Now that we’ve failed to break our trophy drought yet again, it seems like the end of the world for many a Gunner. Now that Arsene Wenger has failed to deliver - yet again – on the promise of turning this team into winners, it may look like an early end to yet another futile season.
It is always great and convenient to become wise after the event. Many comments picked up from Arsenal fanblogs scattered over cyberspace were naturally filled with frustration, exasperation and people fed-up with our latest failure and Wenger’s lily-livered tactics.
Yes, we bottled it. Yes, Birmingham outfought us on the day and showed greater hunger for the prize at stake. Birmingham, whom we have trashed both home and away in the league, suddenly found a hardened resolve from somewhere to hold us at bay and sneak-in goals from nowehere to claim the Carling Cup.
Some comments of bitter fans looked interesting to me. One of them mentioned that the line-up lost us the game; that it was a mystery how Tomas Rosicky managed to play a full game despite not contributing anything meaningful. Nothing new there. Rosicky has been in terminal decline for almost three seasons now and surely does not merit a starting spot in any game we play – least of all our first cup final in five years!
I’ve written severally about him here and how he has lost his mojo, or desire, or fighting spirit, or even legs. He hardly stays on his feet. He can’t score anymore (forget that freak effort against Leyton Orient last week, which was his first goal since Everton in January 2010). All in all, Rosicky rightly contributed nothing, as expected, and if you ask me he should be seeing out his final season with us.
We all know he played due to the injury to Cesc Fabregas. But Wenger should have picked Abou Diaby ahead of him. The Frenchman may be infuriatingly inconsistent, but in a game that promised and turned out to be hard-fought, his muscle and physical presence would have been crucial. Nothing ought to have stopped Wenger pushing Jack Wilshire into the Fabregas role and deploying Diaby alongside Song to stop the combative Lee Bowyer and co in Birmingham’s midfield.
Well, like I said earlier it’s always great to be wise after the event. It’s all done and dusted now. The Carling Cup, edition 50 is gone to St. Andrews, rather than the Emirates. The history books will always give it to Birmingham and disregard all the nitty-gritty and pre-post game permutations. Period.
However, one other thing I picked up from all the fanblogs was the role played by Jack Wilshire in this game. If anyone had any doubt about his abilities, he laid it all to rest in this game. Not that he needed to prove anything to anyone. Not even to Fabio Capello, who was an interested spectator at Wembley.
Jack was our standard-bearer. He was a one-man warrior. He was our own Roy of the Rovers. He has come of age, if it is possible to say that of 19 year-old.
He constantly and tirelessly took the fight to Birmingham as his teammates allowed the occasion to play havoc on their nerves. The awesome shot he cracked against the bar from 30yards, ignited panic amongst the Birmingham ranks and produced our equaliser in the 28th minute.
That shot apart, he was full of boundless energy. He was positive, inventive and full of gutful running. He never gave up and drove the team forward in the absence of Fabregas. Sadly, very few of his teammates were on the same wavelength with him and fewer had a stomach for the fight.
Well now, it might be early days yet, but Fabregas can now depart in peace and re-unite with his Catalan kith and kin at Barcelona. He has a successor and heir in Jack. Ian Wright put it best that you don’t have the Arsenal captaincy handed to you on a platter, but for Jack, as preposterously as it may sound, he has shown enough bottle to be a great player and leader of men.
Talent is one thing; character another matter entirely. He has them both in full measure and will be probably the greatest captain this team will ever know.
Yes, the Carling Cup has been won and lost. For all Gunners, the pain will take time to go away but what has emerged form the ashes of the defeat is that we have a leader and a beacon for a glorious future. That beacon is a bandy-legged 19 year-old who is an Englishman with the skills of a latino.
That is the greatest consolation from our Carling Cup debacle.
No comments:
Post a Comment