When 4 Becomes 1

The room was tense as Arsene Wenger stepped to the mic. Air-knifing, pin-dropping metaphors appeared extremely appropriate.  What would it be this time? The ref, the line-up, the schedule, the fans?! The manager’s lips pursed, brow burrowed, ready to out-intellect us all once more with a baffling array of statistics and strategies, while we prepared for the punishing bout of ear-bashing that was sure to accompany this intimidatory intelligence.

Wenger set his tone to ‘bossy, verging on bullying’, sharpened his sarcasm and attempted to access his most angry, patronising tirade, envisaging a media meltdown making way finally for a rallying cry of epic proportions, a standing ovation from the assorted hack-pack and the inevitable on-field comeback.

And then it came, emanating from his lips like from those of Martin Luther King, a stunning, stimulating, stirring, scintillating…stutter.

“It’s a massive task but the challenge we have is exciting” said the Frenchman, seemingly unaware that it felt fitting to add the word “less” before both his chosen adjectives. 

“We are used to being questioned. We have to show that we are strong enough” he said, desperately pleading with a group of players finding themselves a further man down this morning, following yesterday’s Old Trafford outing, with Johan Djourou’s dislocated shoulder ruling him out for the season.

In two weeks of the year’s third month, the Gunners have gone from four to one – the maths is frightening, but for followers of Arsene’s underachievers the equation is overly and eerily familiar, like the attentions of an inebriated uncle.

Perhaps, to break the cycle, the Professor’s science should step aside for superstition, as the Ides of March have often forewarned of the formula: M + I (+ x) - 4T = SiT+1, where M stands for the month in which Arsenal always seem to come a cropper, I being the injuries (and some would say injustices) this side seem to suffer just when they should be preparing their final assault on the 4T’s, or trophies, with x representing the incalculable, that single spanner in the works that so unsettles this adolescent group and renders their campaign yet another “season in transition” (SiT) that their manager claims takes them one step nearer to salvation.

Yesterday, arguably his best available XI lost by two goals to a team featuring not one full back playing wide midfield but two, one of whom got himself on the scoresheet (we’re still not sure which one), a centre midfield of John O’Shea (another full back) and Darron Gibson, in a side where the full-backs were rightfully manoeuvred to make room for the best in the business, Wes Brown.

“You could see something has gone, not in our effort or attitude, but confidence-wise…It can be an advantage if we deal with the problem mentally…We will have to answer this kind of question in the next two or three weeks. We have to show we have an answer”

After five years spared of silverware, Arsenal fans will be hoping their team can finally solve Wenger's riddle.