SOCCER/Arsenal v Chelsea: Arsene Wenger prepared for the new season by raising the dead. It seems virtually impossible to find a pulse in any friendly match nowadays, yet there were moments at the Amsterdam tournament when Arsenal's games leapt to life and comatose armchair viewers lifted their heads from their chests.

Those incidents led to wins, but it was the sleekness and promise of the moves that will have stirred the manager. For the winner over Ajax, for example, new signing Alexander Hleb jinked and passed for substitute Arturo Lupoli to spank home a shot.

Such is the talent at Highbury that the 18-year-old was not set to feature at all until Arsenal had been reminded that they could have up to nine men on the bench.

There were more glimmers of development for Wenger in the final. It will have pleased him to witness Mathieu Flamini, in his second year with the club, not just burrow into the penalty area but keep his eyes raised so that he could pick out Freddie Ljungberg, who then scored his second goal to defeat Porto.

All in all, it is no surprise to hear that the Arsenal manager has been buoyant in the past few weeks.

While he can scarcely be confident of overthrowing tomorrow's Community Shield opponents, Chelsea, in the Premiership, he is in charge of a club entering yet another new phase of his tenure at Highbury, which began in 1996. Assessments of Arsenal's prospects, however, must all be based on the judgment of the decision he made last month. The ritual bid for Patrick Vieira took a very different course this summer. There was no agonising, no beseeching and no ultimate decision by the captain, with all parties emotionally exhausted, to stay in London. He was sold and, as transfers go, sold fast to Juventus for £13.7 million. It was brisk business by Wenger, who did not hesitate despite his attachment to a footballer who has been with him from the start at Arsenal.

When it comes to cold-blooded appraisal, the manager has an impressive history. Prior to his transfer of Emmanuel Petit and Marc Overmars to Barcelona in 2000 for a joint fee of around £28 million, Wenger had directed the club to a League and Cup double, but subsequently there have been five more honours for the Highbury trophy room. He understands well that blood-letting can bring rejuvenation in football.

In view of his track record it would be prudent as well as fair to give him the benefit of the doubt. No one who watched Arsenal last season can be blind to the issues that concerned Wenger. His captain was neither old nor, at 29, a spent force, but Vieira did increasingly look like a footballer who has his medical history to the fore in his mind.

Perhaps he will prosper once more in Turin, but the brute truth is that he was not the injured midfielder most badly missed by Arsenal last season. It was the recovery of Gilberto Silva from cracked vertebrae that balanced the line-up and paved the way for the side to give perkier displays. Few Arsenal fans seem to be querulous about the loss of Vieira and their questions instead concern the cover that Wenger has for the centre of the pitch.

The manager has, however, spread confusion among his rivals by telling the truth. He insisted in the spring that, having gone through the turmoil of blooding youngsters, he would not eject them all to make way for a spate of signings. Wenger said he envisaged just one or two signings and, despite the scepticism, meant every word of it.

"We have good young players," he reiterated recently. "I am at a stage where I have to make a place for them in the team or I kill what I did."

Wenger is wholly in earnest and it would actually be perverse if that sort of stance were not taken at Highbury. Despite the old-school-tie image, no other club has been so ruthless in its determination to snap up emerging talent. Arsenal have preyed on youth systems overseas, with defenceless Paris St-Germain the first to shriek that they had been robbed of Nicolas Anelka.

Not since the Visigoths sacked Rome have Europe's treasure houses been plundered so spectacularly. Lupoli was extracted from Parma, continuing the kind of pattern that saw the likes of Cesc Fabregas and Gael Clichy relocated to London.

Wenger's identification of such targets shows the brilliance of his intelligence network, and it is fair, too, to say that no one else is more likely to refine such talents and give them their head.

Though each extension to Dennis Bergkamp's contract is treated as an act of graciousness, it is troubling too that the veteran remains by far the best partner for the new captain Thierry Henry. Arsenal need to see others, such as Jose Antonio Reyes, prove that the Dutchman's era is over.

Nonetheless, young faces in other parts of the line-up are helping Arsenal to recover the slickness of passing. The distinctiveness of approach is about to be restored, with Hleb already looking as if he revels in the philosophy he can embrace at Highbury. In defence, too, Sol Campbell will have to regain not just his elusive fitness but the best of his form if either Kolo Toure or Philippe Senderos is to be dislodged from a fledgling pairing.

It is excessive to suppose that Arsenal can win back the Premiership this season, but, even without Vieira, they could deliver the most streamlined and captivating football.

Guardian Service