed too conservative in his approach, too predictable.
When his team is good it is brilliant. But when they go off the boil they look one-dimensional, a team without a Plan B.
Crucially, Arsenal lacked the diagonal movement in the penalty area to worry Fiorentina's three centrebacks.
The best way to support Overmars, in the first half, would have been to have Suker making runs from right to left for his right footed passes into the penalty area.
Later, when the game was still goalless, only a dribbler could have disrupted the visitors eight man defence, but Thierry Henry and Silvinho remained on the bench.
The manager could have used Bergkamp as playmaker, in the Rui Costa role, with Suker and Kanu up front.
He might even have switched to a 3-5-2 and played Kanu in midfield, with Silvinho and Luzhny as wingbacks.
The fourth factor was miscalculation.
A 0-0 draw might have been enough to qualify.That would have left Arsenal needing to beat AIK Solna by one goal more than whatever Fiorentina beat Barcelona by.
If indeed Fiorentina could conquer the Catalan giants.
In any event, Wenger wanted to win and felt he had to go for a win. He did not want to draw his way into the last 16 or rely on a rival team in a later match.
Petit had played well in his European comeback, but Vivas came on for him after his knee ligament flared up again.
Then he brought Suker on for Dixon, moving Vivas to right back.
That momentary disorganisation was not really responsible for Batistuta's goal, although it came immediately after Suker replaced Dixon
Afterwards the articulate Mr Wenger was for once struggling to explain Arsenal's failure and seemed to have been concussed by Batistuta's stunning cross-shot.
He looked and sounded like a heavyweight boxer doing an interview ten minutes after being knocked unconscious.
He said:"We lost. We don't know why, but we lost. Thats the reality now. We can't change it and we have to cope with that."
So that was that. Arsenal had failed again in the first round for the fourth year in a row: Borussia Munchengladbach, PAOK Salonica, Lens and Fiorentina.
They went to Wembley again so that a bigger crowd could see them fail again.
There were 32 clubs in the Champions League, and now there were 16 left for the second group phase.
Eight clubs were eliminated, including Milan, who conceded two goals in four minutes in Istanbul and lost 3-2 to Galatasaray after Zacheroni made some abysmal substitutions.
Another eight third-placed clubs parachuted into the 32-team 3rd Round of the Uefa Cup, via an absurd new format, but one which at least gives Arsenal a chance to play at Highbury and redeem themselves with a few victories.
There are five Italian clubs in the Uefa Cup: Juventus, Parma,
Roma, Udinese and Bologna. And three Spanish clubs: Celta Vigo,
Atletico Madrid and Real Mallorca. So drawing Nantes was the easiest
fixture Arsenal could have had in the
Uefa Cup.
Nantes are second bottom of the French league and have lost their last six games.
Even Slavia Prague and Wolfsburg are stronger than Nantes at the moment.
The easy draw is a sign that Arsenal's luck has changed.
This draw virtually guarantees them another four games in Europe.
There can be no excuse for losing to Nantes, who are not as good as PAOK.
Arsenal should beat Nantes, with or without a top player or two.
Even if Petit and Adams do not play, they should win.
Even if Bergkamp and Keown do not play, they should win.
Arsenal will be red-hot favourites on 25th November.
Maybe the Gunners can play better on Thursday nights than they did on Tuesday and Wednesdays.
The atmosphere will be good. A European night at Highbury again. Thursday night fever !
November 7th 1999