Perhaps the most damning aspect of the horrorshow Arsenal treated us to Tuesday was the total and complete lack of surprise that came along with it. Of course that 3-0 lead became a 3-3 draw. That’s what happens to Arsenal. That’s what happens when a team constructed to achieve top-level mediocrity forgets, once again, that the good bits are supposed to come after the bad bits.
Arsenal must focus on the process, not the result
It’s not Arsenal’s defence that needs attention. It’s their whole approach to the business of being disappointing that needs to change.
Michael Regan
This is basic, schoolboy stuff. Time moves in one direction, and what happens at the end is more important than what happens at the beginning. Go three goals down early on against a team that have never won in England, yet escape with a draw, and you’ve got a heartwarming story of triumph against adversity, of character, of never-say-die attitude. The dodgy result will almost be forgotten in the giddy rush of the comeback. But do it the other way round? Misery. Embarrassment. Shame.
What will be most frustrating for Arsène Wenger is that his side had looked, finally, as though they had nailed down the principles of the business. Against Hull City in last season's FA Cup final, they delivered a masterclass in expectation management, going two down and nearly shipping a third before roaring back to seal the draw they craved. Admittedly, they accidentally went on to win that game, which must have caused no little confusion around the Emirates. We can put that down, perhaps, to the exuberance of youth.
This looked to have continued into this season. Against Crystal Palace on the first weekend of the season and against Everton on the second, Arsenal had demonstrated a growing maturity, a realisation that it's best to be completely useless at the beginning of the game, in order that the eventual achievement of mediocrity taste like triumph. Now, in just 20 short, incompetent minutes, all that good work has been undone.
Is it a question of personnel? For years, Wenger has moved idiosyncratically through the transfer market, more recently tempering his search for value with a taste in expensive discards from Spain. Has he never quite recognised the worth of players that appreciate the value of being bobbins at the beginning of the game, not at the end? Has Alexis Sánchez -- maker of the too-early first and scorer of the too-early second against Anderlecht -- failed to correctly apply his brilliance, to adapt to a football club that absolutely needs to extract maximum excitement from moderate achievement?
Or maybe it’s a question of coaching. Wenger, famously, tends not to overburden his teams with too much information about the opposition, preferring instead to trust his team to execute their own plans and dominate their opponents. Time and again, this approach comes up wanting. Tuesday night a young Anderlecht side effortlessly outclassed the home side, conceding a three-goal lead in the textbook fashion, before roaring back and ensuring that the glory was theirs. How is it possible that this collection of kids, led by a player whose most notable previous contribution to English football was making Chris Kamara even more confused than usual, could have executed their plans so perfectly against more expensive, more experienced opponents?
Wenger has subsequently questioned his players' mentality, and it certainly looks to the outside observer as though something is missing from Arsenal's approach. Crafting a proper collapse-and-comeback takes focus, as we saw last season, when Arsenal developed an unfortunate habit of nailing the first part, then forgetting to do anything once they were four or five down. Maybe that's the danger of pursuing exciting acceptability: you can't make an omelette without the risk of getting egg all over your face. But it's something they have to learn; after all, we know that this Arsenal team certainly isn't geared for dull excellence.
We should acknowledge that external circumstances won't have helped Tuesday. Thanks to Brendan Rodgers' decision to play the kitman, eight boy scouts, Kolo Touré and a corner flag against Real Madrid, the nation was glued to that inevitable massacre, and only started noticing Arsenal's existence once it became clear that (a) the Spaniards were playing in neutral, and (b) Arsenal were busy punching themselves in the face. The only thing worse than getting the collapse and the comeback the wrong way round, is doing so when nobody's even watching the first part. Then it just looks silly.
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Zooming out, we can see that Arsenal's plans for the season are still on track. They are still favourites to finish second in their Champions League group, so ensuring that they get a difficult opponent in the next round and can exit with the minimum of fuss. Their Premier League target is also looking attainable, thanks to there being two teams obviously superior and, unless Liverpool or Manchester United sort themselves out, sixteen or seventeen obviously inferior. In this context, throwing away a mere three-goal lead matters not at all.
Ultimately, we know what Arsenal want: to finish the season having satisfied the requirements of being a big club as minimally as possible. But to slide along in such a way, the team must achieve those minimally acceptable results in as exciting a manner as possible. That’s why serious questions about Tuesday night’s performance must be asked. Arsenal must be able to dredge some sort of entertainment out of their inevitably underwhelming season. Because if nobody’s enjoying the march towards the lowest financially acceptable bar, then what even is the point? Bad bits first, Arsene. Good bits second. Otherwise, you just look silly.
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