AKB

AKB. It stands for ‘Arsene Knows Best’ and it’s something all but a small minority of Arsenal fans, not to mention the most knowledgeable people in football, have been aware of for a very long time.

Of course there will always be doubters in any organisation or enterprise, but after last night’s European Champions League triumph at Highbury, there can’t be many of them left.

Arsenal demolished and demoralised runaway Serie A leaders Juventus and the only possible complaint can be that the 2-0 winning margin gives no indication of the extent to which Arsene Wenger’s young side dominated the game.

Defensively, they were superb – so much so that Lehmann’s evening was largely confined to collecting crosses and dealing with back passes. In front of him, Toure and Senderos ensured that the Italian side’s highly rated front men Ibrahimovic and Trezeguet were anonymous, while full backs Eboue and Flamini effectively prevented any penetration down the flanks. But above all Arsenal defended as a team and there was no better indication of that than a tackle by Robert Pires (something of a collectors’ item) which was the source of their first goal.

After a tense opening, Arsenal’s began to dominate Juventus with the accuracy, pace and inventiveness of their passing and movement and but for goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon they could easily have won by five or six clear goals. Nevertheless, there was an appealing symmetry about the two goals that gave them victory – Henry to Fabregas in the 40th minute for the opener, and Fabregas to Henry almost half an hour later for the decider.

The first goal created by Henry, the second by Fabregas – typical of an outstanding team performance which had Arsene Wenger’s stamp all over it and came with the promise of another great team in the making.

This display should at last end the controversy which has surrounded the decision to allow Patrick Vieira to leave the club, the belief that Arsene Wenger was foolish to let him go, and silence the know-alls who insist that it has destroyed Arsenal’s season. Now perhaps they will appreciate what the young players in whom the manager has invested his faith are achieving and perhaps they will remember how difficult Patrick Vieira found his return to the ground which was the scene of so many personal triumphs.

He was not alone, because in the second half this was a game which became so one-sided that Juventus lost their belief and, worse still, their discipline – causing an inexperienced and over-tolerant referee to issue two red cards, first to the appalling pony-tailed exhibitionist Camoranesi, who disgraced himself and his team with his childish gestures as he made his petulant exit, and then to Zebina. Coupled with Vieira’s yellow card, these measures will deprive Juventus of the services of three players for the second leg in Turin – and even the return of Nedved and Del Peiro may not be enough to compensate for that.