Tim Collings' Arsenal Appreciation: Catch The Spectacle While You Can

Arsene Wenger's Arsenal era is on course to be remembered as English football's equivalent to the Hollywood decades of the Golden Musical and the Great Entertainers.
 
Goals, goals and more goals have been hitting the net this season - helping everyone 'forget all their troubles' and, like the Gold Diggers of 1935, revel in the fun of the moment.

People are flocking to the Emirates Stadium to see Wenger's entertainers: top scorers with 24 goals in seven games in the Premier League and not only striking with thunderous regularity, but playing expansive attacking football.

It is as if, at last, Wenger's philosophy is ready to bear full fruit: great players, great football and great entertainment from a meticulous manager.

Some people have compared this Arsenal side to the reigning European champions and called them 'Barcelona-lite'. It is not far from damning them with faint praise.

Although the claim bears stylistic and technical examination, it might be truer to say they play in the tradition of Real Madrid - hang the defending and just go out and score more goals than the opposition.

But Wenger, a deep thinker with an appreciation of Arsenal's history, may have something else, something altogether different in mind; he could be building a team in the considered mould of the great Arsenal manager Herbert Chapman, with the accent on offensive play.

Of course, it is not every week that you see a six-goal thriller and a sumptuous display that leaves the critics purring, as Arsenal did after hammering Blackburn last Sunday.

Some clubs struggle to score six in a month.

Just look at Stoke City, Fulham and Portsmouth - still stuck on six after seven or eight games - and Birmingham City on five, as we prepare to turn the clocks back.

So Arsenal's blitzkrieg this term, notably in the victories at Everton and at home to Portsmouth, Wigan Athletic and Sunday's victims Blackburn Rovers, should be savoured while it lasts.

But why worry? There is no rush.

Wenger's record, like Chapman's, shows that his cavalier outfit will frequently run up big wins - this season, already, they have hit six goals twice and are likely to do so again.

Then, go back, and look at Chapman's record to seek the source of so much of this inspiration at Arsenal. It was in the 1930's under Chapman, so it was said, that the term 'lucky Arsenal' was coined.

But Chapman was no advocate of relying on luck and nor is Wenger. The legendary former Huddersfield Town manager created a team that, in 1930-31, scored 127 goals, en route to winning the First Division championship.

Despite the criticism that suggested they relied on a solid defence and rapid counter-attacks, it is difficult to believe that they averaged three goals a game that season by playing purely on the breakaway!

Indeed, that season, as in this one, they scored 24 goals in their opening seven games and, later, in one of several purple patches, hit Aston Villa, Middlesbrough and Chelsea for five goals apiece in a three games out of four spurt in November.

And this was in 1930, before the Broadway dancers and singers were in the streets, let alone on stage. Given Wenger's appreciation of history and the uncanny knack history has of throwing up repeats and parallels, make a note now not to miss the entertainment in late December and January next.

It was then that Arsenal did the following: walloped poor Blackpool 7-1 on December 27 (after a double over Manchester City in the previous two days); thrashed Grimsby Town 9-1 on January 28; and then triumphed 7-2 at Leicester City on February 5. Boring Arsenal?

Chapman's record and his style have left Wenger something to emulate. The great man said of his objectives with the team: "First, as to the attack, we have ceased to use our wing forwards in the old style, in which they hugged the touchline.

"Not only is the aim of Hulme and Bastin to come inside when the Arsenal attack, but also the aim of the wing-halves. This gives us seven men going up on goal...."

Sound familiar? Not perhaps with the positional names, but in essence it is the kind of total football that we are enjoying at the Emirates this season.

Chapman, in his day, was a student of the game, an advocate of a progressive philosophy and a man who delighted in the sight of his players relishing the pleasure they derived from their own skills and success.

His team-work came from thorough preparation in the reserves and on the training ground; his team's greatness sprang from a togetherness that was to be the foundation of all future Arsenal sides: great spirit and a family feeling for the club. In some ways, he wrote the text-book that Arsene Wenger has worked from assiduously, making notes, adding his own ideas and revising for the contemporary age.

Chapman's winners were entertainers, just like Wenger's. But while his team danced to the backdrop of Busby Berkeley's brilliant choreography as Footlight Parade wiped away the worst of the Great Depression, the professorial Frenchman has his men beating our credit crunch and depression with a new routine and rhythm all of their own. As the posters used to say - 'Catch it while you can...'

Tim Collings