Ally
Active Member
Match 2 - Arsenal 2 Newcastle 0 (FA Cup Final, May 16th 1998 )
A more obvious selection this time round (Newcastle quite like giving Wenger a leg-up, don’t they?), but more for an obstructive reason than the significance of the glorious, joyous celebrations that entailed. Bear with me.
Arsenal’s class was not in any doubt. Emphatic winners of the Championship in spine-tingling style (I’ve watched my season review video from this year quite literally 20 or 30 times since I bought it on the day of its' release - it’s classic stuff which you never, ever get tired of seeing), the FA Cup was a different kettle of marine life. We’d made an absolute pig’s ear of the competition to be honest, being handed, by the comparative standards of the cup, an unusually easy passage to Wembley. The third round against Port Vale came around just when the season was on the verge of collapse at Christmas - there was a dismal 0-0 draw at Highbury and only a piece of utter genius by Bergkamp in the replay had earned a shootout which we scraped through. The fourth round showed more promise, Midlesborough (Then an ordinary first division outfit) being dispatched easily at the Riverside, and then there was another downright mind-numbing scoreless draw at home to Crystal Palace. Again, we squeaked out of the replay owing much to luck - this time, a red card and a deflected free kick tipping the balance our way. Then there was West Ham.
Another home draw and another game which I don’t remember too much about - Ian Pearce opened the scoring against the run of play, we promptly laid seige to the Hammer’s goal and were kept out by a stunning showing by Bernard Lama. Then, the goalscorer clipped Winterburn in the area and Bergkamp tucked the spot kick away. That was it - yet another replay ensued.
This time, we got a classic. Nobody really expected us to win, despite our form in the league which had picked up dramatically of late, and when Bergkamp was sent off for the most needless and stupid offence in the book (elbowing Lomas when the play was stuck in midfield), everything was well up the creek. Straight out of the blue though, on half time, lone striker Nicholas Anelka picked up a ricochet off Vieira and unleashed an awesome rocket straight into far corner We weren’t used to this, you understand - Anelka was still too raw, too naive and depended on Bergkamp to operate properly; that was probably the turning point, when he started to think for himself and to see a shooting chance and take it.
Just when it looked like we would hold out, West Ham hit us at the death. John Hartson somehow managed to beat Manninger at his near post and took the game to extra time, initiating the most unbearable, nerve-racking half hour where our season hung in the balance. This got worse - it went to penalties. Anyone who wasn’t watching cannot really appreciate what this was like, and when it got to the last West Ham penalty, with Eyal Berkovic stepping up to win the tie, someone (Wreh?) having put his kick wide, I found myself, for the first and last time as an Arsenal supporter, covering my eyes. Manninger dived to his right. Berkovic had chosen the same way, but at height. The goalkeeper stuck his arms up - and parried the ball away. We’d got to sudden death - Tony Adams lightly brushed his straight down the middle, and suddenly Samassi Abou had stepped up and hit the post and we were through. I went to sleep, the strain having taken it’s toll.
The semi-final was one of the the easiest 1-0 wins anyone could remember, Wreh getting a fine goal early on, and the final was put on ice until after the Everton party and Overmars’ goals which confirmed the championship. There had been a dress rehearsal for the final, still famous now for Vieira’s astonishing strike, which we’d won very easily by 3-1 and overall there was no doubt that we’d secure the double, having fielded under-strength teams for the final two league games of the season.
I do apologise for that - nostalgia gets the better of me when dealing with 97/98; I couldn’t resist a paragraph or five of misty-eyed reminicing. I’ll be on to my morning routine on cup final day next if someone doesn’t stop me...
The only concern in the build up was just a little more than a minor blemish - Bergkamp had done his hamstring against Derby in a frantic scramble for points the week before the title was secured and, it turned out, had put himself out of the final. This left Wenger having to bluff a strikeforce of Wreh and Anelka which was to take on Stuart Pearce and Nikos Dabizas; evidentally, the game was going to be won or lost in midfield, with the strikers relying on getting lucky at some point - despite promising recent form, these two had neither the craft or the experience to engage the Newcastle back four and come out on top.
This, then, was the team that virtually picked itself. Nobody was left surprised -
Seaman
Dixon Adams Keown Winterburn
Parlour Vieira Petit Overmars
Wreh Anelka
“I feel so extraordinary, something’s got a hold on me. I get this feeling I’m in motion, a seventh sense of libery.”
