By Andrew Warshaw
January 8 – When the draw is made for the last 32 of the world’s oldest and most revered domestic cup competition this evening, the name of one club will be conspicuous by its absence in the famous velvet bag.
Arsenal are not only the holders of the FA Cup but also the most successful club in the competition’s history.
In over a generation at the club, manager Arsene Wenger has made a habit of reaching the latter stages, winning the coveted trophy seven times including in three of the past four seasons.
Which makes the humiliating 4-2 defeat to mid-table Championship club Nottingham Forest, the biggest upset of the weekend’s third-round action, all the more galling for Wenger and Arsenal’s fans.
It was the first time that Wenger, in his 22 years as Arsenal boss, had lost in the third round, the time when the big boys enter the competition. Even more embarrassingly, it was the first time since 1908 that a lower-league team had put four FA cup goals past the Gunners.
As he sat in the directors’ box serving the first game of a three-match ban imposed for recent comments about refereeing decisions, Wenger (mischievously nicknamed whinger by opposing fans) was unable to do anything about his team’s disintegration. Afterwards, the backlash on radio phone-ins and social media was relentlessly ferocious.
Like almost every top-flight team at the weekend, Wenger made a raft of changes. Nothing wrong with that given the status of the opposition – on paper at least.
Except he went much too far.
The golden rule when fielding second-string line-ups should be to have your big-hitters – or at least some them – ready to join the fray from the bench if and when things go wrong.
Ironically Mauricio Pochettino, manager of Arsenal’s great rivals Tottenham Hotspur, appears to have learned that lesson having been accused both at Tottenham and his previous club Southampton of failing to respect domestic cup competitions which carry so much more clout in the UK than they do overseas.
Wenger, of all people, should have known this. Instead he packed his bench with little-known inexperienced players who could nothing to influence the outcome of the game once Forest had stamped their mark on proceedings.
“Arrogance beyond belief” opined former English striker Chris Sutton who was working for BBC radio. It was a view shared by a raft of observers, Wenger paying the price for leaving behind a spate of first-team regulars.
The harsh reality, of course, is that those Wenger did select should have got the job done. His starting eleven, after all, contained international players such as Theo Walcott, Danny Welbeck and captain Per Mertesacker. Yet they were outplayed by a team without a permanent manager and which included five academy graduates.
If that doesn’t put the result into perspective, nothing does. The fact is that Wenger’s gamble of omitting all his game-changing stars backfired horribly, serving only to heap even more pressure on the hugely respected but increasingly vulnerable Frenchman as he attempts to restore fading and hurt pride.
Wenger’s enviable record as the most successful manager in FA Cup history – seven victories to go with his three league titles – should not and cannot be ignored. But for all his emphasis on playing the game the right way, every manager has his sell-by date and there is a bigger picture here, one of Wenger being unable to prevent his team going backwards.
Winning the League Cup (Arsenal are in the this week’s semi-final) would provide a modicum of respite and consolation. But with failure to clinch a top-four Premier League place for the second straight campaign looking increasingly likely, Arsenal’s chances of taking part in next season’s Champions League, with all the kudos that goes with it, now look like resting on having to win the Europa League.
If not, the natives in the red half of north London will become even more restless with their hugely proud but under-fire manager than they are now.
Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1734978585labto1734978585ofdlr1734978585owedi1734978585sni@w1734978585ahsra1734978585w.wer1734978585dna1734978585