Tom Lappin: Would the real Arsenal team please stand up and be counted

Published on Friday 1 October 2010 15:27

ARSENAL: the 21st-century equivalent of the Schleswig-Holstein. That enigma, you will recall, was only understood by Prince Albert, Lord Palmerston and a mad German professor, which might be three more than those able to fathom the riddle of Arsenal.

Arsene Wenger should be the obvious authority, but of late even he has seemed perplexed by his side's continued identity crisis. He moves judiciously to remedy his squad's perceived deficiencies only to see new and unpredictable leaks spring elsewhere.

An objective audit of Arsenal's season so far would have to err on the side of the positive. Marouane Chamakh has settled quickly into an effective presence in attack, his strength and combativeness not precluding a useful tendency to fall over yelping in anguish every time an opponent deigns to make minimal contact. In short he's offering a passable imitation of Didier Drogba, and he has performed manfully in making the absences of Nicklas Bendtner and Robin Van Persie less conspicuous than they should have been.

In defence Laurent Koscielny is still fine-tuning his game to the demands of the Premier League after playing all his career in France. Three yellow cards so far suggest he won't struggle with the physical side of the game. These two acquisitions were made to counter accusations that Arsenal were a bunch of airy-fairy lightweights, a stereotype that Wenger resented, but obviously identified as partially true.

The other positive is the increased maturity of Wenger's young prodigies. Kieran Gibbs might have had only one League start for Arsenal this season, but is now an England international. Alex Song, who has just turned 23, is now an established fixture in Wenger's starting line-up. Jack Wilshere, another to feature in Fabio Capello's England squad,s has been superb in most of his games this season, with the conspicuous exception of last weekend's debacle against West Bromwich Albion.

Wenger, a footballing futurist, has, for a few seasons now, been proffering this idealist vista of a golden generation finally flourishing into glorious title-winning bloom. The problem, as any gardener in the British climate will testify, is that it's tricky to get all your seedlings to grow at the same rate. Cesc Fabregas is the finished article, a world-class player whose influence on this Arsenal team is now inescapable. His team-mates only match his heights sporadically.

When they, particularly the likes of Wilshere, Andriy Arshavin, Van Persie and Samir Nasri, are on his wavelength, Arsenal become the North London Spain, moving slickly through their choreographed attacks, picking holes in the tightest defences.Without him, or even when his brain is moving half a second faster than his colleagues' anticipation, the machine starts to groan and the cogs start to creak.

Fabregas, along with the imposing defender Thomas Vermaelen, faces a fitness test ahead of tomorrow's visit to Stamford Bridge. His presence would allow Wenger to face the team's toughest test of the season with something like the real Arsenal, rather than the crew who surrendered to West Brom.

It's apparent that Fabregas, the captain, adds rather more to Wenger's team than just his passing, intelligence and technique, impressive though they are. His leadership has become as important to this team as Tony Adams' was to a previous generation.

He has an ability to communicate his competitiveness, his passion, to team-mates, some of whom need that example. Tomorrow, Arshavin against John Terry should be a classic encounters, art against industry, invention against obstruction. It will depend on the Russian's mood though. He was excellent on Tuesday night under the flickering floodlights in Belgrade, but there is an inconsistency in his career that has prevented him becoming the Slavic version of Lionel Messi. Arsenal's Premier League credentials depend on Arshavin's willingness to torment defenders like Terry with ruthless regularity.

When Fabregas is playing, Wenger has few worries about his midfield. His most persistent headache this season has concerned his goalkeeper. It's a position he hasn't satisfactorily filled since Jens Lehmann left for Stuttgart to spend more time with his ego. Manuel Almunia has been an adequate but average stopgap. Against West Brom his deficiencies were exposed rather cruelly.

Much of Almunia's rise to prominence has more to do with an amenable personality and an admirable team-spirit rather than any obvious brilliance. Spanish observers were nonplussed six years ago when Wenger signed a player who had languished in the Celta Vigo reserves for three seasons, and been sent out on extended loans rather than been given an opportunity in the first team. Almunia's position has been helped by the erratic form of his putative replacement, Lukasz Fabianski. Poland has a fine history of producing goalkeepers, from Jan Tomaszewski, through Jerzy Dudek to Tomascz Kuszczak and Artur Boruc, but they have usually had a streak of unpredictability, whether it be a fondness for nightclubs (Boruc) or a distracting ambition to be God's representative on Earth (Karol Wojtyla).

Fabianski's problem, it would seem, is a refusal to face up to the truth about his talent. "I am confident he can come out as a great keeper," Wenger said, implicitly acknowledging that up to now the 25-year-old Pole has been lurking in the closet for hamfisted clowns.

Fabianski had a great game in Belgrade, and is hopeful of starting against Chelsea. He may yet come to be comfortable in his greatness.Wenger will hope that applies to his team as a whole, that Arsenal can put enigma behind them and finally realise their promise. Stamford Bridge would be an auspicious place to announce themselves.