The Arsene Wenger Era Part 2: From Invincibles to fourth-place trophy, how the Arsenal revolution lost its way

Months before Arsene Wenger led Arsenal to a domestic double in 2002, the English football scene had been shaken up already. The previous summer, Wenger’s biggest rival Sir Alex Ferguson had announced his decision to retire from football management. Manchester United, in the wake of Arsenal’s rise, was worried. Its trump card to counter the Wenger revolution was slipping away.

In February, though, Ferguson changed his mind. He was going to stay. Even as Arsenal celebrated the return of silverware, the biggest rivalry in English football had its wheels put back on. Over the next three seasons, the needle pricked deep.

The Manchester United-Arsenal rivalry has not had a parallel in English football since. Clashes involving the two clubs in those years were potboilers of a very different kind. The vitriolic tone had been set early when Ferguson said of his French counterpart, “‘He has no experience of English football. He’s come from Japan. And now he’s into English football and he is now telling everybody in England how to organise their football. I think he should keep his mouth shut. Firmly shut.”

The following seasons only made the noise louder. Cesc Fabregas threw a pizza at Ferguson, Roy Keane and Patrick Vieira introduced us to the unedifying pleasure of a tunnel spat at Highbury, and Ruud van Nistelrooy learnt how it feels to be harangued after missing a penalty in the final minute. The rivalry invited controversy and mind games; rows and spiteful incidents aplenty.

The rivalry reached its peak in 2002 when Arsenal broke United’s streak of three successive league titles. The Gunners could no longer be snubbed as mere pretenders. Furthermore, the attractive football which came to be associated with Wenger’s team chafed Ferguson. Speaking in the aftermath of the title loss in 2002, the United manager sought to put down Arsenal. “They are scrappers who rely on belligerence.”

Wenger, back then, was not one to sit quiet in a slanging match. He responded in acerbic fashion, “Everyone thinks they have the prettiest wife at home.” Wenger certainly was no different. He thought the world of his players. Following the league title, Wenger set his sights on a more impressive target, “It wouldn’t surprise me if we were to go unbeaten for the whole of the season. The challenge now is to dominate English football for a long time.”

Domination never arrived completely but hopes for an unbeaten campaign were not far from being realised. Before that, though, the disappointments of the 2002-03 campaign had to be endured. The FA Cup was retained but a strong start to the campaign with 11 wins and two draws was punctured by a young English footballer at Everton. 16-year-old Wayne Rooney struck a ferocious winner at Goodison Park; some argue that Arsenal did not recover from the blow. However, in reality, the Gunners blew an eight-point lead in the run-in as van Nistelrooy’s goals did not stop coming.

At the end of the season, defender Martin Keown told Wenger that his objective of an unbeaten league campaign had induced pressure on the squad. The manager, though, stuck by his dream, urging his players to desire the same with such intensity that it would became a reality. In 2003-04, it did.

But it nearly did not. In a match remembered for tension reaching unprecedented proportions, the enduring image remains of van Nistelrooy being pushed and abused following a last-minute penalty miss which ensured Arsenal escaped with a goalless draw from Old Trafford. The Dutch striker had earned the visitors’ ire for his part in Patrick Vieira’s sending-off, an air-kick which hurt nobody but was worthy of a second yellow card. Nistelrooy could only hit the crossbar when the spot-kick arrived soon after, consequently helping Arsenal to gain a point from its sixth league game of the season.

Six of the Gunners’ players, though, were charged with improper conduct and the club was handed the biggest ever fine by the FA. Back then, Wenger’s sides did have a dark side to them. The bite would prove crucial as Arsenal would often give it back to the opposition, an attribute sorely missing from his later teams.

The North Londoners recovered from the battering game to play the prettiest football. This was the culmination of all that Wenger had pioneered but what stood out during the Invincibles season was the speed at which Arsenal functioned. Goalkeeper Jens Lehmann arguably had the best view, as he revealed to Amy Lawrence in the book Invincible: Inside Arsenal’s Unbeaten 2003-04 season. “Plenty of games I was standing at the back just watching, because we had so much possession, we were playing so fast, we were playing tic-tac-tic-tac-tic. One touch. It was amazing to see. I said to myself, ‘What an amazing group’.”

