An abridged version of this article first appeared on the pages of the Irish Examiner on Monday 13th August 2018.
The sleeves of
Arsenal’s pristine new shirts implore any reader with powerful enough vision to “Visit Rwanda”, yet everyone was at
the Emirates Stadium in dusty, busy old London town, the sound of strangled
traffic chugging sedately past outside, watching such lofty spaces open up on
the Arsenal left that we might have been basking gently in the sunlit uplands
of the Akergera National Park itself.
There might not have
been any nodding herds of giraffes or nervously grazing gazelles, no golden
moneys making a nuisance of themselves and no (or few) gorillas rubbing their
armpits, but the Arsenal defence were trying their best to look a little like
Eastern Black Rhinos. The great gnarled beasts are – thanks to poachers - critically
endangered and, if Unai Emery maintains this level of tactical openness, he may
well be joining them by Christmas in the giant Premier League stock pot.
Emery’s pre-match
words included the phrase “above all passion and energy” when asked what
Arsenal fans could expect from his new-look side. Not elements easily twinned
with Arsene Wenger’s Gunners vintage, but perhaps a neat change of direction,
we all thought. Arsenal with grit, Ozil, perhaps, with sliding tackles, Ramsey
with a leaning towards fisticuffs.
By half-time, his
side had deflated, the stadium had sighed its last hurrah and City were passing
their way quietly to yet another win over Arsenal. Ramsey had disappeared up
his own shadow, Ozil had been made busy by a falling lock of well-coiffed hair
that kept drooping in front of his eyes and the new manager was already
throwing shapes on the touchline that would fill the morning’s papers: hands
through well-groomed hair; double arms towards the sky; double arms towards the
ground; grimace with teeth reveal; grimace with hands in front of teeth; slowly
shaking head; aggressive pointing; all that was missing was the Joachim Löw bum
scratch.
For the Arsenal any
flirtation with passion had swiftly ended with a Mancunian smack in the chops.
In the 15 painful years
between 1991 and 2006, not a single City victory was registered over Arsenal.
To say the Gunners had become a bogey team was to greatly underestimate the
power of the word bogey.
Last season three
victories were notched at Arsenal’s expense, not so remarkable when you
consider a more or less similar fate befell practically all of City’s opponents,
but still relatively new ground for City’s supporters to stroll through.
The slick despatching
of the Gunners at Wembley in the League Cup final and – even more spectacularly
– three days later in a first half blitz at the Emirates, bore reasonable resemblance
to what we were seeing again here.
Pre-match opinion had
informed us with spectacularly predictable prose that Emery was “gunning for City” and that the affable
Spaniard was “aiming to out-fire Pep”,
but his gun had a Spanish cork in the end and the Arsenal cannon was pointing
at Unai himself. Any “structure” that the Spaniard had been expected to infuse
his new side with quickly began to look like bits of his home town
Honderrabia’s most famous buildings after the Battle of Fuenterrabia had
reduced them to dust and splinters in the oft-recalled year of 1521.
1521. Take the first
two numbers and you get the score between these two sides at Maine Road in
2003. Those that remember that humiliating dismantling by Arsene Wenger’s side,
will recall a match so one-sided that City were 4-down after just 19 minutes,
staring bleakly at a complete and utter pulverising.
The match remains one
of the outstanding performances by a visiting side to Manchester City over the
last 30 years. These days the boot is on the other foot. It is perhaps too
early in the season to expect opposing fans to break into spontaneous applause
for City’s pristine efforts, but there were at least lengthy spells of silent
respect in London.
The Big Question of
the summer has been “what to expect from City in 2018-19?” Can they emulate United
and Chelsea and win the Premier League title two years running or will the lure
of European combat take away their concentration?
With 60 minutes gone,
Ryad Mahrez – busy making an early name for himself for crossing impeccably into
player-less space and running himself offside – took a little too long to leave the pitch. Were City turning from
magical ball smugglers to time-wasting cynics? Was all that goodwill built up going
to go up in flames because Aguero and Sterling were faffing around?
Within seconds we had
the answers, all the answers.
Michael Oliver
whispered to captain Fernandinho that his side should expect some time added on
for their antics, pointing left right and centre as if to give specific
geography to the unexpected City malpractice.
The reaction was
swift and deadly as a Rwandan Black Mamba.
30 seconds later
Sergio Aguero failed to square to Kevin de Bruyne to kill the game dead. A
further few blinks and City had buried their hosts, Bernardo Silva hooking a
sumptuous left footer past Peter Cech from Mendy’s bendy ball in.
City produced a
string of records in a bewilderingly powerful season in 2017-18. The early word
out on the plains is that the Big Beasts are already on the move again.
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| Rwandan art by Augustin Hakiziman |
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