My Life as a Gooner 2008-9 part 52

A Wenger Wonder

It’s been a long time since I returned to this series. Mostly because they are the hardest to write as I have to try to pump a whole season into one column, and decide what to mention and what not. Also I have to try and remember how I felt at the time and it is surprising, I remember better my emotions when I was a kid. I think because nowadays you can get football 24/7 and I would have seen virtually every match and can’t really remember too much of it. Such is the joy of being a writer.

Wenger gave us hope and big matches with a weaker side than any he had had before

It was a big year though. Many momentous things happened. We also never really threatened the Premier League too much and we didn’t win any trophies, in fact we hadn’t won anything since the Invincibles year. Even the shiny new Emirates stadium was going to be 3 years old. By the way, it is heading closer to 20 years now, the time flies.

The Emirates brought us up and brought us down

The Emirates has been the colossus that defines us since it was built. The big trophies are in the past and paying for it was painful in these years. We were not good enough, it is as simple as that. And we couldn’t buy to make us at the top. We relied totally on Wenger’s genius to give us hope every year but that was all we had, and it is still all we have, today, hope.

We needed it to stay competitive but we couldn't afford the right players

We still had a pretty good season, one the Spuds would love, or Manchester United at the moment. I will go through the various trophies and see how we did. I know most of you lived through this season, although for the younger ones you probably saw things differently. I understood that we had to get a bigger stadium with a far bigger commercial footprint to stay competitive. The Kroenkes had appeared as minor shareholders the year before but I didn’t see them as likely to ever take over. It seemed to me that money was their only motive and top Premier League teams were cash cows. I got that wrong. American owners do not have a great track record in England and that is still mostly the case. But the Kroenkes have improved us. That cannot be denied. Do they have the ambition to get us to the top? We shall see.

The ins and outs weren’t too bad

But first the players in 2008. We got rid of some top guys, Jens Lehman, Mathieu Flamini, Alex Hleb, Gilberto Silva, along with Justin Hoyte, but the only good sale was Hleb for £11,900,000 to Barcelona. The rest were frees or for little. The most exciting for me was Andrey Arshavin, who I really loved as a player. I truly felt he was top, and was the type of player we needed. He cost big money at £15,000,000 and we also bought Samir Nasri, who I knew little about, for £12,000,000 and Aaron Ramsey for £4,800,000. Amaury Bischoff came but rarely played but the biggest niggle for me was hiring Mikael Silvestre from Man Utd. He was past his best and showed we had little ambition by taking Utd rejects. He never did too much at Arsenal.

Aaron we loved but Nasri? Uh-uh

In fairness to Nasri, he came and showed he was good, he played most games, scored a few goals. You all know how it finally ended for him so I won’t talk too much about him, other than to say he was good. Aaron Ramsey became a fan favourite, everyone loved him. He played at 100%, always gave his best but injuries were the bane of his life.  I was sad when he left. At his best he was really impressive.

We will always love Andrey Arshavin for this

Arshavin came in January so was not an ever present  but there was one thing he did in his first season that defined him for Arsenal supporters. He went to Anfield and scored four goals, the first and only time in his career he managed 4. Injuries probably stopped him becoming a true Gooner great but it was the same for so many players post Invincibles.  Tomas Rosicky, Diaby, Walcott, Wilshere, Eduardo, Carlos Vela, Alex Song, Lord Bendtner and others who were on our books at this time all had bad or persistent injuries to contend with. It is a wonder Wenger kept us competitive.

Fast out of the blocks

And so to the pitch. We started well winning 4 out of our first five and were briefly top. Hope sprang in our hearts only to be plucked away with 4 defeats and 2 draws in our next nine. 4^th place was the best we did after that.

Aaron Ramsey became a fan favourite

You will all remember the astonishing long unbeaten spell we then had in the league. From the 30^th November 2008  when we beat Chelsea 2-1 at Stamford Bridge to May 10^th 2009 when Chelsea beat us 4-1 at the Emirates, we never tasted defeat. Defeats by Stoke, Fulham, Hull, Man City and Villa before then, plus lots of draws (the famous 4-4 at Liverpool in April) had done for us long before then. We ended up 4^th on 72 points a long way behind Man Utd on 90, Liverpool on 86 and Chelsea on 83. We fell too far behind at the start to get up there and challenge. So there was little hope in that season other than our strong finish gave us hope for next season. Ah, what it is like to be a Gooner. Our only sustenance is hope.

A penalty shootout to test our hearts

The Champions League was good for us, though. Hope jumped up as we thrashed Twente in the first playoff. Then we had no-one to frighten us in Porto, Dynamo Kyiv and Fenerbahce in the group stage. We advanced nicely to qualification and then Wenger put out a weakened team against Porto, our main rivals in the final game, as he always did once we had qualified. Despite thrashing them 4-0 at home, they won 2-0 in that match and we came second, meaning we faced a group winner in the knock-out.

That was Roma and we won 1-0 at the Emirates but they returned the score at the Stadio Olimpico giving us a heart-stopping penalty shootout after Eduardo missed the first. Luckily, Vucinuc missed their second to ease the pressure. It kept on till the 8^th when Tonetto missed and Diaby became our hero.

Man Utd were better than us

We tossed aside Villareal in the next 4-1 on aggregate. But then came the semi-final and Manchester United, soon to be champions and well above us in the league. John O’Shea fired in a goal to give them a 1-0 lead to take to the Emirates. Did that mean we had a chance? I didn’t really think so. They had Ronaldo, Rooney, Tevez, Berbatov, Park and Giggs to choose from as forwards. We had Lord Bendtner! We did have Van Persie, Adebayor and Walcott but we were well inferior everywhere. Fabregas would have got his game for them but maybe no-one else. They won 3-1 at the Emirates and that was the closest Wenger was to get to the final after that. We were clearly behind and we needed something big to happen to get us back to the top.

We no longer had this class of player as the 2009 Champions League final

I should mention that Barcelona clearly beat Man Utd in the final and they were better again than them and us. We were truly falling behind in class.

Chelsea beat us twice at the end of 2009 and were also better than us

Burnley beat us 2-0 in the League Cup but we did get to the semi-final of the FA Cup against Chelsea, we had hope when Walcott fired in an early goal but then Malouda equalized and our hate figure from Chelsea, Didier Drogba lashed in a late goal to give them the win and extinguish our dream of a trophy.

Stan made his move but Wenger was still the master

It is important, at this point, to say that Stan Kroenke increased his share to 28.3% in May 2009 making him the biggest shareholder. I didn’t like him as I felt Americans knew nothing about soccer and I favoured Alisher Usmanov the Russian billionaire simply because I felt he would understand football. I guess we are all glad I was wrong as surely Usmanov would have been kicked out like Abramovich.

It didn't work out between Arsene and Stan

But that is where we were, the team were a definite downgrade on the Invincibles, injuries were a constant problem and ownership was full of uncertainty. Somehow, with all that, Arsene Wenger got us to 2 major semi-finals and qualified us for the Champions League. Thank you belatedly Professor even though the fans weren’t happy, you had achieved a miracle. You kept giving us hope.