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Business News/ Opinion / Blogs/  PLAY THINGS: Arsenal—making us dream again
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PLAY THINGS: Arsenal—making us dream again

With a curtain-raiser win in the Community Shield and exciting new players, can Arsenal finally mount a serious challenge in the Premier League?

Arsenal’s midfielder Santi Cazorla (L) vies with Manchester City’s Brazilian midfielder Fernando (R) during the FA Community Shield football match between Arsenal and Manchester City at Wembley Stadium in London on 10 August. Glyn Kirk/AFPPremium
Arsenal’s midfielder Santi Cazorla (L) vies with Manchester City’s Brazilian midfielder Fernando (R) during the FA Community Shield football match between Arsenal and Manchester City at Wembley Stadium in London on 10 August. Glyn Kirk/AFP

How significant is Arsenal’s win in the season-opening Community Shield for its English Premier League title hopes?

As a fairly hardcore Arsenal fan, the 3-0 victory over the current EPL champions Manchester City makes me the perfect fall guy. I want to believe in Arsene Wenger again. I dream of the ‘invincibles’. I suspect Santi Cazorla is the next Bergkamp, and Oliver Giroud the next Thierry Henry. It is all too exciting.

But then I remember who won the last Community Shield—a team entering an amazing new era, poised to continue and strengthen their hold over English football—Manchester United. Wait a minute. What happened to Manchester United? Right. They had their poorest season in a very long time and fell apart as a team. They were right up there in terms of footballing prowess with Crystal Palace.

The Wenger dream, the Arsenal dream…let’s not get carried away. Manchester City played without nine of their first team players. This was silverware for Arsenal, but just a little big-league kickabout for City’s fringe players and new signings. A win is a win though, and this is one that Arsenal needed: they have a Champions League qualifier against Besiktas hanging over them, and they needed to be ready, which they look like they are.

It was a test for all three of Wenger’s big signings for the season: the wonderfully well-rounded French right back Mathieu Debuchy, whose consistency and reading of the game makes him one of the best players in his position will do much for Arsenal’s usually leaky defence; Calum Chambers is another Southampton wonder, 19-years-old and already mature way beyond his age in manning the defence—Arsenal desperately needed someone like him to step in to the backline in the event of an injury or loss of form of one of their usual defensive quartet, or put some muscle into the midfield to screen the defenders; and finally, a typically Wenger kind of man, the sneaky, tricky, fast moving, dribbling Chilean striker Alexis Sanchez, for long an understudy at Barcelona, and coming off a sensational World Cup run for his country.

Southampton, meanwhile, is quickly developing into a production line for the big English clubs: Arsenal alone has picked up, over the last few years, Theo Walcott, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, and now Chambers from Southampton’s academy; United has Luke Shaw; and Liverpool swooped in for Rickie Lambert, Adam Lallana and Dejan Lovrej.

Alexis Sanchex—now what can he, Mesut Ozil, Cazorla, and Aaron Ramsey do together? Why did Arsene Wenger wait so long to get a forward who can actually play? And now that he has one, will we see the man hitch up his shorts till his bum (Sanchez, not Wenger) and get to the end of all that slick passing and hammer in goal after goal? Please do. It’s been a while. Wenger needs one more solid centreback, and perhaps another experienced forward—a classic poacher—who can get that final touch that Arsenal has missed so sorely in their nine seasons without a trophy.

In a wholely unrelated development, have you heard the news about the former boxing promoter Frank Maloney? He is now a woman. Her name is Kellie. She had always known she was a woman trapped in a man’s body, but only found the courage to take this step at the age of 61, after she quit the boxing world, where she had led Lennox Lewis to the world heavyweight title. It is never too late! The boxing community, for all their testesterone-fuelled machismo, have reacted with great sensitivity and support.

Lewis himself came out in support, issuing a statement which ended with “I respect Kellie’s decision and say that if this is what brings about true happiness in her life, then so be it."

It reminded me of a shatteringly good story I had read some time back in Sports Illustrated about the coming-out of Welsh rugby legend Gareth Thomas. It’s a story everyone should read. Goosebumps all the way.

This weekly series talks about all things play—from real to virtual, stadiums to playstations, and football games to board games.

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Published: 11 Aug 2014, 01:59 PM IST
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