Manager departing after 22 years leaves a legacy of dispirited Arsenal fans yet his wide-ranging human qualities see even harshest critics expressing affectionIt is a story that Arsène Wenger has told on more than one occasion in different company over dinner and it always has the desired effect. The Arsenal manager talks of a book he has read in which an assassin is able to stop his heart when he kills and then restart it. “I’m looking for a striker like that,” he says. Related: Arsène Wenger changed the face of English football. It was all him | Lee Dixon (September 22, 1996) Related: Arsène Wenger, Arsenal's departing general, deserves a fitting farewell | Barney Ronay Continue reading...
José Mourinho needs to make drastic changes, Rafael Benítez is getting best out of his players and Jordan Ayew is on a missionHaving so meekly allowed Manchester City to claim the Premier League title, a process of rebuilding Manchester United into future champions starts now. The non-inclusion of Marouane Fellaini, Daley Blind, Matteo Darmian and Luke Shaw in José Mourinho’s match‑day 18 for this game at Old Trafford indicated where a long-awaited clear-out of David Moyes and Louis van Gaal recruits is likely to begin. But it will take more than that to revitalise United. The shapeless sludge of this performance against West Brom was no anomaly. Chief among the reasons United have been left in City’s wake is Mourinho’s...
Arsène Wenger’s lively forwards were undermined by shoddy defending on a day when Newcastle all but secured safetyThe quest for meaning, the need to form the unbearably random constituents of our existence into some kind of order, to create a narrative or a value-system, to believe it all somehow matters – it seems integral to humanity. But sometimes a late-season game between two sides with nothing much to play for is just a late-season game between two sides with nothing much to play for. Related: Arsenal slump to another defeat as Matt Ritchie hits Newcastle winner Continue reading...
Players and fans of Gunners and CSKA Moscow produced a life-affirming football occasion, despite concerns about securityMidway through the second half of a match whose tension levels had amped up beyond recognition, Danny Welbeck conjured up a moment that promised everything and nothing. Arsenal were rocking and CSKA Moscow raucous but there was Welbeck, burning away from a panting Kirill Nababkin on the left flank, eating up 50 yards of turf and offering a self-made opportunity on the counter. His centre, scuffed and misdirected with team-mates waiting, was poor and at that moment it was tempting to wonder whether Arsenal, who had rarely reached anything like that speed in the previous 65 minutes, would pay the ultimate price for not...
Danny Welbeck remains an enigma, Marko Arnautovic goes it alone and Rafael Benítez delivers a lesson to his bossDanny Welbeck stayed true to form by mixing the sublime with the ridiculous during Arsenal’s 3-2 victory over Southampton, producing a contender for miss of the season moments before nodding in the winner. The striker’s header was his second goal of the afternoon and proof, perhaps, that he is getting back to his best after an injury‑ravaged season. “Danny Welbeck is getting sharper,” Arsène Wenger said. “I am pleased for him. I have seen him behave when it was really hard. He had every reason to feel sorry for himself and feel the mountain was too big to climb – right knee,...