Ian Tanner
There was a time, not so long ago, whenever Arsenal and Manchester United played, when Arsenal were guaranteed to lose. I’m not referring to on-field encounters, where our record is decent, but those off-field. Our beloved, quaint, welcoming Highbury could accommodate just over half Old Trafford’s ever-growing capacity, leading to a £1 million “loss” every home fixture. Like the sinking of Titanic, it was a mathematical certainty. To even attempt to compete, to sit at the Big Boys’ table, the prescribed solution was the albeit reluctant, short move to our new home and, it is oft argued, the simultaneous adoption of what became known by frustrated fans as Project Youth.
Project Youth has been pronounced dead in these pages and elsewhere, accompanied by no little rejoicing. Everyone agrees, in fact, so it must be true, and also the correct decision. Not so much out with the old, in with the new, as vice-versa. The many and varied failures of Project Youth include its poster child, the hapless and hopeless Alex Song Billong. Joining initially on loan before his 18thbirthday, he was never going to make the grade; ask anyone who witnessed his Craven Cottage fiasco. To those well-honed eyes, it was obvious that Billong did not belong. Just turned 19, he was so bad that even our myopic, cyclopic (not a word but it rhymes and you know what I mean) – not to mention stubborn – manager had no alternative but to substitute him before half-time. The boos and jeers emanating from the Away Section had not encouraged him to play better, strangely. Nearly six years on, it’s deemed illogical (geddit?) by those same know-alls to sell our one and only Song for a mere £15 million.
Another failure of Project Youth was also Barcelona-bound: Francesc Fabregas. Finessed by Arsene from Barca’s successful version of Project Youth, Cesc later returned to his boyhood club, swelling Arsenal’s coffers by a trifling Euros 30 million.
Samir Nasri joined when exactly 21, which is young enough in my book to be considered youthful! He was sold three seasons later for more than double his £10+ million price tag.
Kolo Toure, not quite 21 when he signed, went from almost zero (well, £150,000) to Invincible hero in two full seasons. Kolo was eventually sold for £16 million, with one year remaining on his then contract and no longer an automatic starter.
Emmanuel Adebayor, a £3m Monaco misfit, went to Citeh for £25 million when both he and Arsenal decided to take the money. This ever-popular ex-Gooner was still not 22 when he enrolled in Project Youth. Incidentally, he’s hardly played Champions League football since departing London Colney and now plies his trade in the Europa League some Thursdays (*), his market value having plunged to £5 million. As they say in America, do the math. It’s doubtful that he’ll ever score more goals for Spurs in the Champions League than he did against them one evening in Milan.
Still 17, Gael Clichy entered kindergarten in 2003 as back-up to an older boy whose name, fittingly, rhymes with a**ehole and who was himself eventually sold for £5m plus William Gallas. Clichy departed for £7m, almost all profit.
Dimwit David Bentley, another alumni of Arsene’s crazy academy, unwittingly assisted Arsenal’s cause not once but twice (proof that a fool never learns), thanks to the sell-on deal, negotiated by Arsenal’s inept management, that saw us collect £5+ million when he belatedly joined his beloved Tottenham Hotspur Reserves, who paid Blackburn Rovers (and Arsenal) £18 million for his services. Trivia Question: where the hell is Rostov?
Last, but by no means least, Robin van Persie. This £2.75m-rated 20 year-old wild-boy was sold for £24 million, enabling him to fulfil his wild-boyhood dreams. How touching.
Pre-Project Youth failures also came and went; youngsters who were so poor and ill-thought of at their then clubs that Arsene was able to pick them up for far more than they were worth whilst demonstrating yet again his xenophobia. Milan pocketed with glee the £3.5 million Arsene wasted on Patrick Vieira, 20. Thrice that was blown on a nearly-22 year-old Juventus wide-boy (not wild-boy) called Thierry Henry (My all-time favourite The Gooner front page featured TH14 asking a team-mate: “Why does Monsieur Wenger keep going on about a Barn Door?”). Please go easy on Arsene over the Henry purchase; it was financed from the sale of another French youth, Nicolas Anelka, for £25 million (virtually all profit), with the balance building a state-of-the-art training ground.
That Arsenal have contested continuously the Champions League despite the purchase (and/or nurture) and subsequent sale of these and many other no-hopers surely implies that every other club has even worse managers than we do. In the land of the blind, the cyclopic man is king. What people fail to grasp is that Project Youth has been a resounding success, not an abject failure. Our club has been transformed: players’ diet, squad strength and depth, stadium, training ground, medical centre, trophies and worldwide recognition, all achieved in the face of Chelsea and Citeh’s new-found financial muscle and numerous debt mountains piled high elsewhere.
And Project Youth didn’t begin as plans to leave Highbury were formulated; it’s existed since September 1996, not with the arrival of Wenger but that of PV4, bought on Arsene’s say-so. The numerous acquisitions over the last 14 months, including household names with years of top-level experience such as Carl Jenkinson and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, could not have been financed otherwise. Similar duffers to those listed above are falling through the ranks, Yennaris, Coquelin, Frimpong, Gnabry, Afobe and Bellarin among them.
Contrast the sustained vitriol directed at Arsene Wenger with the universal apathy reserved in Britain only for the most disastrous and crassest of decisions. Take a bow James Gordon Brown, Kirkcaldy’s third-favourite son (behind Adam Smith and Jocky Wilson). Goon Brown, you may recall, was Phoney Glare’s chief henchman for a decade. On 2nd July 1997, Phoney Glare, who had then only been First Lord of the Treasury for exactly two months, and Goon Brown set about the £5 billion annual confiscation of UK pension funds’ assets through a barely commented-on new tax before “Arsene Who?” – remember him? - had celebrated one year in his new job. In May 1999, Glare and Brown celebrated two years at the helm of their about-to-start-sinking ship by announcing a plan to sell 60% of our gold reserves. Presumably they decided to alert gold bugs and bears to ensure further depression of the yellow metal’s price. The sale, at a bottom-of-the-market US$275 per troy ounce, compares unfavourably (I’ll go no further) with the current US$1,700+ price. Unlike the original The Goon Show, this version caused barely a stir, though it was certainly no cause for laughter.
If only Arsenal fans were as critical of their under-achieving political masters as they are of their over-achieving manager.
Finally, an appeal to anyone reading this who can pass on a message to Arsenal FC. Arsenal Media insists on 19. Santi Carzola, rather than 19. Santi Cazorla, at the matches against Sunderland, Stoke and Liverpool. Please end the embarrassment before Southampton.
(*) Fans of Chelsea and Atletico Madrid may argue that the Champions League is inferior to the Europa League.
