• ! ! ! IMPORTANT MESSAGE ! ! !

    Discussions about police investigations

    In light of recent developments about a player from Premier League being arrested and until there is an official announcement, ALL users should refrain from discussing or speculating about situations around personal off-pitch matters related to any Arsenal player. This is to protect you and the forum.

    Users who disregard this reminder will be issued warnings and their posts will get deleted from public.

Ex-Gunner Watch

Is it wrong to still love Giroud

  • Yes he’s no longer a gooner

  • No he will always be a top man


Results are only viewable after voting.

Macho

In search of Pure Profit 💸
Dusted 🔻

Country: England
1655982741423.png

Best Premier League performances: No 41, Ian Wright for Arsenal v Everton​

Carl Anka
Jun 23, 2022

To celebrate 30 years of the Premier League, The Athletic is paying tribute to the 50 greatest individual performances in its history, as voted for by our writers. You can read Oliver Kay’s introduction to our Golden Games series (and the selection rules) here — as well as the full list of all the articles as they unfold.

Picking 50 from 309,949 options is an impossible task. You might not agree with their choices, you won’t agree with the order. They didn’t. It’s not intended as a definitive list. It’s a bit of fun, but hopefully a bit of fun you’ll enjoy between now and August.



Neville Southall’s face says it all. The camera work and picture quality of Premier League games in 1993 leave a little to be desired, but there is no mistaking Southall’s reaction after Ian Wright lobs the Everton goalkeeper from just inside the penalty area…

Nev-Southall-reacts-to-being-lobbed-by-Ian-Wright-1024x566.png


It’s the non-verbal cursing of a man who has been thoroughly outwitted.

“Pure autopilot,” says Wright to The Athletic about his goal. “My first thought (when David Seaman’s long pass arrives) was to retain possession. Matt Jackson committed so much when I flicked it the first time.

“I thought he’d have backed off but he was so committed I just went. You see his number? That means I’ve committed him (to moving in one direction), I’ll go the other way, he won’t be able to rectify his move because he’s too overcommitted and not expecting me to do that. So I just went over him again.

“He had to go on, he had to turn again, by the time that happened, Neville Southall just looked like he was too far on the near post.

“This goal was probably the only goal I didn’t know was coming, because it didn’t have an origin. It was just like… (I was in a) key position. That was the origin of this goal. And my instincts just took over.”

🗓 September 23, 1991: @IanWright0 signs – and we’re so glad he did 🔴

Reckon this was Wrighty’s best goal for us? pic.twitter.com/tmzFcmWf7u
Arsenal (@Arsenal) September 23, 2018
The description “natural finisher” is a bit of a misnomer as to what strikers do.

Consistency and repetition are the staple of any goalscorer’s diet. For a striker to play at the Premier League level, they would have likely practised goal-scoring actions nearly every day for the better part of a decade.

They execute close-range shots with their strong foot, then their weak one, then work on headers and volleys. Then they work on long-range shots. First touches are honed relentlessly. Number nines are instructed on their head movement, how to use a defender’s momentum against them and how to use different landmarks on the pitch to inform them how close they are to the goal at a glance.

To be a top Premier League striker, you need to know how to run to the front post, how to isolate a full-back and then attack the back post. You need to master the double movement and when you should stop making a run so you can then enter an area of the pitch outside the defender’s cone of vision. You need to learn to gamble on your team-mate’s shots, running towards the goal just in case the keeper spills the ball, so you can have a tap-in. You need to make sure your tap-ins go where they are meant to go, so they are tap-ins rather than embarrassing meme-worthy misses.

Speak to football coaches about their encounters with future greats and they’ll often describe young players as having “every tool in their locker” — footballers are trained to sharpen all of these skills to the point where it becomes an extension of their personality. Then they are asked to trust their personality to put everything together during a game’s most crucial moments.

To learn how to score using a bicycle kick takes hundred of hours of training. To watch a cross come in and then decide — in a split second — that a bicycle kick is the best way to score from it, takes a level of ideation and imagination that can be hard to quantify and so we can only describe it as “natural”. As autopilot, that intangible flow state where years of practice get filtered through a very particular mind and experiences and it just… happens.

That 1993-94 season was only the second Premier League campaign and it was marked with a strange newness.

