Arsenal And The Dish Best Served Cold
And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?
If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge? Shakespeare
When the Magpies landed on the Emirates pitch last January they had a sneaky plan to indulge in the “dark arts”. They’d break up play and slow things down. They'd flock around the referee at the drop of a feather and put on a performance of disgruntled discrimination whilst flying as close to bullying as they could. And they followed their plan. Which ultimately planted a seed in the Arsenal soil. A cold and dangerous seed that’s been tended by the Arsenal team until finally The Revenge Tree bore fruit at St James Park.
Gandhi was right, an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind and Mandela was right too, resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies. But as Arsenal stormed about in the cauldron of St.James Park brandishing the Sword Of Fairness they were not seeking revenge in a senseless emotional sense. It was a finer balancing that Arsenal sought, a deeply evolutionary atonement that stretches back to the beginning of time. Let’s come back to this delicate redress shortly. But first let’s savour the flavour of sweet reckoning, for at St James Park, the balance was restored.
How can I give full justice to a game that was both agonising and superb, brutal and subtle, surprising and obvious? How about this: A few years back I was in China where I encountered the most incredible cuisine I’ve ever eaten. The city of Ningbo in Zhejiang Province, not too far from the sea, has a food culture that is simply a taste sensation. Every dish takes you on a journey. Whether you’re in a roadside cafe or a shopping centre, or a self-conscious pompous restaurant, it makes no difference, the pride and quality on offer is immense. The complexity, the depth, the balance, the seriousness and the playfulness that reveal themselves through layers of flavour and texture are astonishing and man oh man it works. I thought I loved Chinese food. In Ningbo I realised I’d never had Chinese food before.
I know it’s a crazy analogy but Arsenal’s performance reminded me of the complexity of Zhejiang cuisine, light and fresh, rich and cultured, mellow and spicy and incredibly well thought through. Arsenal weren’t messing about. They didn’t turn up to just fill our empty bellies, they turned up well-prepared, constructed of the finest ingredients and ready to surprise us with the earthly honesty and heavenly trickery. Our appetites were quenched with style and panache.
Let’s start with the world’s youngest village elder, our Captain Fantastic Martin Ødegaard. He delivered an exquisite performance of maturity and baffling skill. I love this player. Who couldn’t love this player? Brian Clough once said “we don’t play on the clouds, we play on grass to feet”. Ha! He obviously couldn’t imagine a player like Ødegaard who was obviously trained on heavenly pitches before plying his trade down here amongst we mortals.
There are moments that happen in games you know will burn into your memory as they’re happening. Xhaka’s sliding denial of Willock was one. Ödegaard’s sweeping left foot goal was another. Those unpredictable slices of genius and tenacity force unconscious exclamations of surprise and wonder (or beautifully constructed trains of swearing) as they seem to form out of nowhere.
I once wrote that Ødegaard was “full of calm intelligence whilst playing beautifully, but also tough and flinty and shrewd. His play is beauty balanced by practicality. He’s not Diego Costa style snarling and thuggery, he’s Bergkamp style artistry and cunning.” Against Newcastle, once again he proved the point and now the rest of the team is following suit.
Arsenal transformed into a team of swashbuckling pirates with nothing on their minds but to amass a treasure chest of points. Newcastle tried to rile us. They tried to give no quarter and they certainly benefited from a referee with eye patches on both eyes. But when you’re tough and flinty and shrewd you just get up, brush yourself off and deliver a perfectly floated free kick to your fellow pirate on Arteta’s ship The Jolly Revenge.
Jorginho said Ødegaard was “just a really clever player who makes everything easy on the pitch, a good character, humble and working for the team.” Through Arteta’s guidance Arsenal is brimming with players for whom this is the fair description including Jorginho himself. But more poignantly (especially for Newcastle) Arteta’s team were more comfortable in themselves, they know their roles better, their know the system better and they had more flexibility and more options. Arsenal came with the muscle but they employed the brain too.
Xhaka gave one of his best displays of the season. Ramsdale was a canary coloured brick wall. Martinelli, like the roadrunner after a dose of Druid Getafix’s magic potion. Jorginho as the Hollywood mogul, writing the show, playing the main role and directing the proceedings only to finally receive the MOTM award. White, Kiwior and Gabriel like defenders on a massive table football pitch spinning on giant steel rods.
And Tierney, that tenacious mini-Zinny who outshone his fellow left back after the swap. There is talk of Tierney leaving and it’d be a tragedy if he did. I know it’s rumoured that Arsenal is evolving beyond his skill-set but I wouldn’t care even if that were true. I love our tender and vulnerable hardman, our everyday superstar, our introverted warrior. I swear he’s carrying all our hopes and dreams in that Tesco’s plastic bag and there’s no one else I’d trust to carry that weight than Kieran Tierney. No one is taking that bag off of him. Not now. Not ever.
Arsenal players kept time travelling into space and swapping roles throughout the match. Martinelli swooping in to steal the ball by our touchline as a surrogate Zinny, Xhaka sliding in to deny Willock like a Saliba replacement, Tierney storming through challenges like an oblivious ghost in a crowded room.
But why was this match revenge of an evolutionary nature? OK, so there’s a well documented phenomena in highly social cooperative creatures where a sense of fairness and justice outweighs the desire for payoff and reward. In the Ultimatum Game where an anonymous other is offered a portion of 100 dollars, if the offer is considered too low then the recipient can choose to reject it, so both themselves and the offerer receive nothing at all.
And guess what? People prefer to reject an unfair offer and get nothing than to feel cheated. Apes do the same thing. And monkeys. I’m guessing all social creature having an innate sense of fairness. I’ll bet dolphins and crows have a similar tendency.
So when Newcastle came to the Emirates in January and chose to offer a measly Dark Arts display instead of playing a fair and proper game we were slighted, insulted, snubbed. If they’d played fair we’d have accepted the loss with dignity but Arsenal were offered less than we deserved. So this victory wasn’t only about the three points, it was about righting a wrong through righteous victory.
They say Arsenal answered a whole lot of questions at Newcastle. But I disagree. There were no questions to answer. Teams, just like individuals, have times when everything works like a Swiss watch and times when there’s sand in the mechanism. That’s life. Only the deluded (and economists) believe men in white coats can create perfection. Real life is far more messy and murky and capricious. There’ll always be draws and losses. And in amongst them will be superb displays by angelic pirates playing like Zhejiang cuisine served on the pirate ship Jolly Revenge as the chimpanzee in us rejoices the restoration of the righteous balance!
Now you don’t hear that very often do ya?
So there you go, let’s see what happens over the next three games. Who knows, maybe the Jolly Revenge isn’t quite finished yet. In the meantime have a wonderful week my fellow piratical Gooners and feel free to share Arsenal Wonderland across the seven seas.
I'm finally catching up on these - it has been a WEEK (actually, make that two) as the youth say, even without the football results - but in a weird way, I feel like I needed this more now than then!
“It’s not Overgaard yet!”... sorry to quote The Sun but that was a goodun!