Manager has time to relax as Arsenal’s much-changed team avoid major upset against non-league Sutton United to reach FA Cup quarter-finals
For all the talk of Cup magic this was in the end an orderly out-ground experience for Arsenal, a 2-0 fifth-round victory that felt by the end like a gently convalescent night out in the southern suburbs. Gander Green Lane is a clattery low rise lodged between rows of pebble-dashed semis, its edges marked out by a row of scaffold-pole huts and the remains of a venerable wood and ironwork stand. Before kick-off Arsène Wenger could be seen signing autographs in the car park, smiling fondly on the touchline and generally looking like a man rather enjoying being in such homely surroundings after the trauma of that career-low 5-1 Champions League thrashing in Munich last week.
In the hours before the match the narrow streets around the ground had been clogged with a well-mannered crush, pubs and newsagents spilling out with amused, good-natured locals. As the Arsenal bus edged its way in and disgorged the away team there were shouts of “who are you?” but more craned necks and camera flashes and genuine curiosity at these visitors from the footballing over-world. And there was an oddly gripping intimacy about all this for Arsenal’s fans too, the usual glazed and distant superstars recast in the kitchen-sink proximity of a ground built on a more human scale.
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Related: Arsène Wenger: I could never manage in non-league, it is too difficult
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