One foot of English football was still in its previous era, with 22 clubs still competing in the top flight, but the big toe of the other foot was pointing towards a style of play that would become more commonplace later in the decade. Strikers including Wright, Andy Cole and Alan Shearer engaged in thrilling races for the Golden Boot, each man averaging a goal every other game.

English football was changing, but it needed top strikers to help define it. This game against Everton, on August 28, 1993, is nearly impossible to find in its entirety, but if you type “the game where Wrighty lobbed Southall”, you can find small highlights of it rather quickly.

ian-wright-arsenal-2-e1655919787886.jpg


Wright celebrates his magical goal (Photo: John Stillwell – PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images)
Football writer Tim Stillman was present for the game, watching from the West Lower Stand at Highbury as Wright dazzled.

“One of the things I always thought about Wrighty, and which became more apparent after his retirement, was the variety of his goals,” Stillman says. “They were incredible. In that year alone, there was his hat-trick against Yeovil in January in the FA Cup (of the 1992-93 season). You can say, ‘It’s Yeovil!’, but the second goal is this amazing chip that goes off the bar.

“Just after Christmas that year, he scores this goal against Swindon away. He’s out wide by the touchline, maybe 45 yards away and he clips this ball that sails all the way in. I know Wright has talked about this goal against Everton as being his favourite goal but, for me, it might be his third-best goal in 1993.”

Both Stillman and Wright find it hard to recall the striker’s first goal against Everton that day, which occurs in the 48th minute after strike partner Kevin Campbell works some space around the box and feeds a short pass to him to finish.

Across the 90 minutes, there are multiple moments where Wright sizes up a defender and thinks of how to create a goal in a manner his opponent cannot comprehend, before he then acts on that desire at a pace that few defenders at the time could stop. He’s just a bit quicker in his movement than everyone in an Everton shirt, and occasionally makes runs that his own team-mates can’t quite figure out.

Wright in 1993 makes for a curious watch, the natural part of his natural goalscorer’s movement standing out. He had been a professional footballer for eight years by this point, but in that match against Everton, he has moments where his years of football for Sunday League team Ten-Em-Bee come through. Defenders Andy Hinchcliffe and Paul Holmes think they have a handle of him in the first half, often going touch-tight and trying to bully him off the ball, but Wright has the strength and balance to match them in physical duels and tricker moments.

By the second half, he has realised that Everton want to get touch-tight, so starts drifting into wide areas, luring his marker to push up the pitch and challenge him before cutting inside. It’s a fun game-within-a-game between Wright and the defenders that begins every time the Arsenal striker gets the ball into his feet. Everton want things to be like a boxing match but Wright has the talent to make his opposite man look like a clumsy dancer.

This version of Arsenal needed the inventiveness Wright brought to the side. As Stillman mentions, 1993-94 was the season when the “One-nil to the Arsenal” chant was born, coming after one of Wright’s goals helped secure passage to the European Cup Winners’ Cup final. The midfielders were workmanlike, outside a sprinkle of flair from a young Ray Parlour, and Wright is keen to stress how Campbell helped his performance that day against Everton.

“Kevin had everything — pace, power, intelligence and his movement. Him and Alan (Shearer) at under-21 level were unstoppable,” he says. “I thought he could take two players with him (during games). Two players from my space. He was so strong — once he got the ball, you weren’t going to lose it.”

When Wright sensed opportunities on the field he sprang into life. That is how the second goal of that match — the one he considers his greatest ever and the moment from this game that people treasure — is born.

Watch Wright goals for long enough and a certain playfulness emerges. He’s not just a striker capable of scoring beautiful goals; he actively has moments where he takes an extra beat to apply a more precise finish when others would opt for power. It’s artistic finishing born not just from an urge to entertain, but also a desire to prove himself at the top level.

Despite his 113 goals across 213 Premier League appearances, Wright gives himself a very particular ranking in the list of great Premier League strikers.

Match Of The Day viewers will be used to his light sparring with Shearer and Gary Lineker over who had the best record: every so often, Wright can admit Shearer has the edge on him in the air, or outscored him in a particular season.

His striker’s confidence has not completely ebbed away, though.

During a memorable segment for UK broadcaster BT Sport, former strikers Wright, Chris Sutton and Michael Owen were asked who had the better left foot. Wright’s reply: “Me. Don’t even ask them two – they can’t get near to where my left foot was.”