Personally, I find this game dull and routine. If it hadn’t been a cup final, there might very well have been apathy and people all over the country switching off their TV’s. Everything reassembled a normal, run-of-the-mill league victory in some meaningless end of season mid-table pleasantry - we policed the first half, not allowing Newcastle a hint of a chance. In the midfield, the influence of Parlour was simply profound - on the right wing, he gave a tour-de-force, a quality of performance that he seems to be able to repeat in any big game he’s selected for. Anelka and Wreh in the first half were off the page, Anelka constantly falling into the offside trap and the Liberian could just as well not have been on the pitch for what his contribution was worth. Everybody was expecting too much of the little man - an explosive set of goals against, especially, Bolton, Wolves and Wimbledon (twice) showed a glimmer of a deep talent waiting to burst out. As it turned out, Wreh was an effective short term solution to a deficiency up front, but no more.
The first Arsenal chance left us praying that this wasn’t going to one of those days - the initial sign of what was to be the finest 90 minutes of Ray Parlour’s career was on show when he burst between two defenders with a superb change of pace and crossed straight onto Anelka’s head under the crossbar and in front of an open goal. The ball went flying over the top. Uh-oh. Thankfully, there was to be no repeat of such wastefulness when the second opportunity was offered.
Petit swapped passes with Winterburn in the centre of the field and suddenly, in an iconic moment that has been playing in a loop in my head ever since it happened, chipped the most perfect through ball of his life right over the top of the rearguard and into the path of Overmars. Pistone frantically charged across to try and deal with the danger; Overmars promptly shouldered him out of play, and as Given advanced, bravely slotted through the keeper’s legs. Out of all the goals ever scored by an Arsenal team managed by Wenger, this has to be my favourite. Fine, Wiltord’s on May 8th runs it a close second, and Parlour’s three days previously goes third, and there are numerous strikes of better quality, but this one still has the ability to make the hairs on your neck stand up, even five years after it happened. It was, fundamentally, a pefectly worked goal by two of my all time favourite players.
Half time came and went, and we knew, we just knew that we were going to win this final, and even when Newcastle put their plan B into action (Actually making an effort to leave their own half once in a while), this was the most relaxing decider of a major competition I’ve had the pleasure to sit through. We stroked the ball around, Parlour running and running and running, leaving Vieira and Petit with little to do - you just sat back and appreciated the sheer passion and effort being put in. There were a few Toon chances though - Nick Hornby calls this ‘token FA Cup Final resistance moments, not to be taken seriously’, but on this shimmering, scorching day we saw two instances that well and truly define “heart in mouth”. Firstly Dabizas, up for a free kick, connected at the far post and clipped the top of the bar, with Seaman stationary. The second was agonising - Keown had everything under control along his back line, but somehow trod on the ball which rolled back the way to Shearer who found himself clean through. No-one has ever credited Seaman, most seeing what followed as bad luck on the part of the Newcastle front man, but Spunky’s goalkeeping at this point was terrific, a textbook example of the most effective way to prevent a goal on a one-on-one situation. As Shearer advanced, he came out right to the spot where the angle to shoot was most acute - the frontman opted for placement instead of power, picked his spot across the keeper...and the ball hit the inside of the post and bounced to safety.
Newcastle pushed out further in an increasingly desperate attempt to equalise, and with around fifteen minutes left, the law of averages finally decided that the Toon had had enough luck at the back - Parlour placed a high ball through the middle and Anelka at last beat the offside trap. This time, ironically, a raw teenager gave the England goalscoring legend at the other end a lesson in how to score when clear on the keeper - he simply thumped it low and early and surprised Given, who couldn’t get down quick enough. The final was all over, and inevitably the final moments were passed out, the trailing team knowing they were beaten.
”I used to think that the day would never come, I’d see the light in the shade of the morning sun”
We were breathtaking, towering, supreme, easily the finest team in Britain at the time. The cup final was final and irrefutable proof of this. Or was it?
The first double put a blissful sight screen up between the fans and the true state of Arsenal’s squad. The first choice eleven was inspiring - the back five that picked itself for so long stands as the greatest defence in the history of this football club. The midfield featured a central pairing as good as anything in Europe, and included the most explosive winger around - and up front we had Bergkamp.
Take a deeper look into the depth of the players at the time. The final had shown that we were sorely lacking in dependable strikers. If Bergkamp was out, we had no inspiration. Wreh, as I said, was a stand-in who worked for half a season. Boa Morte was simply not good enough. Kanu didn’t arrive until it was too late to repair the double defence season. The less said about Kabba Diawara, the better.
