Manchester United have copied Arsenal’s pacy forwards.
And they’ve copied playing without a centre forward.
The two clubs have influenced each other a lot since 1986.
But Arsenal have influenced Sir Alex Ferguson more than he has influenced George Graham or Arsene Wenger
Sir Alex copied George Graham’s power midfield.
George told Fergie he was underpaid and gave him a copy of his own contract to show to his big boss Sir Roland Smith.
The explosive acceleration of Overmars, Anelka and Henry, and the way they were used, brought a new dimension to Premiership football as Arsenal and Man United battled for titles in the duopoly years.
But there was one thing that United did quite a lot that Arsenal didn’t seem to do. The red devils could be “professional” about their suspensions. Sometimes you could see them getting booked deliberately, so that they could choose which games they would miss.
Now Cesc Fabregas has done the same thing.
On Monday night at Reading, when Arsenal were winning 3-0 in the 80th minute, Fabregas grabbed an opponent by the arm in centrefield. And not with one hand. I haven’t seen a replay of that incident but he seemed to grab the guy’s wrist with one hand and grip his forearm with the other, pulling the man off balance as he ran away with the ball.
That is rugby, not football, and ref Rob Styles could not fail to see it. It was a blatant foul and Styles had to give a free-kick and a yellow card.
Fabregas didn’t grab that arm in a flash of temper. He didn’t do it to prevent a breakaway where Reading might score and draw the game.
He did it deliberately so that he would miss the Wigan game at the Emirates, and not miss one of the three away games against Aston Villa, Newcastle and Middlesbrough.
Isn’t five yellow cards in 12 games a bit naughty?
Not really !
Because Fabregas is a midfield player and midfield players get booked. It’s an occupational hazard, as I’ve always said. It’s very fast and rough in midfield and even if you are a world class player there are bound to be times when you go for the ball and kick the player.
That is football : Vieira did it, Parlour did it, Petit did it, Grimandi did it. They were fair competitors, not dirty players. I vividly remember the Roy Keane tackle on Zidane that put him out of the European Cup Final, where he missed the ball by a whisker. It was about two inches away from being a great tackle by a great player on another great player. But Keane just missed the ball and kicked Zidane’s leg and missed the Bayern Munich final, the biggest game of his life.
Bookings are an occupational hazard for midfield players and, as Arsene once said, “I’m never gonna tell them not to tackle.” Suspensions are part of Arsene’s calculations, just as they are part of Sir Alex’s calculations, although that doesn’t mean that the manager told Fabregas to get booked at Reading.
We don’t have Setanta but a friend invited us round to watch it in Primrose Hill.
The game was a walkover, as I predicted. The 3-1 win took Arsenal’s unbeaten run to 27. If they could beat Reading 4-0 last season, when Coppell’s boys were playing very well, they would obviously beat them now when they’re struggling.
Arsenal don’t play again till Wigan on Saturday November 24.
Fortunately, the Reading game gave me a few ideas which I can use between now and then.