Wright practised working on his left foot at the age of seven by kicking a tennis ball against a brick wall on his council estate in Brockley, south London. He was driven to do it by elder brother Maurice, who would relentlessly tease him about any weaknesses to his game whenever they would play in the park at Hilly Fields. Wright is a striker who worked hard to make it look easy and then worked harder still to respect it as an art form.

“People only talk about the goals, but my whole being when I was playing was trying to make people say I was complete,” says Wright. “(His former Arsenal manager) George Graham always said it when I was playing — I was working to be a complete striker. Not like Shearer, but Shearer for me was a complete striker. He wasn’t as beautiful in the way he looked when he played football as Teddy Sheringham, but he was complete. Linking play, left foot, right foot….

“Obviously (I had) more pace than both of them, but that’s what I needed to be, to play at a higher level. That’s what I was always working for. But people talk about my goals more than anything else in my game.”

It is a pity that so little remains of Wright’s game against Everton in August 1993.

According to Stillman, it was so early in the season that the replay screens at Highbury were still in the process of being fitted, so even those who watched the game live couldn’t quite grasp what Wright had done until they switched on Match Of The Day that evening.

Had Wright’s performance occurred a decade later, there would have been more screens, more angles of both of his goals and how he toyed with a defence that didn’t really know what to do with him. If you were one of the lucky Arsenal fans at that game, you will know that it saw Wright display the best of his technical ability and intuitive imagination.

ian-wright-arsenal-1-scaled.jpg


Arsenal celebrate Wright’s second goal of the game (Photo: Chris Cole/Allsport/Getty Images)
If you didn’t watch it live but have seen the second goal before, you will have one final question: Why did Wright lob Southall rather than blast it?

“Because it wouldn’t have felt beautiful enough,” Wright says, with a laugh.

“If I’d blasted it, I’d have no control over that finish. I’m hoping that it (the ball) goes over to the right-hand side of the goal. If I’d blasted it, Neville Southall and the way he would have covered it, it would have had to have been so precise with a shot that’s so hard.

“It would have been pure luck if it went in. Whereas, to lift it over, it gives me a much better chance of doing it and it’s a much more beautiful goal. Because he was totally helpless.”

Artistry mixing with ambition. That was Ian Wright for Arsenal on a late summer’s day in 1993.
 

Macho

In search of Pure Profit 💸
Dusted 🔻

Country: England
These articles are very dope btw, I've been enjoying. I think we have 2 in the top 50 so far (Özil vs Leicester) but need to double check.

Still ongoing, who else do we think is going to end up in there for the Gunners?
Henry and/or Pires should be in there and I wonder if Arshavin vs Liverpool will make it in there as well (was it a league game?)
 

Rex Stone

Long live the fighters
Trusted ⭐

Country: Wales
These articles are very dope btw, I've been enjoying. I think we have 2 in the top 50 so far (Özil vs Leicester) but need to double check.

Still ongoing, who else do we think is going to end up in there for the Gunners?
Henry and/or Pires should be in there and I wonder if Arshavin vs Liverpool will make it in there as well (was it a league game?)

Yeah Arshavin was a league game and Liverpool were going for the title at the time.

Have to say Henry vs Liverpool in 2004 needs to be up there. Just knocked out the Cup and CL and he just wouldn’t let us lose. Simply unplayable.
 

A_G

Rice Rice Baby 🎼🎵
A-M CL Draft Campeón 🏆
These articles are very dope btw, I've been enjoying. I think we have 2 in the top 50 so far (Özil vs Leicester) but need to double check.

Still ongoing, who else do we think is going to end up in there for the Gunners?
Henry and/or Pires should be in there and I wonder if Arshavin vs Liverpool will make it in there as well (was it a league game?)
Henry vs Liverpool 03/04 defo, maybe Fabregas vs Blackburn or Aston Villa 09/10 as well
 

AberGooner

Established Member
Trusted ⭐

Country: Scotland

Player:Gabriel
These articles are very dope btw, I've been enjoying. I think we have 2 in the top 50 so far (Özil vs Leicester) but need to double check.

Still ongoing, who else do we think is going to end up in there for the Gunners?
Henry and/or Pires should be in there and I wonder if Arshavin vs Liverpool will make it in there as well (was it a league game?)

Bergkamp at Leicester maybe, Kanu at Chelsea. Sanchez at West Ham, pains me to mention Van Persie but he was excellent at Chelsea as well.

Henry against Leeds was probably the most video game like performance I've ever seen. It was as if he was playing against an amateur side.

