2005-2006 season

[Herbas]

Not sure where to post it, so just opened a new thread.

I was not following Arsenal at that time and can't find any decent review of 05/06 season, so can you tell me what the hell happened at that time that we almost finished 5th and got 4th on the very last day?

Watched the season review DVD and it didn't tell much about the season as DVD makers were insistent on calling the season "historical", "memorable", etc. (you would think that we won the league that season).

I checked the team squad and on paper it looked very well: starting eleven missed only Vieira compared to the invincibles.
Henry apparently was on top form, nice mixture of young and veteran players, lots of the invincibles. So what went wrong?

Veterans faded badly? Injuries? Opponents cracked our gameplan? Dodgy defence (got such impression from the DVD)?

 

[Raider]

A lack of goal scorers in the league is what happened that season.

 

[Herbas]

Pires, Bergkamp, Ljungberg, RvP, Reyes, Ade, all of them failed to help Henry in this case? That was unexpected, wasn't it? Or was this problem obvious before the season started?

 

[fabo]

Henry was our only consistent top performer that season.

Alot of the old guard were in decline - Pires, Ljungberg, Sol had some issues aswell with injuries and going AWOL against West Spam, Cole was out for alot of the season. Adebayor was bought in January with Theo and Diaby, Diaby looked most impressive initially I'd say.

I remember us being woeful away from home, just couldn't score enough goals on the road despite playing some 'pretty' football at times. And I recall Sp**s dominating us for long spells at Highbury, and we needed Henry to come off the bench to rescue a draw.

One of the worst seasons under Wenger, the CL run masked an awful season really.

 

[Ron Burgundy]

A lack of goal scorers in the league is what happened that season.

Yeah, we really did struggle for goalscorers that season. We relied so heavily on Thierry. Bergkamp was coming to the end of his career, wasn't starting all the time and didn't score much. I remember Robin having a great month (November?) but then picking up an injury (toe?). Reyes was played out on the wing mostly so struggled for goals, Cesc hadn't learnt how to score goals at the top level yet, Hleb has never been able to score and Ljungberg magically forgot how to score goals after 04/05.

 

[outlaw_member]

2005/2006 was a unique season, because it was the first campaign under Arsène Wenger during which a certain Patrick Vieira was no longer present. As has become common practice with our beloved gaffer, we failed to replace the departing Frenchman as supposed bids for the likes of Mahamadou Diarra were rebuffed, which culminated in the promotion of a precocious 18 year old who we've all come to know as Cesc Fabregas. It wasn't just the captain that we lost that summer, Edu also left for Valencia, and he too was not replaced. Not much changed on paper, but in truth, that decision was the beginning of the end, and 6 years after Vieira left for new pastures, we are still pay the costs of this move.

The obvious issues that came to the fore as a result of the change was the lack of experience, consistency and power prevalent in Fabregas's game, which made the team completely vulnerable through the middle. Even the defensive shield that was Gilberto Silva couldn't adequately protect the defence, given the weaknesses of the Spaniard. The nature of Fabregas's position and role meant that the performance of the team was often reflected through his own individual contribution. Inconsistent, weak and occasionally brilliant. Whilst, he was largely responsible for our ineptness in the domestic competitions, his qualities enabled us to foster a level of control which we hadn't previously displayed in Europe. Thus, his promotion was a major reason behind our Champions League final finish. Nonetheless, this for me was the biggest mistake of Arsène Wenger's career whilst serving as Arsenal manager.

However, the truth is that signs of wear and tear in regards to the team had started to become obvious during the season before, when a blistering start was put to an end after a stormy evening in Manchester. Since then, everything that was built up prior and during the Invincible period had started to fall apart. The first one to go was Freddie Ljungberg whose red streak of hair and runs of goalscoring form had become a thing of the past, as injuries started to take effect. With Pires also getting on in age, albeit still producing the goods more often than not, the pressure was starting to mount up on Reyes who by then had become a permanent fixture in the side. By 2005/2006, Ljungberg had become a crock, Pires was on his last legs as a LM, and Reyes had succumbed to the Neville brothers. The arrival of Hleb wasn't enough to stem the regression that was occurring on the flanks. This resulted in a combined total of a measly 22 goals being produced from the four incumbents, a very pathetic total when three of the four bar Hleb had produced 43 goals between them during the season before.

