By Myles Palmer
GILBERTO SILVA has been unfairly criticised this season.
By yours truly, among others.
So let’s get one thing straight at the start of 2004 : Brazil would not have won the World Cup without Gilberto, and Arsenal would not be unbeaten in 19 Premiership games without Gilberto.
85% of his work is done off the ball. He covers other players. He helps the team keep its shape.
He catches the eye when he bursts forward, but the rest of his work is invisible to those who don’t know how to see it.
Gilberto cuts off passing angles and makes interceptions.
He does not tackle in the same way as Edu or Parlour – that’s not his game.
All players are different : Gilberto is Gilberto.
He is under-rated and misunderstood.
A humble boy who was the new kid on the block in Korea-Japan 2002, he came to Arsenal as a humble newcomer joining big stars.
For Brazil, it was not his job to get the ball and beat two men and have a shot- they had Ronaldinho for that, just as Arsenal have Henry for that.
Gilberto is a team player who makes simple percentage passes accurately and reliably.
He is a continuity player who does not try to be spectacular – that is not his job.
He knows that Pires can make goals and score them.
He knows that while Arsenal did not miss Vieira too much, but he also knows that the return of PV4 has recently raised Arsenal to a more omnipotent-looking level.
ONE OTHER THING I should have mentioned about the 4-1 win at Leeds.
I saw glimpses of something I was struggling to articulate.
In that performance there was a kind of depth, a kind of confidence, that I have not seen in an Arsenal team for a long time, a collective attitude of…. mutual faith.
The score was 2-1 for a long time, and neurotic Gooners were hoping for a third goal to kill it off, and the third goal did not come till the 87th minute, but I was becoming subliminally aware of a Real Madrid attitude : the way Arsenal played implied (1) that you will not equalise and (2) if you do equalise, we will score again. We know we can score again if we have to.
That confidence, that strength, will be tested again at Everton tonight.
I’ve gotta go out now, just as this is getting interesting, but I will say just one more thing.
It’s a tribute to Arsene Wenger’s work over the last seven years that his SQUAD now allows this confidence. It’s not about 11 players. He started that in 1998.
One of Arsene’s greatest achievements in 1998 was to persuade his players that they could win if Tony wasn’t playing, they could win if Dennis was out, if Wrighty was injured.
That was one of my biggest points in the first half of The Professor: the team carried on winning and didn’t miss any individual that much – except Marc Overmars.
7th January 2004.