No way they'll all get in but there's been some good ones.
 

Riou

In The Winchester, Waiting For This To Blow Over

Country: Northern Ireland

Player:Gabriel
Henry v Leeds in 2004, is probably his best ever performance...though considering the opposition, you would put other ones ahead of it.

But it was special...Highbury at night too, just beautiful :drool:
 
  • Fire
Reactions: A_G

Riou

In The Winchester, Waiting For This To Blow Over

Country: Northern Ireland

Player:Gabriel
The **** is this...



...did he say "Aryan" :lol:
 

Riou

In The Winchester, Waiting For This To Blow Over

Country: Northern Ireland

Player:Gabriel


...remember when £10 million, was actually decent money...football is mad these days!
 

Riou

In The Winchester, Waiting For This To Blow Over

Country: Northern Ireland

Player:Gabriel


...imagine if we could have got a fit Partey and a prime Santi in the middle together, sigh.
 

Macho

In search of Pure Profit 💸
Dusted 🔻

Country: England
1656928101219.png

By Amy Lawrence
6h ago

To celebrate 30 years of the Premier League, The Athletic is paying tribute to the 50 greatest individual performances in its history, as voted for by our writers. You can read Oliver Kay’s introduction to our Golden Games series (and the selection rules) here — as well as the full list of all the articles as they unfold.

Picking 50 from 309,949 options is an impossible task. You might not agree with their choices, you won’t agree with the order. They didn’t. It’s not intended as a definitive list. It’s a bit of fun, but hopefully a bit of fun you’ll enjoy between now and August.


Arsène Wenger walked into the press room at Stamford Bridge, and when he was asked to describe what Nwankwo Kanu had just done, his face took on the same astonished look as all the other witnesses of a goal you wouldn’t imagine if you hadn’t actually seen it. “He was down on the touchline!” Wenger exclaimed, astonished, as if he was trying to compute something that didn’t seem possible.

That was Kanu.

So much about him seemed to defy belief. Quite apart from the technical wizardry that enabled him to do things so wondrously out of the ordinary, watching him play football at times felt extra special because it was a miracle he was playing at all. Three years previously, as reigning African Footballer of the Year, a serious heart defect was diagnosed and doctors feared for his career. Arsenal took extra precautions and guided him on a tour of Harley Street doctors before signing this most unusual talent. Kanu looked like he was built for the high jump, yet in his gargantuan size 15 boots his footwork was intricate enough he could probably have causally painted a masterpiece with a brush between his toes.

So, for the purposes of this series, let’s gather some of the elements that elevate a performance to greatness. Let’s start by throwing a last-minute winner into the hat. Add the twisting plot of a comeback. For background, a filthy day with teeming rain, a difficult, sodden pitch, and the bitter loathing of a local rivalry. On top of that, a match winner of rare invention and creativity. Sometimes just one of these things is enough to elevate a game. This one had it all.

There was a lot going on for Arsenal in the autumn of 1999. Kanu had signed earlier that year, and during the summer Wenger recruited Thierry Henry and Davor Suker to a forward line that also included Dennis Bergkamp. The pedigree within that attacking group was arguably as spectacular as any point in the club’s history, including World Cup winners and golden boots, Champions League triumphs, English doubles and footballers of the year. Even though some were not quite in their prime (Henry was on the way in and Suker on the way out of that sweet spot) it was still an impressive collection.

GettyImages-650857092.jpg


Kanu and Suker were just two of the options in an enviable forward line (Photo: Craig Prentis/EMPICS via Getty Images)
Kanu’s place in it all was interesting. He was a regular starter during the season, even if throughout his Arsenal career he fluctuated between the major role and specialist act of impact substitute. Wenger loved the flexibility, the fact Kanu had the ingenuity and skill to fill Bergkamp’s No 10 role, and the hold-up play and cleverness around goal to bring in others or finish himself, reminiscent of the No 9 responsibility a player like Alan Smith used to such great effect.

On October 23rd, 1999, Arsenal faced a trip to Chelsea, which was ill-timed as it was the filling in a very intense Champions League sandwich. Home games either side, against Barcelona and Fiorentina, loomed large in the consciousness and Wenger picked his team accordingly. This was a trial campaign in that Arsenal hired Wembley Stadium for their European matches, an experiment that seemed to pile on the pressure as they were not quite at home, and their opponents tended to arrive extra inspired.

