In the year of the World Cup, where the England national team crashed woefully and failed to live up to the hype of its overpaid footballers, one of the factors identified for that abysmal performance was rectified.
Five months after the 2010 World Cup, in which a lack of a winter break was mentioned as one of the reasons why England does poorly at international tournaments, that anomaly was corrected. By nature.
Everyone and anyone who owns a tv set or a radio at home would know by now that over the past fortnight, a blanket of snow has fallen over most of the United Kingdom, bringing normal life as we know it to a virtual standstill. For football fans allover the UK, life cannot be more normal than watching your favourite team play over the weekend and losing yourself in 90 minutes of indulgent passion. Last weekend however, mother nature took away that part of normal life for all football fans, along with huge chunks of the daily life that most British people have known.
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| Winter blues.....has an unprecedented break changed the equation for Wenger and Arsenal? |
So, inadvertently, on account of mother nature, the ‘major malaise’ of the English game – a gruelling nine-month season without break - was remedied.
It may have been unplanned and unforeseen, but coming at the time it did, many of the sides that benefited from this ‘mini-break’, would surely have welcomed it.
At Arsenal specifically, as Arsene Wenger has now revealed, the break allowed more troops to be added to the team. Cesc Fabregas, Abou Diaby, Lukasz Fabianski and even Kieran Gibbs used the opportunity of the break to get over injury woes and work their ways back to the team.
With the prospect of us playing six games over the course of the next two weeks, we will need all hands on deck, literally. So thanks to the ‘mini’ winter break, everyone has rested now for two weeks, before the mad fixture pile-up starts, which traditionally is a period that determines the fate of most teams in the premiership.
By the time we file out against Chelsea at the Emirates on Monday night, it would have been 14 days since we last took to the pitch – enough time to do some soul-searching amongst players and coach. In the hurly-burly world of football where time vanishes in a whirlwind of constant training, travelling and playing, those two weeks must have been heaven-sent.
It remains to be seen which side makes maximum use of that ‘mini-break’.
For Wenger and his troops, the first hurdle is to beat Chelsea on Monday night – pure and simple. This time no excuse can suffice. All the emotional baggage and psychological burdens of previous defeats to Chelsea cannot hold water anymore.
An opportunity to redress past errors has been further smoothened by the unforeseen hand of nature. A two week break in the middle of a season of so much upheaval and inconsistency, is almost too good to be true.
It’s like an insurance policy after a car crash. All the old frailities that have creeped back into our game since the start of the season and cast doubt on the team’s ability to deliver cannot be allowed to persist henceforth.
Because failure to deliver this season, will cast huge question marks on Arsene Wenger’s own ability as a serious, top flight manager. With a potential Carling Cup final within reach now and second place in the league, another trophyless season by May, 2011 will only mean one thing – the beginning of the end of Wenger at Arsenal.
Already, more rumblings have emerged off-field in the boardroom, where the gloomy, looming shadow that is Uzbek magnate, Alisher Usmanov. He has re-emerged to declare his intention to acquire more Arsenal shares. I’m sure it was his statement of intent that forced the hand of Danny Fiszmann to transfer his as well into a trust fund. Not too much of a financial wizard myself, I can only see the recent award of the 2018 World Cup to Russia as the catalyst behind such a move by Usmanov. Imagine what huge public relations coup it would be for the Russian oligarch if they could be controlling the largest club in Europe’s largest city by the time World Cup finals kicks off in Moscow in the summer of 2018. A club where they could call the shots; hire and fire the coach at will; buy any player they want; and still use it to launder their image among its millions of fans around the world. Imagine that!
For Wenger and the board of Arsenal, events are about to take a turn for the unknown.
All the years of toil, careful planning and sensible house-keeping, along with the legacy Wenger has built in his 14 years at Arsenal will count for nothing, if nothing is added to the team’s trophy cabinet at the end of such an open and unprecedented season. Because success on the field of play will definitely strengthen the hand of this current board and with the considerable weight of American billionaire Stan Kroenke behind them, they all just might be able to withstand the Russians and keep their jobs at the club.
Failure to win though and only God-knows-what will become of the present structure at the club.
The ‘mini break’, welcomed as it seemed, has left very little margin of error for Monsieur Wenger.
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