Comfort brings out the worst in Arsenal. The Premiership is engrossing again because they behave like the wastrel heir to a fortune. It is possible to envisage the family silver being repossessed, with the championship trophy falling into the hands of Manchester United or even Newcastle United. Kevin McCarra reports.
Interest had been waning, but the month ahead will be fascinating as each round of fixtures probes the nature of these teams. Newcastle can no longer be typecast as also-rans. Manchester United might not be a side with only the Champions League on its mind. A ruffled Arsenal must start again to prove their superiority.
If you believe him, there is even a manager who finds fun in all this. Arsene Wenger recently claimed to be amused by the rate at which praise can turn to excoriation in England. He affected to regard this as a parallel sport that runs alongside football itself.
Observers, however, do keep in mind the facts. Arsenal were only following suit in losing at Ewood Park, just as Manchester United and Newcastle had done. For that matter, Arsenal must benefit to some degree when those clubs meet at St James' Park to knock spots - and perhaps points - off one another next month.
Once Manchester United have hobbled out of Newcastle they are scheduled to go to Highbury. The advantages Arsenal hold are not in question, but neither is the propensity to fritter them away. Before the welter of injuries the team had already undermined itself with performances that smacked of dilettantism. It must perturb the squad that the heat is rising in a championship that might have been a stone-cold formality weeks ago.
Arsenal have led against Liverpool and Newcastle and wound up drawing with both. The ruthlessness is absent, too, in the Champions League. If Wenger's depleted line-up are overcome at Valencia on Wednesday they will only qualify for the quarter-finals so long as Fabio Capello's Roma beat Ajax on the same night.
A dip into the FA Cup did not break the pattern of profligacy, with Chelsea entitled to the 2-2 draw in a contest that could have seen them swamped by the interval. The factors that make Arsenal such a joy to watch are the same characteristics that can undermine them.
As Wenger has acknowledged, they notch few scruffy goals and, despite Patrick Vieira's opener against Roma, you can usually rule out the possibility of them barging home a header at a set-piece.
Instead, Arsenal trust that minds will work as fast as Thierry Henry's legs while they hunt a beautiful goal. To their credit, the scoring record shows that they quite often track down that quarry. When sophistication fails them, though, they cannot turn to directness. In that area, Manchester United and Newcastle may enjoy an edge.
Arsenal, too, must draw more deeply on their creativity than they might wish. A defence that shares a dwindling resemblance to the hard-hearted back four of the recent past is being weakened further by injuries. Wenger might be asking himself just why he sold Matthew Upson to Birmingham in January.
It has to be expected that there will sometimes be entire batches of wounded footballers and others have been through that malaise as well. Struggling to find a positive interpretation for the first half of the season, Alex Ferguson took encouragement from the fact that several players had at least undergone surgery quickly.
There are still reservations about a United team that scrambled a mere draw at Bolton last month but they are in contention. Having failed to capitalise when everything was in their favour, Arsenal will have to show that the pinch of adversity can galvanise them.
Guardian Service