Bergkamp, notably, was rested for the Chelsea game. There was also no Patrick Vieira to command central midfield. Still, Arsenal at that time seemed to have a hex on Chelsea and were on a long unbeaten run against them.

But having started sketchily, Chelsea got the breaks and went 2-0 up. Coming so soon after Barcelona belittled them with a 4-2 masterclass at Wembley, Arsenal were feeling the pressure. They were wobbling both in Europe and domestically, and with 15 minutes to go Wenger was worried for Arsenal’s season. Chelsea hadn’t conceded a goal in the Premier League at home all season. Wenger desperately needed somebody, or something, to change the record. But how?

The game was increasingly uncontrolled, error strewn, reckless. Both teams gave the ball away carelessly. For example, when Chelsea won a free kick, which was hooked daftly straight into touch, Dennis Wise’s irritation was written all over his face. He bashed a finger at his temple, urging his team-mates to concentrate. We’re two nil up here. Don’t be stupid.

The conditions were not to be trusted. The pitch was soggy, unreliable. There was a hint of the possibility to come when Marcel Desailly played a hurried backpass to Ed De Goey. There was nobody closing him down in a particularly worrisome way. But when the keeper came to clear as he put his foot through the ball he swept through a puddle in the penalty area. Spray whooshed up. It was anything-can-happen territory.

Niggling fouls. Balls bouncing unpredictably over heads. A frenzy of casual turnovers. It was pouring so relentlessly Wenger, in the uncovered dugouts, wrapped a red towel over his legs. It wasn’t pretty viewing from his perspective.

Arsenal’s foothold came scrappily. Marc Overmars’ hopeful shot skimmed into Kanu’s path and after a quick controlling touch and a half spin, out sprung one of those telescopic legs to toe poke the ball into the corner.

The second was another exhibit of two-touch ruthlessness that owed a lot to those long limbs of his. The first touch redirected Overmars’ cross to angle the ball away from Chelsea’s defenders, the next thumped the ball in at the near post.

Kanu was central to everything during that final 15 minutes, tormenting the French World Cup-winning defensive pair of Desailly and Frank Lebeouf. His touch was soft, looking to carry Arsenal towards the winner.

The piece de resistance was preposterous. By now the crowd resorted to making a kind of white noise accompaniment, babbling and oohing an ahhing with everything on edge. Arsenal fashioned a break through Overmars and Suker, but the pass to Kanu was disappointing – bending too wide and deep towards the byline. “Argh,” exclaimed commentator Martin Tyler, “Kanu didn’t want it there…”

Kanu ambled over and blocked Chelsea’s attempted clearance. Again, Tyler’s words reflect the sentiment of the moment, with his voice beginning to crack as he watched in awe. “Kanu… What’s he gonna do heeeeeerre?”



What he did was something very few players would have thought of, tried, or pulled off. He was not far from he corner flag when De Goey dashed out to meet him. Kanu slowed time, dropped his shoulder, De Goey went one way and Kanu calmly stepped the other. His rising shot from the slenderest angle zoomed over the heads of Desailly, and Lebeouf on the line. Bedlam. Believe it or not, just then the sun came out.

Kanu’s three goals required different methodology, different processes, different thinking and executing. That kind of mastery and invention, in a pressure situation, remains a standout moment in the Premier League.

Wenger struggled to explain it afterwards. “I don’t know how he scored the third goal — I thought it was an impossible chance from that angle.” He wheezed that Kanu’s inspired recovery in that game aged him 10 years. It was a nice line and we could all tell what he meant but at the same time the beauty of that performance is that it also felt like it took years off you, made you feel young and euphoric and energised. It was one of those to remind you why you love sport at all, with that whirlwind of the unpredictable that can sweep you up with a clever touch, a dashing finish, and a flicked emotional switch.

Some of us watching lost ourselves in the moment. I suppose I should apologise. Falling short on expected standards is not a great look, but like a kid who misbehaves but tries desperately to explain that someone else was responsible, I felt it wasn’t entirely my doing. Kanu made me do it.

