Seeing Stars

A disgruntled Arsenal fan recently used a national sports radio show to air his grievances about Arsene Wenger’s summer dealings in the transfer market, enquiring sarcastically whether Alexander Hleb, Alexandre Song and Mart Poom were, in fact, the three world class players the fans had allegedly been promised.

Hopefully, he’s in a minority – with any luck what Chelsea’s chief executive would describe, in his fractured English, as “a small group of one”!

Such a minority evidently needs reminding about one or two things. First, he (and any one like him) has had since the 1996-97 season to work out that one of the qualities that has made Arsene Wenger the most successful manager in Arsenal’s illustrious history is his astute, and often inspired, dealings in the transfer market.

He might recall that some nine years ago a relatively unknown midfield player called Patrick Vieira joined Arsenal – just one of a number of players who have arrived quietly for extremely modest sums and become world class (which is quite handy when you don’t have Chelsea’s brand of pocket money).

And the really interesting thing is not merely the gloom and doom generated when any of those great players has left, but what has happened to some of them subsequently and how well they were replaced. Remember Anelka, Overmars and Petit? The club made a handsome profit on all of them but their departures were condemned by some as a retrograde step – until Henry, Pires and Gilberto settled into the squad.

Now that Patrick has gone, following several summers of speculation, the pessimists are at it again. They would do well to console themselves with the fact that what counts is that Arsenal’s best ever signing – the manager they once called “Arsene WHO?”, the man who has brought them unprecedented success and fabulous football and has never finished a full premiership season lower than second place – is still there.

O ye of little faith!