It was, indeed. Epitomised by Dennis Bergkamp’s artistry and Thierry Henry’s goals, Arsenal dropped only 24 points all season. The defence was the underrated star as the ably manned unit by Sol Campbell, Kolo Toure, Ashley Cole, and Lauren let in only 26 goals throughout the campaign. However, even as Wenger’s Arsenal was being lauded for the greatest of triumphs, another transformation was already in motion.

Roman Abramovich’s acquisition of Chelsea in 2003 had introduced a new challenger to the field. The rich neighbours wrested control in the 2004-05 campaign and it was Wenger’s Arsenal which embarked on a long downward spiral. The ironic bit about the Keane-Vieira spat in February 2005 is that the narrative of English football had already shifted in favour of a Russian oligarch and a Portuguese upstart. No longer, as Arsenal was wont to do, would merely checking how United got on suffice. The dangers at hand for the Gunners were sparked in full glare when Chelsea progressed at their expense in the Champions League quarter-finals in Arsenal’s Invincibles season.

Wenger was able to guide his side to the second place in 2004/05 season but that was as good as it got in the league for Arsenal for 11 years. The Gunners were no longer part of the duopoly. It was broken up and it has only split into more fragments ever since.

Manchester United did recover from the Mourinho charge; although 2004-05 was a particularly low point for Ferguson’s team as not only did Arsenal finish above it in the league, the latter also claimed another FA Cup in a dramatic final which United had thoroughly dominated. Sadly for Wenger, this was going to be his last trophy for nine seasons.

It could have been different for him and Arsenal, even if the meaning would have remained symbolic. In 2006, Wenger nearly claimed continental success which eludes him to this day. A stunning turnaround by Barcelona in the final denied Arsenal the Champions League trophy, after Wenger’s players had battled heroically with 10 men for most of the match. Wenger could have had a chance to avenge that defeat three years later but a much-stronger United swamped his team in the semi-final.

Of course, the regression in Arsenal’s fortunes was caused by the financial implications of the move to Emirates Stadium. Wenger was not enthusiastic about the challenges that the move from Highbury would demand, but Arsenal had its head turned by the latent riches in English football. The cost of  £400 million for the new stadium, though, extracted a greater price.

Key figures such as Patrick Vieira and Thierry Henry moved on and Wenger was forced to pose his faith in youngsters like Fabregas, Robin van Persie, Emmanuel Adebayor, Theo Walcott, and Samir Nasri. The club’s direction, though, was muddled.

Not convinced by the pathway set for Arsenal, Wenger’s key ally and the man responsible for his arrival at the club, vice-chairman David Dein departed in 2007. Football concerns, it began to appear, were clearly not the most significant for the club’s boardroom anymore. On the pitch as well, Arsenal betrayed confusion. Even as youngsters were blooded in, the manager never really had a complete squad to challenge for silverware again.

Wenger, rightly, earned praise for maintaining Arsenal’s Champions League status even when at least five teams outspent the Gunners every season. The respect and control over the team which he demanded, remained. This meant that he could guide Arsenal to achieve the minimum that was expected of the team. A top four finish in the league was a real trophy for the club. Wenger ensured that Arsenal never suffered too much for its indulgent business operations.

But by 2009, the Gunners’ financial implications were gradually assuming a more benign shape. After four years without a trophy, slight weariness had developed with Wenger and his methods. The fans had been patient until then but their resolve showed signs of weakening. In the following years, all that Wenger had built up was going to be questioned.

Click here to read The Wenger Era Part 1: When an obscure foreigner revamped the order of English football

Click here to read The Arsene Wenger Era Part 3: Chelsea take control of London as Arsenal fail to adapt to changing times