So here’s the scenario. British press box etiquette dictates that celebrating in the section reserved for independent writers of record is frowned upon. Even the act of witnessing something remarkable requires a measured response — fact-checking and in-jokes are allowed but that’s about it. Jumping out of your seat is a major transgression. But when Kanu scored one of the most outrageously bold hat-tricks to grace the Premier League, etiquette evaporated and I rose to applaud. Steve Stammers, a respected gentleman of the press to my left, promptly jabbed me in the ribs and gave me a stare. “Foot on the ball, Amy,” he said coolly. “Foot on the ball.”

Maybe it was too much. But sometimes football is just too euphoric not to let yourself go.
 

AberGooner

Established Member
Trusted ⭐

Country: Scotland

Player:Gabriel
View attachment 7591

By Amy Lawrence
6h ago

To celebrate 30 years of the Premier League, The Athletic is paying tribute to the 50 greatest individual performances in its history, as voted for by our writers. You can read Oliver Kay’s introduction to our Golden Games series (and the selection rules) here — as well as the full list of all the articles as they unfold.

Picking 50 from 309,949 options is an impossible task. You might not agree with their choices, you won’t agree with the order. They didn’t. It’s not intended as a definitive list. It’s a bit of fun, but hopefully a bit of fun you’ll enjoy between now and August.


Arsène Wenger walked into the press room at Stamford Bridge, and when he was asked to describe what Nwankwo Kanu had just done, his face took on the same astonished look as all the other witnesses of a goal you wouldn’t imagine if you hadn’t actually seen it. “He was down on the touchline!” Wenger exclaimed, astonished, as if he was trying to compute something that didn’t seem possible.

That was Kanu.

So much about him seemed to defy belief. Quite apart from the technical wizardry that enabled him to do things so wondrously out of the ordinary, watching him play football at times felt extra special because it was a miracle he was playing at all. Three years previously, as reigning African Footballer of the Year, a serious heart defect was diagnosed and doctors feared for his career. Arsenal took extra precautions and guided him on a tour of Harley Street doctors before signing this most unusual talent. Kanu looked like he was built for the high jump, yet in his gargantuan size 15 boots his footwork was intricate enough he could probably have causally painted a masterpiece with a brush between his toes.

So, for the purposes of this series, let’s gather some of the elements that elevate a performance to greatness. Let’s start by throwing a last-minute winner into the hat. Add the twisting plot of a comeback. For background, a filthy day with teeming rain, a difficult, sodden pitch, and the bitter loathing of a local rivalry. On top of that, a match winner of rare invention and creativity. Sometimes just one of these things is enough to elevate a game. This one had it all.

There was a lot going on for Arsenal in the autumn of 1999. Kanu had signed earlier that year, and during the summer Wenger recruited Thierry Henry and Davor Suker to a forward line that also included Dennis Bergkamp. The pedigree within that attacking group was arguably as spectacular as any point in the club’s history, including World Cup winners and golden boots, Champions League triumphs, English doubles and footballers of the year. Even though some were not quite in their prime (Henry was on the way in and Suker on the way out of that sweet spot) it was still an impressive collection.

GettyImages-650857092.jpg


Kanu and Suker were just two of the options in an enviable forward line (Photo: Craig Prentis/EMPICS via Getty Images)
Kanu’s place in it all was interesting. He was a regular starter during the season, even if throughout his Arsenal career he fluctuated between the major role and specialist act of impact substitute. Wenger loved the flexibility, the fact Kanu had the ingenuity and skill to fill Bergkamp’s No 10 role, and the hold-up play and cleverness around goal to bring in others or finish himself, reminiscent of the No 9 responsibility a player like Alan Smith used to such great effect.

On October 23rd, 1999, Arsenal faced a trip to Chelsea, which was ill-timed as it was the filling in a very intense Champions League sandwich. Home games either side, against Barcelona and Fiorentina, loomed large in the consciousness and Wenger picked his team accordingly. This was a trial campaign in that Arsenal hired Wembley Stadium for their European matches, an experiment that seemed to pile on the pressure as they were not quite at home, and their opponents tended to arrive extra inspired.

Bergkamp, notably, was rested for the Chelsea game. There was also no Patrick Vieira to command central midfield. Still, Arsenal at that time seemed to have a hex on Chelsea and were on a long unbeaten run against them.

But having started sketchily, Chelsea got the breaks and went 2-0 up. Coming so soon after Barcelona belittled them with a 4-2 masterclass at Wembley, Arsenal were feeling the pressure. They were wobbling both in Europe and domestically, and with 15 minutes to go Wenger was worried for Arsenal’s season. Chelsea hadn’t conceded a goal in the Premier League at home all season. Wenger desperately needed somebody, or something, to change the record. But how?

