Freddie Ljungberg’s career at Arsenal exactly parallels my time on ANR, so I’ve written about him a lot over the last nine years.
A fiery goalscorer who could time his runs off the ball, an adaptable third striker who learned to come in from the right wing, a gutsy competitor who could play narrow football in a narrow team on a narrow pitch, a mighty atom who lost his pace and then lost his Bergkamp.
The Arsenal crowd loved his bottle, his ability to score the first goal so that Henry could score the second. I called him First Goal Freddie and I said that if Henry had Ljungberg’s bottle he would be Pele.
Freddie was a big game player who could finish very well in one-on-ones with the goalkeeper.
He hit the heights with two goals against Lazio, two against Juventus, scored a fabulous FA Cup Final goal against Liverpool from a lovely pass by Robert Pires, and scored an even better one against Chelsea a year later, exploding past John Terry for a goal I can only describe as preposterous. It was preposterous because he confounded my expectations. If you watch footballers a lot, you know exactly what they can do and what they can’t do. And this was a memorable moment of : What do you think you are doing? Because I didn’t think Freddie had the pace or power or strength to go through alone from such a deep position at that stage of the match.
But he suddenly plugged into an energy source unavailable to mere mortals, knocked John Terry out of the way, arrowed forward, and curled a 20-yarder round Cudicini ! Game, set and match ! Arsenal 2 Chelsea 0 !!!
Freddie lost his pace and he lost his Bergkamp, his assistmeister, the iceman who supplied the killer passes. His rapid decline into a scuffling, embarrassing winner of throw-ins was marked by one of my most popular pieces, the Bermuda Triangle.
Asked to comment on his departure last night by Newstalk 106, the Dublin station, I said that Freddie started as he meant to go on, coming on for 11 minutes against Manchester United at Highbury, and showing the bravery, speed and nerve which was to mark him out as a significant warrior for a manager who has never really had enough warriors.
As Dennis Bergkamp’s pass went beyond Jap Stam and bounced up, Freddie spurted forward and the fifteen stone centreback swung his boot to clear the bouncing ball and Freddie leaned forward and took a kick in the face and lifted the ball over Schmeichel for 3-0.
Quality ! My kind of footballer !!! He ignored a kick in the face. He ignored a kick in the face from a huge defender to score that goal. That showed me Freddie was made of the right stuff. For the next seven years I believed Freddie could score in big games.
Among other things, football is a demonstration of masculinity, and Freddie reminded me, just a little bit, of Denis Law and Andy Gray.
Denis Law once said to me, “If the ball’s there, you’re going to get it.”
Andy Gray once said, “If I head the ball, and I get a bang on the head, and the ball goes in the net, it’s still a goal isn’t it ?”
You need a bit of that. You really need a bit of that. Classy passing is good, and fast passing is exciting, but you need bite as well as finessse. That was why Arsene could never play Ovemars, Bergkamp and Suker together.
You need at least one spiky forward and we should remember that Freddie Ljungberg joined Arsenal in September 1998, just after Ian Wright left in July.
Newstalk’s Ken Early said, “He scored a huge number of goals for Arsenal, especially in the 2002 season, he finished with 17 goals and scored in the Cup Final as well. But he didn’t really last too long?”
I said, “He was a player of guts and instinct. He went in where it hurts and that’s why he got the injuries that he got and that’s why he burned out quite quickly.Physical players sometimes don’t last that long and that’s what he was in his prime.
“Back in 2005 I remember doing a piece about the conversion ratio of Premiership footballers. In 8th position, near the end of the season, was Thierry Henry with a 21% conversion ratio. Robert Pires was 5th with 28%. Andy Johnson was second, would you believe, with a conversion ratio of 30% – and the most clinical finisher in the Premiership, with 9 goals from 24 shots, with a conversion ratio of 37%, was Freddie Ljungberg.”
Ken said, “He was pretty outspoken about where Arsenal are heading in the future. Was that a bit of a dig at the board?”
“I don’t think so, I doubt that. Wenger, when he lets players go, allows them their dignity, he allows them to say it’s their decision. But nobody leaves Arsenal without him wanting them to leave, apart from Anelka and Ashley Cole. Nobody conceivably would leave Arsenal to join West Ham for the challenge. That is complete tosh. In fact my resolution for this season is to ignore everything that footballers say. I watch what footballers do, I’m not interested in what they say. Most of what they say is garbage.”
Ken asked, “Were there were some gems of truth in what he said? He said that two years ago when he signed his contract he was told that they were going to be signing top players and playing at the top in Europe. Notwithstanding an appearance in the Champions League Final last year, the team has definitely regressed since that conversation two years ago.”
What I should have said, in reply to that, was that Freddie Ljungberg knows that Arsene Wenger doesn’t buy big players. He makes big players.
Anyway, Freddie’s gone to West Ham on a three-year deal and Arsenal could get as much as £3 million, depending on how he does there.