United in loss

By Tony Ngara

Once upon a time, Arsenal was a team that played its game with suave, creativity and artistry — and kept winning. At one time, teams were struggling to beat the record of not conceding early against Arsenal.

During those days, the prospects of facing up Patrick Vieira, Robert Pires, Fredrick Ljunberg and Thierry Henry would cause Man United, leave alone the Stokes and Norwichs of this world, sleepless nights.

In that era, if you had not conceded in the first 20 minutes, it was marked as an achievement and other teams would use the video from the match as a case study on how to delay the Armageddon.

It is no longer the case. We used to have a sharp manager called Arsene Wenger; he was a master of his own destiny. Then one night ‘aliens’ (I suspect from the northern region of Manchester City) came, undertook brain surgery, took off with his sharp brain and exchanged it with some dump gray matter.

Apart from the uniform and the name, I do not recognise anything else from the late 1990s and early 2000s. Someone give us back our Arsenal!