In the middle of the park, Wenger moved to sign Ljungberg, who scored within five minutes of his debut, became homesick and had no major bearing on the season until he started to find his feet early in 99/00. Also arriving was Nelson Vivas – strengthening an area that really didn't need any reinforcing (We conceded 18 league goals in 38 games the next year) In short, the Arsenal squad was not strong enough to engage their challengers properly in the following season.
I'm not implying that the 1998 double was down to luck. That season, something clicked after January and what we had were 12 or 13 players who were well capable of playing a belting game, and usually did. What was crucial is that our success was a bona fide false dawn. One which we were prepared to accept without question. No-one during the close season, or during the World Cup as Emmanual Petit completed the rout of Brazil, questioned how we would fare in defending our title. Perhaps that applied to Arsène, too. (And frankly, if that's the case, who can blame him? He'd just won the double in his first full season in charge for god's sake) We thought we were the best – and for one season we were – but as a long term force, Arsenal of 1998 need not have applied.
If we hadn't won the double, would Wenger have moved to strngthen the strikeforce? Perhaps one of those new forwards would have scored in a run of three consecutive 0-0 draws at the beginning of the new campaign? The reason he gave for not bringing in expensive talent was that he didn't want to pay a new arrival more than the players who had won the double. It seemed sound reasoning at the time. Now, looking back during a stage where managers would likely shop their own mothers to get decent players in, there's something dodgy about it. If the players had slipped at the last and won nothing, would he have been prepared to ring the changes? I think it's fairly certain that he would have. Eventually, Arsène cut his losses and brought in Kanu, who's goals were both consistant and crucial, and which brought us tantalisingly near to retaining the trophy. Kanu in from the start of the season = Champions?
Despite the drawbacks that would follow, given the chance to change anything from 97/98, I would leave it well alone. That was a perfect, wonderful year. It gave us our reputation for fantastic football. It destroyed once and for all the 'Boring' and 'Lucky' tags. It raised the bar for the standard of player acceptable at our club. Everything Wenger did subsequently was shaped by his initial success. And that's why this game is undoubtedly one which shaped his Arsenal.
Ally Winford
A more obvious selection this time round (Newcastle quite like giving Wenger a leg-up, don’t they?), but more for an obstructive reason than the significance of the glorious, joyous celebrations that entailed. Bear with me.
Arsenal’s class was not in any doubt. Emphatic winners of the Championship in spine-tingling style (I’ve watched my season review video from this year quite literally 20 or 30 times since I bought it on the day of its' release - it’s classic stuff which you never, ever get tired of seeing), the FA Cup was a different kettle of marine life. We’d made an absolute pig’s ear of the competition to be honest, being handed, by the comparative standards of the cup, an unusually easy passage to Wembley. The third round against Port Vale came around just when the season was on the verge of collapse at Christmas - there was a dismal 0-0 draw at Highbury and only a piece of utter genius by Bergkamp in the replay had earned a shootout which we scraped through. The fourth round showed more promise, Midlesborough (Then an ordinary first division outfit) being dispatched easily at the Riverside, and then there was another downright mind-numbing scoreless draw at home to Crystal Palace. Again, we squeaked out of the replay owing much to luck - this time, a red card and a deflected free kick tipping the balance our way. Then there was West Ham.
Another home draw and another game which I don’t remember too much about - Ian Pearce opened the scoring against the run of play, we promptly laid seige to the Hammer’s goal and were kept out by a stunning showing by Bernard Lama. Then, the goalscorer clipped Winterburn in the area and Bergkamp tucked the spot kick away. That was it - yet another replay ensued.
This time, we got a classic. Nobody really expected us to win, despite our form in the league which had picked up dramatically of late, and when Bergkamp was sent off for the most needless and stupid offence in the book (elbowing Lomas when the play was stuck in midfield), everything was well up the creek. Straight out of the blue though, on half time, lone striker Nicholas Anelka picked up a ricochet off Vieira and unleashed an awesome rocket straight into far corner We weren’t used to this, you understand - Anelka was still too raw, too naive and depended on Bergkamp to operate properly; that was probably the turning point, when he started to think for himself and to see a shooting chance and take it.
