Has Newcastle defined our season?

 

Leading from the front....Fabregas scoring the winner against Everton


Since the opening day 1-1 draw away to Liverpool, we’ve not got anything out of a game after falling behind. That tendency, or failure, or flaw has punctuated our season so far and almost blighted what we all hoped would be the start of something glorious
But how quickly things change in the crazy world of football. Who would have thought after that gutting defeat by Newcastle at the Emirates, that we would now be sitting in second spot, just two mere points behind ‘mighty Chelsea’?
Against Newcastle, heads seemed to drop too easily. Spirits seemed to ebb away too quickly. Legs tended to become heavier too willingly and the malaise spread from the stands onto the pitch; everyone in the stadium got sucked into a depressing vortex of conceeding defeat cheaply.
I feared at that time, that quite unlike our perennial rivals Manchester United and Chelsea, we suddenly had picked up the bad habit of giving up too meekly.
There’s a rather intelligent saying amongst church-going folk, that an army of sheeps led by a lion, would always defeat an army of lions led by a sheep. Smart talk ay?
Which is why we have to look again and closely at the leadership of this team.
We surely haven’t forgotten all the brouhaha and hell-raising of the summer when Barcelona tried their utmost to lure Cesc Fabregas away from us. We couldn’t have forgotten how nerve-wrenchingly long it took for Fabregas himself to come out and pledge his loyalty to the club. That in itself spoke volumes of the torment and soul-searching he was going through. It’s a short career for sportsmen – footballers inclusive - and despite all the mind-numbing riches and unbelievable fame that attends their profession, the real legacy and chest-thumping moment they will cherish most when it’s all over are the trophies, the medals, the silverware they managed to reap.
So far, Fabregas has only one miserable looking FA Cup medal to show for all his seven odd years at Arsenal. In between, he has won two very major titles with Spain – something most players will never achieve in three lifetimes. But at club level, the barreness is not just looking like a permament thing, it is looking like becoming endemic and most dangerously, it is becoming accepted. When your club manager starts talking of third place in the league, being a ‘success’ for a club as famous and rich in history like Arsenal, that might be the signal for everyone in the house to re-assess their commitment.
At such a young age, Fabregas has done so much – sometimes I think too much – for Arsenal. Of course he has been well-rewarded and must be one of the top ten richest 23 year-olds in world sports. But if you have studied him carefully all these years, you will not fail to notice that he is hugely and fiercely ambitious.
So often in the past three seasons, the young Catalan has dragged us almost single-handedly from the brink of gaping defeats onto sweet heights of victory. He has put his fragile body on the line so many times that we’ve lost count, in a quest for success. He has been forced to grow up fast in the midfield following the enforced departure of established names like Ray Parlour, Gilberto and the mercurial Patrick Vieira. The examples are countless but his performances and goals against Manchester United at Old Trafford on September 17, 2006 where we beat the Mancunians through a Fabregas-Adebayor combo in the last minutes must stand out. In that category, add AC Milan at San Siro on March 4, 2008; Tottenham at the Emirates in October, 2009; and Aston Villa also at the Emirates, December 27 last year when he rose from the bench on one leg to destroy the Villans in 26 minutes and retired limping from the pitch.
In all his days at Arsenal, Fabregas has epitomized the spirit of the all-conquering Invincibles whose never-say-die attitude took them throughout an entire season unbeaten. Fabregas was a fringe member of that squad and was schooled in the art of never giving up.
Many iconic leaders of men bear that trait and it is what separates them from mere mortals. No war, no battle, no contest – sporting or otherwise – ever goes perfectly to plan, simply because there will always be unforeseen developments in the heat of the moment. There will be mistakes since we are human. There will be miscalculations. There will be surprises. There will be things like weather and nature which are beyond human control. And most importantly, there is the over-riding factor of the unpredictability of the enemy. The best laid-plans are always, always at the mercy of the enemy due to the simple fact that we never know the enemy’s own plans as well.
It is the same principles that govern football. But with a team led by a lion, you stand a good chance of overcoming whatever the enemy comes up with.
Wenger had little hesitation in enthroning Fabregas as captain in the winter of 2008 after William Gallas descended into unwarranted personality clashes and finger-pointing. For such a bold move, he deserves praise. The master has had no reason since then, to regret the decision because the pupil has delivered and led the team by example.
There has been criticism since the departure of Tony Adams and Patrick Vieira, that Arsenal has been reduced to a team of sissies, without a shouting, Sergeant-Major-type captain to scream at malfunctioning teammates and knock heads together. Someone like Adams, or Roy Keane who would take umbrage at any laxity and confront teammates seen to be shirking in their responsibilities. Thierry Henry and Gilberto were seen as too weak. Gallas? Too temperamental and unpredictable. Fabregas? Too intense and surely not a talker, least of all a shouter.
What he lacks though in vocal ability, he makes up for by his exemplary fighting spirit. Against Newcastle however, he wasn’t at the races. He couldn’t find his range of passing. He was easily outmuscled and shuffled off the ball by the duo of Kevin Nolan and Cheik Tiote. Granted that he hit the bar with an exquisite freekick, that had it gone in would have changed the dynamics of the match, he still looked frustrated and unhappy. And so as the game wore on and became a siege, his lack of spirit transmitted to other teammates and we found ourselves mired in an unyielding armwrestle. At a time when everyone looked up to the captain for direction, passion and spirit, we got a tired man who looked like he didn’t want to be there any longer.
Seasons are won and lost on moments and games like the Newcastle match. No team wins all games. Not all games are won on strolls. No team equally scores first in all games. When a team concedes and falls behind, it is then that its true character comes to the fore. Not when they are hammering the opposition with five, six goals or when the opposition are one man down.
But events since that game has shown that in Fabregas, we may yet have a leader of men with mettle and grit to lead this team out of a prolonged hiatus. His manly performances against Wolves and Everton this past week clearly showed where his heart lies – putting aside all the shenanigans of Barcelona over the summer.
Fighting back from the brink is what has made Manchester United respected, famous and feared. They demonstrated it once again against Wolves and Aston Villa over the past week. We used to have that quality in abundance as well, even sometimes with ten men. Backs-to-the-wall wins in notoriously-difficult places like Molineux and Goodison Park seem to have re-ignited that spirit.
It was so heartening to see the way and manner Fabregas has led his group out of adversity. It has been re-assuring to see how we responded from that Newscastle loss to save our season.
November used to be a luckless month for us where for some strange reason we never got it right. If that was really the case, no one has told this bunch of lions.
In the space of one week, we have been transformed from no-hopers, into real contenders for the title. Thanks to Newcastle it seems, we have re-discovered our mojo.