Do Not Sell My Personal Information
It’s understandable that Arsenal’s Invincibles side is so fetishized given its success and the fact that the side played in living memory for the majority of us. Of course, an awful lot has changed in football since that great side were amassing trophies and records. The arrivals of Abramovic and Sheikh Mansour, as well as rich benefactors at the likes of PSG and Monaco, have meant that the competition for talent has never been fiercer. In a modern context, there is just no way that Arsenal’s Invincibles side would have stayed together as long as it did.
Meanwhile, Arsenal have built a new stadium and, with that, came financial restrictions just as the game’s finances were lifting off into orbit. The Invincibles side was broken up quickly and replaced by a score of talented, yet unproven youngsters. Some of those young players have proved more successful than others. Therefore, Arsenal have suffered a relative drop off in fortunes compared to a decade ago. It’s natural that many of us have been left to contemplate which of our departed sons we have missed the most.
You don’t really replace players like Dennis Bergkamp, Thierry Henry, Robert Pires and Patrick Vieira. There just aren’t enough players of that ilk and that quality and the few that exist are not available to Arsenal. Every physical midfielder that emerged was labelled ‘the new Patrick Vieira’ for the best part of a decade is indicative. It’s indicative of Vieira’s stature and quality. The fact that it was used so often shows us that most players anointed with that label did not live up to it, hence its constant recycle.
Arsenal have missed Patrick Vieira just like United have missed Cristiano Ronaldo and Chelsea missed Didier Drogba. They were never replaced like for like, the respective teams just found a different way to play. It’s the same for Arsenal with Henry and Bergkamp. The Gunners have not played the same formation since their departures, initially, their functions were replaced by Fabregas and Adebayor, who were completely different types of player. Arsenal are still searching for a creative wide player to replace Pires after the Arshavin experiment went sour and Samir Nasri caught wanderlust.
One player you feel that Arsenal could have utilised in the systems that they have played since that era is Gilberto Silva. The holding midfield position has been a very contentious one for Arsenal fans since Mathieu Flamini left in 2008. Song and Denilson were promising youngsters trialled in the role, with varying degrees of success. Denilson looked good initially, until a back injury curtailed his progress. The young Brazilian just didn’t have the mentality to overcome those tribulations. (Compare, for instance, to Aaron Ramsey and how he has fought physical adversity to continue his progress).
Alex Song looked promising for a while too, until he started racking up assists and lost the humility needed to perform the role. Mikel Arteta has since been converted into a deep lying midfielder. I think much of what Arteta does is thoroughly misunderstood or not appreciated by large swathes of the Arsenal fanbase and beyond. In fact, there is an irony at work here because the same was true of Gilberto Silva for much of his Gunners career. He was the target of stick from the Highbury crowd because people did not appreciate the subtlety of his role. Gilberto was only truly appreciated when a back injury robbed us of his services for 9 months and the Gunners suddenly began to look an awful lot less secure.
That said, in Arteta’s absence this season, Francis Coquelin has risen in prominence so Arteta’s role will probably never be truly understood or appreciated by many. Gilberto and Arteta are very similar types of screening player (admittedly, Gilberto is the better of the two). I think many could not wrap their heads around Arteta as a defensive midfielder because they had become familiar with him in a more advanced midfield role at Everton. It’s worth mentioning at this point that Gilberto neither started nor ended his career as a midfielder either, he played for more than half of his career as a centre half, but did so away from our eyes in Brazil.
But ultimately, you feel Gilberto would have been able to perform the same function that Denilson and Arteta have, but to a better standard. A player as influential as Vieira would obviously be a big boon to any team, but the Gunners have hardly been short of quality in his position since his departure in 2005. Fabregas, Wilshere and Ramsey have all been voted as Arsenal’s player of the season in that time, which suggests that the voting supporters have not had as many issues with the central midfield as they have defensive midfield.