Just when it looked like we would hold out, West Ham hit us at the death. John Hartson somehow managed to beat Manninger at his near post and took the game to extra time, initiating the most unbearable, nerve-racking half hour where our season hung in the balance. This got worse - it went to penalties. Anyone who wasn’t watching cannot really appreciate what this was like, and when it got to the last West Ham penalty, with Eyal Berkovic stepping up to win the tie, someone (Wreh?) having put his kick wide, I found myself, for the first and last time as an Arsenal supporter, covering my eyes. Manninger dived to his right. Berkovic had chosen the same way, but at height. The goalkeeper stuck his arms up - and parried the ball away. We’d got to sudden death - Tony Adams lightly brushed his straight down the middle, and suddenly Samassi Abou had stepped up and hit the post and we were through. I went to sleep, the strain having taken it’s toll.
The semi-final was one of the the easiest 1-0 wins anyone could remember, Wreh getting a fine goal early on, and the final was put on ice until after the Everton party and Overmars’ goals which confirmed the championship. There had been a dress rehearsal for the final, still famous now for Vieira’s astonishing strike, which we’d won very easily by 3-1 and overall there was no doubt that we’d secure the double, having fielded under-strength teams for the final two league games of the season.
I do apologise for that - nostalgia gets the better of me when dealing with 97/98; I couldn’t resist a paragraph or five of misty-eyed reminicing. I’ll be on to my morning routine on cup final day next if someone doesn’t stop me...
The only concern in the build up was just a little more than a minor blemish - Bergkamp had done his hamstring against Derby in a frantic scramble for points the week before the title was secured and, it turned out, had put himself out of the final. This left Wenger having to bluff a strikeforce of Wreh and Anelka which was to take on Stuart Pearce and Nikos Dabizas; evidentally, the game was going to be won or lost in midfield, with the strikers relying on getting lucky at some point - despite promising recent form, these two had neither the craft or the experience to engage the Newcastle back four and come out on top.
This, then, was the team that virtually picked itself. Nobody was left surprised -
Seaman
Dixon Adams Keown Winterburn
Parlour Vieira Petit Overmars
Wreh Anelka
“I feel so extraordinary, something’s got a hold on me. I get this feeling I’m in motion, a seventh sense of libery.”
Personally, I find this game dull and routine. If it hadn’t been a cup final, there might very well have been apathy and people all over the country switching off their TV’s. Everything reassembled a normal, run-of-the-mill league victory in some meaningless end of season mid-table pleasantry - we policed the first half, not allowing Newcastle a hint of a chance. In the midfield, the influence of Parlour was simply profound - on the right wing, he gave a tour-de-force, a quality of performance that he seems to be able to repeat in any big game he’s selected for. Anelka and Wreh in the first half were off the page, Anelka constantly falling into the offside trap and the Liberian could just as well not have been on the pitch for what his contribution was worth. Everybody was expecting too much of the little man - an explosive set of goals against, especially, Bolton, Wolves and Wimbledon (twice) showed a glimmer of a deep talent waiting to burst out. As it turned out, Wreh was an effective short term solution to a deficiency up front, but no more.
The first Arsenal chance left us praying that this wasn’t going to one of those days - the initial sign of what was to be the finest 90 minutes of Ray Parlour’s career was on show when he burst between two defenders with a superb change of pace and crossed straight onto Anelka’s head under the crossbar and in front of an open goal. The ball went flying over the top. Uh-oh. Thankfully, there was to be no repeat of such wastefulness when the second opportunity was offered.
Petit swapped passes with Winterburn in the centre of the field and suddenly, in an iconic moment that has been playing in a loop in my head ever since it happened, chipped the most perfect through ball of his life right over the top of the rearguard and into the path of Overmars. Pistone frantically charged across to try and deal with the danger; Overmars promptly shouldered him out of play, and as Given advanced, bravely slotted through the keeper’s legs. Out of all the goals ever scored by an Arsenal team managed by Wenger, this has to be my favourite. Fine, Wiltord’s on May 8th runs it a close second, and Parlour’s three days previously goes third, and there are numerous strikes of better quality, but this one still has the ability to make the hairs on your neck stand up, even five years after it happened. It was, fundamentally, a pefectly worked goal by two of my all time favourite players.