The reduction of the teams attacking prowess was further contributed by the declining influence of Dennis Bergkamp who was appearing in the last and final season of an illustrious career. Having been a major source of creativity throughout the glory years, the combined efforts of the master and the pretender was still not sufficient enough to produce the goods on the offensive end.

Defensively, Campbell was another Invincible who was starting to fall down the hill, and there was one particular game in which he was so bad, that he went A.W.O.L at H/T and was found missing for a few days, resulting in various personalities appearing on TV pleading that Campbell returned to the public domain. *There was one really hilarious Sulzeer video that was doing the rounds on the news which is definitely worth viewing.* His replacement Senderos had indicated that he could replace the big man, but the beating he received at the hands of Drogba in the Community Shield, later proved to be his downfall. His partner Kolo Toure, though, being a top performer in the CL had not produced the goods since his debut season, and along with Eboue on his right had not been the stalwarts that an ageing Campbell had required. Coupled with Ashley Cole flirting with Chelsea, and large chunks of the defence succumbing to injuries, resulting in a one Mathieu Flamini to briefly cover at LB, the team was standing on crumbling foundations.

Ironically, whilst most areas of the team was deteriorating, there were a few players who arguably produced the best campaigns of their career, namely Gilberto Silva, Thierry Henry and Jens Lehmann who were the backbone behind our CL final run and 4th place finish. Ultimately, though, the loss of Vieira and his inadequate replacement was a significant reason behind our collapse, and the simultaneous decline of key players further added to our demise. The run to the CL final was also red herring, because for the first and only time under Wenger, we took a relatively more reserved approach in Europe. Last but not least, pray to and thank god that Thierry Henry and an unnamed chef were around to prevent Tottenham from usurping us.

 

[Rorz]

My lasting memory of that season, domestically anyway, will be not knowing if we were even going to get a point every time we played away from home... we were dire on the road that season. It was definitely more interesting/exciting than 06/07 though!

 

[been]

excellent post outlaw

I recall many injuries that season

one thing that stands out alot to me that season was our change in formation for the CL

4-5-1 if im correct and it worked great, set a CL record for most consecutive clean sheets and least goals conceded en-route to a CL final, including taking out a still stacked galacticos side and a brute juventus side that had the likes of vieira, emerson, ibra, thuram, canna still in its squad.

I brought this up in the Vieira retires thread by saying "I always wondered how different our CL final run would have been had vieira been with us". Someone quickly shot it down by saying cesc got us there.

However when I look back on that final game down 1 man and defending a lead and henry not converting the easiest of chances, I think a vieira type would have been the better option in that final to defend that lead.

As far as the season goes when I look back at our transfer links from 02 onwards to 06 we were constantly linked to number 9s heavily every season with the likes of a young Cisse and an old kluivert on the top of the list. Its evident we needed another goalscorer in those times and it became set in stone that 05/06 season when we had no one else to bang in the goals.

Wengers transfer market stubbornness can be traced back quite far.

 

[redwhiteAustrian]

Horrible, horrible season that was.
Erased that completely from my memory.

 

[AFC-Phil]

My stand-out memory from that season was how immense Henry was. He scored bucket loads of goals and carried our team going forward for large spells of the season.

 

[wishful_llama]

Basically Thierry Henry being the unbelievable player and legend he is carried the entire team completely single handedly to 4th place and the champions league final, then France to the world cup final (it was the season that ended him in most respects).

It was Dennis Bergkamp's last season at Arsenal (legend) and he scored a magical Bergkamp chip against West Brom on Dennis Bergkamp day, I did quite enjoy his last gasp goal against FC Thun at Highbury too

Cesc Fabregas really first emerged as a 100% first team regular not just bit part player,

Sol Campbell went mad at half time during a game against West Ham and ran away for a week or so, but he came back and scored in the champions league final

we signed Theo, Diaby and Adebayor in Jan, Hleb had signed the summer before

Ashley Cole spent the entire season acting a ****,

Pires had a tough final season but tackled Vieira at Highbury to set up Fabregas for our first goal against Juventus (brilliant),

Reyes had a whinge about the meanies at the club to a Spanish radio station DJ who was pretending to be a rep from Real Madrid.

