ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE ARSENAL v MANCHESTER UNITED: Since the 2005 FA Cup final Manchester United, with their greater spending power, have left Arsenal in their slipstream. Kevin McCarrareports
THE JOY of victory is brief, but on a May afternoon in 2005 Arsene Wenger must have set a record for purging euphoria from his system. "I wouldn't be happy with that every week, but it was not deliberate," he said of Arsenal's shoot-out victory over Manchester United following a goalless FA Cup final. It was against all reason that Alex Ferguson's side had failed to score.
The day marked the close of a period of Arsenal's history, but Wenger may not have realised how hard it would be to open up a new phase of success. They meet United again today at a time when the club is not expected to collect silverware. That scrambled FA Cup was a valedictory trophy, an encore from men who had been unbeaten on their way to the league title the year before.
Of the line-up at the Millennium Stadium, three players were in their thirties and the number would have been greater had Sol Campbell been fit. Patrick Vieira, who converted the decisive penalty, was making his last appearance for the club. The midfielder, then 28, left for Juventus in a €16.8million transfer that highlighted Wenger's finesse in getting the maximum return on players who have already given their best years to Arsenal.
For all his shrewdness, Wenger has not, of course, delivered a trophy since then. In the immediate aftermath of that 2005 Cup final, he seemed to sense that times were changing and suggested that it might be time for him to go once Arsenal had settled down in their new home. The club, in their third season there, are fully at ease with the surroundings, but yesterday Wenger was declaring his complete commitment to the cause.
The manager, however, is fully aware that Arsenal and United, who could barely be prised apart in 2005, have since gone their separate ways. The signs of divergence were already apparent that afternoon. Ferguson, by then, had already stopped depending on home-grown talent that had sprung in the 1990s. The United attack in that FA Cup final was made up of Cristiano Ronaldo, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Wayne Rooney, who had come at a combined cost of some €68.8million.
The change of financial gear at the club was signalled as long ago as 2001 with the arrival for €34.5 million of Juan Sebastian Veron. He floundered in the Premier League, but that was no deterrent to expenditure and a year later United met Leeds' price of €36.8 million for Rio Ferdinand. Nowadays, Ferguson has a choice, when both are fit, of Owen Hargreaves or Michael Carrick as deep-lying midfielder. A total of nearly €44.2 million was paid to acquire them. Dimitar Berbatov arrived for €37.7 million in August.
Meanwhile, Arsenal's record signing may still be the €13.5 million Sylvain Wiltord, who joined from Bordeaux in 2000, unless the figure for Samir Nasri, who joined from Marseille in the summer, proves to have been marginally higher. Wenger reached England at a time when clubs in many parts of Europe competed on broadly equal terms.
Arsenal and United once had similar policies, but the contrast is now marked.
While there are funds on offer to Wenger, they are not of the magnitude expended at Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge or Liverpool. He has turned his face against whatever conspicuous expenditure he could afford and, so, the line-up lacks a well-established goalkeeper, centre half and holding midfielder. Wenger could have compromised by buying a greater number of mature footballers, but he continues to prize the unity of philosophy in a team developed by him. There is enough sturdiness in the policy to ensure that Arsenal have not lost at home to United since February 2005.
If they seem to be in peril this weekend, it may largely be because of injuries that Wenger cannot afford in a small group. Nonetheless, United are not the principal obstacle for Arsenal in the Premier League. The highest barrier is the sheer slog of the programme. When Wenger resorted to fringe players and rested others in the FA Cup tie at Old Trafford last season the outcome was a 4-0 beating that crushed morale in their league campaign.
So long as Arsenal realise the income expected from property development on the Highbury site, the club will be vastly affluent one day. Wenger's duty now, whether he recognises it or not, may be to keep the team in the Champions League pack. An eventual successor with a conventional attitude to the transfer market would then have the means to spend on squad development as Wenger never has.
• Guardian Service
