Arsenal battle to save season

 

LONDON: A meeting between Arsenal and Tottenham is always likely to resonate, but Saturday’s 139th derby is arguably the most pivotal since Arsene Wenger’s arrival in north London a decade ago.

 

Forget local pride: it is no exaggeration to state that Arsenal are battling to save their season after winning just one of their last six matches, a dismal run which has left them 16 points behind the Premiership leaders Manchester United.

 

Wenger refused to concede defeat in the title race after his side’s latest set-back — a particularly insipid 2-1 defeat at Fulham on Wednesday — but privately he must already have readjusted his targets. More concerning than the gulf to United is the fact that Arsenal have fallen behind Bolton, Portsmouth and Aston Villa — clubs with a fraction of their resources — in the race to qualify for next season’s Champions League.

 

The Frenchman has already admitted that failure to qualify for the knockout stage of this season’s tournament - which hinges on Arsenal eking out a point from their trip to FC Porto next week - would be a financial disaster. So missing out on next year’s competition is the kind of scenario which makes the club’s accountants wake up in a cold sweat.

 

All of which makes Wenger’s decision to rest a number of key personnel for the journey to Craven Cottage utterly inexplicable. He is unlikely to repeat his mistake on Saturday, although even the prospect of reinstating relatively fresh bodies could not mask his displeasure at Spurs being allowed six clear days to prepare for a match which is always a mental and physical endurance test.

 

“This is a difficult game for us and the way the fixtures have been organised is a farce,” said Wenger. “I cannot understand how the Premier League can organise midweek fixtures in between Champions League games. We play now against opponents who did not play this week but we are still hopeful we will beat them.”

 

The one consolation for Wenger is that the Gunners have yet to taste defeat at their new Emirates stadium, but even that minor triumph appears hollow on closer examination. Four 1-1 home draws represent eight squandered points and a repeat of that score-line on Saturday could snap the patience of their supporters, who have hitherto restricted their protests to quiet grumbling.

 

On the surface, that scenario appears unlikely. Wenger has lost just one of his 21 local skirmishes since arriving in 1996 — and that seven years ago — but Spurs will draw encouragement from having held their rivals twice last season. This might also be the campaign for Martin Jol’s side to rid themselves of unwanted hoodoos. They ended a 16-year jinx against Chelsea four weeks ago with a 2-1 victory at White Hart Lane and Ledley King, the captain, has urged his team-mates to draw inspiration from that notable triumph as they prepare for the five-mile journey across the English capital.

 

 

Jose Mourinho has spent the last week noisily attempting to convince the world that Manchester United must be feeling the pressure of Chelsea closing in on them in the Premiership title race. “I don’t think it will take us long to be back on top of the league,” the Chelsea manager boasted after his side’s midweek win over Bolton, confidently predicting that United would struggle to cope with a tougher run of fixtures over the fast-approaching second half of the season.

 

The reality however is that United have kept themselves three points ahead of the champions and, by a quirk of the fixtures list, now have an opportunity to stretch that advantage to nine points before Chelsea return to league action in testing circumstances, with a home encounter with Arsenal on December 10. It is a scenario to be relished by United fans who have suffered two long years of domination by their nouveau riche London rivals. But for it to be realised, United must do what Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal have all failed to manage this season: beat Middlesbrough at the Riverside, as well as emerging victorious from next weekend’s Manchester derby against a City side that appears to be coming into form. It is no small order, but United’s captain, Gary Neville, believes the Red Devils, while prospering this season with a generally consistent line-up, have this week made a point about the depth of their squad — an area in which Chelsea clearly have an edge.

 

United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, who has a make-or-break Champions League clash with Benfica next week to fret over, made five changes for the midweek match against Everton and his faith in his back-up players was vindicated by a 3-0 victory. “There has been a lot of talk about the squads of the teams at the top but we have shown we can handle changes,” Neville said. “Players who deserved a chance came in and did a great job. They were the ones who carried us through the game because some of the lads who have been in the team all the time were quite sluggish, I know I was.”