Half time came and went, and we knew, we just knew that we were going to win this final, and even when Newcastle put their plan B into action (Actually making an effort to leave their own half once in a while), this was the most relaxing decider of a major competition I’ve had the pleasure to sit through. We stroked the ball around, Parlour running and running and running, leaving Vieira and Petit with little to do - you just sat back and appreciated the sheer passion and effort being put in. There were a few Toon chances though - Nick Hornby calls this ‘token FA Cup Final resistance moments, not to be taken seriously’, but on this shimmering, scorching day we saw two instances that well and truly define “heart in mouth”. Firstly Dabizas, up for a free kick, connected at the far post and clipped the top of the bar, with Seaman stationary. The second was agonising - Keown had everything under control along his back line, but somehow trod on the ball which rolled back the way to Shearer who found himself clean through. No-one has ever credited Seaman, most seeing what followed as bad luck on the part of the Newcastle front man, but Spunky’s goalkeeping at this point was terrific, a textbook example of the most effective way to prevent a goal on a one-on-one situation. As Shearer advanced, he came out right to the spot where the angle to shoot was most acute - the frontman opted for placement instead of power, picked his spot across the keeper...and the ball hit the inside of the post and bounced to safety.
Newcastle pushed out further in an increasingly desperate attempt to equalise, and with around fifteen minutes left, the law of averages finally decided that the Toon had had enough luck at the back - Parlour placed a high ball through the middle and Anelka at last beat the offside trap. This time, ironically, a raw teenager gave the England goalscoring legend at the other end a lesson in how to score when clear on the keeper - he simply thumped it low and early and surprised Given, who couldn’t get down quick enough. The final was all over, and inevitably the final moments were passed out, the trailing team knowing they were beaten.
”I used to think that the day would never come, I’d see the light in the shade of the morning sun”
We were breathtaking, towering, supreme, easily the finest team in Britain at the time. The cup final was final and irrefutable proof of this. Or was it?
The first double put a blissful sight screen up between the fans and the true state of Arsenal’s squad. The first choice eleven was inspiring - the back five that picked itself for so long stands as the greatest defence in the history of this football club. The midfield featured a central pairing as good as anything in Europe, and included the most explosive winger around - and up front we had Bergkamp.
Take a deeper look into the depth of the players at the time. The final had shown that we were sorely lacking in dependable strikers. If Bergkamp was out, we had no inspiration. Wreh, as I said, was a stand-in who worked for half a season. Boa Morte was simply not good enough. Kanu didn’t arrive until it was too late to repair the double defence season. The less said about Kabba Diawara, the better.
In the middle of the park, Wenger moved to sign Ljungberg, who scored within five minutes of his debut, became homesick and had no major bearing on the season until he started to find his feet early in 99/00. Also arriving was Nelson Vivas – strengthening an area that really didn't need any reinforcing (We conceded 18 league goals in 38 games the next year) In short, the Arsenal squad was not strong enough to engage their challengers properly in the following season.
I'm not implying that the 1998 double was down to luck. That season, something clicked after January and what we had were 12 or 13 players who were well capable of playing a belting game, and usually did. What was crucial is that our success was a bona fide false dawn. One which we were prepared to accept without question. No-one during the close season, or during the World Cup as Emmanual Petit completed the rout of Brazil, questioned how we would fare in defending our title. Perhaps that applied to Arsène, too. (And frankly, if that's the case, who can blame him? He'd just won the double in his first full season in charge for god's sake) We thought we were the best – and for one season we were – but as a long term force, Arsenal of 1998 need not have applied.
If we hadn't won the double, would Wenger have moved to strngthen the strikeforce? Perhaps one of those new forwards would have scored in a run of three consecutive 0-0 draws at the beginning of the new campaign? The reason he gave for not bringing in expensive talent was that he didn't want to pay a new arrival more than the players who had won the double. It seemed sound reasoning at the time. Now, looking back during a stage where managers would likely shop their own mothers to get decent players in, there's something dodgy about it. If the players had slipped at the last and won nothing, would he have been prepared to ring the changes? I think it's fairly certain that he would have. Eventually, Arsène cut his losses and brought in Kanu, who's goals were both consistant and crucial, and which brought us tantalisingly near to retaining the trophy. Kanu in from the start of the season = Champions?
Despite the drawbacks that would follow, given the chance to change anything from 97/98, I would leave it well alone. That was a perfect, wonderful year. It gave us our reputation for fantastic football. It destroyed once and for all the 'Boring' and 'Lucky' tags. It raised the bar for the standard of player acceptable at our club. Everything Wenger did subsequently was shaped by his initial success. And that's why this game is undoubtedly one which shaped his Arsenal.
Ally Winford