We beat Middelsbrough 7-0

Our defence, so bad in the premiership was unbreakable in the champions league (we set a new record for clean sheets). The unbreakable defence was: Lehmann (gk), Eboue (rb), Toure (cb), Blunderos (cb), Flamini (lb)

Jens Lehmann played the season of his life, best GK in Europe that season but got sent off in the champions league final

05/06 was probably the worst Arsenal team we've had under Wenger and it showed, however the season has some of the biggest highlights of Arsène's career. Getting to the champions league final was unbelievable (and we really should of won it) and beating Sp**s to 4th on the last day was just brilliant. However it must be said that domestically we were crap, crap, crap and we owe everything that season to the super human performances of Thierry Henry and Jens Lehmann (in Europe). It was also the final season for many of the invincibles; Pires, Bergkamp, Campbell, Cole left us, Lauren got injured and left for Pompey after recovering, Ljungberg faded badly and nothing like the player he was. Henry was never the same player after 05/06 (he gave everything for us that season and his body has never recovered really).

However Fabregas, van Persie, Flamini, Eboue (yes he seemed great in Europe), Senderos (he looked promising too) all emerged and looked to be stalwarts for the future.

Oh and yeah Barca were even bigger ****s about trying to get Henry than they are being about Fabregas currently, but Titi announced he was staying after the champions league final (he was as pissed off at Barca as we all were after that game) so it sort of ended on a happier note even though we were all crushed after the final.

The 05/06 team was the embryo stage of the 07/08 team (the best post invincibles team we've had)

 

[been]

also adding on to these points almunia also conceded 2 near post goals in the final which IMO should never happen and is evidently his weakness as I have highlighted countless times

pathetic

 

[Herbas]

Thanks for your insights!
I did notice in the DVD that quite often our midfielders went missing as outlaw mentioned.

It is a bit strange to see that our main problem was scoring as final table of that year shows that Arsenal scored 68 goals which is just 4 goals less than ManU and Chelsea. But I checked home and away tables and the difference in scored goals home/away is astonishing: 48/20 (e.g., in the last season the ratio was 33/39).
What do you think why we were so bad away?

 

[squallkid]

That season was the most important in Wenger's reign for me.

I think that is when the trophy drought actually started so to speak. I thought we were going to do a Liverpool where we were dire in the premiership but would go on to be Kings of Europe, that night in Paris really changed everything, everything that could have gone wrong went wrong with Lehman getting sent off, Henry missing chances, Almunia conceding stupid goals one of which was offside. It was a sign of things to come for the next few years where luck was just not on our side, felt like destiny for us to win that final but it was not to be and it still hurts 5 years later. Everything up to that final had gone perfectly for us and it felt like no one and nothing would stop us.


It was the end of an era though with most of the Invincibles leaving and Henry's final great season, no one's departure hit me harder than Ashley Cole, I loved him because he was the world's best left back and a future Arsenal captain in my eyes so for him to do that to us and Wenger over money was disappointing and I still remain in the "we should have just paid him what he wanted" camp because having Cole in our team these past few years over Clichy would have made a massive difference and Chelsea would be a much weaker team without him.

So many players had a mediocre season and I still maintain that Henry, Lehman and Gilberto carried us on their backs. Fabregas wasn't ready to replace Vieira in the team, he was ready to be a first team player but I still felt we needed vieira or another vieira type player in that midfield as Gilberto then had to do the defensive work on his own in midfield.

Wenger went out and got 3 players in January to inject some life into the squad and none of those three have really paid off, Adebayor would have been a major success if it wasn't for his attitude problems and laziness

 

[alboots101]

Eboue`s dive...I remember that.

 

[redwhiteAustrian]

Best game that season was imo our 2-0 home win against Juventus.
Great display all in all.

 

[Uncle Mike]

So much happened, but it all (pardon the pun) boiled down to two matchdays in May.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2006/05/08/Sp**s-in-poisoned-lasagne-claim-115875-17045887/

Which led to this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZjk6qtyZCg

But no one from Arsenal was laughing in Paris: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_UEFA_Champions_League_Final

 

[Armor for Sleep]

Lehmann was probably the best keeper in the world that season.

 

[Armor for Sleep]

Lehmann was probably the best keeper in the world that season. Started ahead of Kahn for Germany in the world cup that year.

How close were we to missing out on the CL that year? Sp**s had lasagne the following season right?

 

[outlaw_member]

It was on the last day of the season. The news broke around midday that Tottenham had many players missing for their match against West Ham. For those that think there's no chance of us falling out of the top four, we would have already done so, had it not been for one the most bizarre and miraculous incidents in English football history.