The game was increasingly uncontrolled, error strewn, reckless. Both teams gave the ball away carelessly. For example, when Chelsea won a free kick, which was hooked daftly straight into touch, Dennis Wise’s irritation was written all over his face. He bashed a finger at his temple, urging his team-mates to concentrate. We’re two nil up here. Don’t be stupid.

The conditions were not to be trusted. The pitch was soggy, unreliable. There was a hint of the possibility to come when Marcel Desailly played a hurried backpass to Ed De Goey. There was nobody closing him down in a particularly worrisome way. But when the keeper came to clear as he put his foot through the ball he swept through a puddle in the penalty area. Spray whooshed up. It was anything-can-happen territory.

Niggling fouls. Balls bouncing unpredictably over heads. A frenzy of casual turnovers. It was pouring so relentlessly Wenger, in the uncovered dugouts, wrapped a red towel over his legs. It wasn’t pretty viewing from his perspective.

Arsenal’s foothold came scrappily. Marc Overmars’ hopeful shot skimmed into Kanu’s path and after a quick controlling touch and a half spin, out sprung one of those telescopic legs to toe poke the ball into the corner.

The second was another exhibit of two-touch ruthlessness that owed a lot to those long limbs of his. The first touch redirected Overmars’ cross to angle the ball away from Chelsea’s defenders, the next thumped the ball in at the near post.

Kanu was central to everything during that final 15 minutes, tormenting the French World Cup-winning defensive pair of Desailly and Frank Lebeouf. His touch was soft, looking to carry Arsenal towards the winner.

The piece de resistance was preposterous. By now the crowd resorted to making a kind of white noise accompaniment, babbling and oohing an ahhing with everything on edge. Arsenal fashioned a break through Overmars and Suker, but the pass to Kanu was disappointing – bending too wide and deep towards the byline. “Argh,” exclaimed commentator Martin Tyler, “Kanu didn’t want it there…”

Kanu ambled over and blocked Chelsea’s attempted clearance. Again, Tyler’s words reflect the sentiment of the moment, with his voice beginning to crack as he watched in awe. “Kanu… What’s he gonna do heeeeeerre?”



What he did was something very few players would have thought of, tried, or pulled off. He was not far from he corner flag when De Goey dashed out to meet him. Kanu slowed time, dropped his shoulder, De Goey went one way and Kanu calmly stepped the other. His rising shot from the slenderest angle zoomed over the heads of Desailly, and Lebeouf on the line. Bedlam. Believe it or not, just then the sun came out.

Kanu’s three goals required different methodology, different processes, different thinking and executing. That kind of mastery and invention, in a pressure situation, remains a standout moment in the Premier League.

Wenger struggled to explain it afterwards. “I don’t know how he scored the third goal — I thought it was an impossible chance from that angle.” He wheezed that Kanu’s inspired recovery in that game aged him 10 years. It was a nice line and we could all tell what he meant but at the same time the beauty of that performance is that it also felt like it took years off you, made you feel young and euphoric and energised. It was one of those to remind you why you love sport at all, with that whirlwind of the unpredictable that can sweep you up with a clever touch, a dashing finish, and a flicked emotional switch.

Some of us watching lost ourselves in the moment. I suppose I should apologise. Falling short on expected standards is not a great look, but like a kid who misbehaves but tries desperately to explain that someone else was responsible, I felt it wasn’t entirely my doing. Kanu made me do it.

So here’s the scenario. British press box etiquette dictates that celebrating in the section reserved for independent writers of record is frowned upon. Even the act of witnessing something remarkable requires a measured response — fact-checking and in-jokes are allowed but that’s about it. Jumping out of your seat is a major transgression. But when Kanu scored one of the most outrageously bold hat-tricks to grace the Premier League, etiquette evaporated and I rose to applaud. Steve Stammers, a respected gentleman of the press to my left, promptly jabbed me in the ribs and gave me a stare. “Foot on the ball, Amy,” he said coolly. “Foot on the ball.”

Maybe it was too much. But sometimes football is just too euphoric not to let yourself go.


What a performance. My main memory from that game is the likes of Henry struggling to stay on their feet in that swamp and you have Kanu gliding about like it's a normal day. Still no idea how he squeezed that third goal in.
 

Latest posts+

Top Bottom