Ten years and a month ago, Manchester United defeated Arsenal to end their unbeaten league run of 49 games. Nobody realised it then, but the victory effectively ended the era of Arsene Wenger’s side as a title-winning force.
Since then, United have won the league five times, and yet the two sides head into today’s game at Emirates Stadium in oddly comparable situations.
The similarities include defensive uncertainty, a string of injuries, a summer of transfer activity that left the squad unbalanced but with one undeniable South American star, American owners of whom fans are suspicious and a desperate need to qualify for the Uefa Champions League.
They could also learn a lesson from what the other has become.
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United are nowhere near as far down the line towards highly monetised mediocrity as are Arsenal, but the suddenness of their fall last season suggests just how easily status can be lost.
Financial results released this week show a fall of 9.9 per cent in first-quarter revenues, something that shows just how keenly the failure to qualify for the Champions League has hit the club.
Despite the insistence of United chief executive Ed Woodward that major moves in January are unlikely, rumours this week linked United with a £32 million (Dh184m) move for Mats Hummels.
The German defender has said he wants to be to Borussia Dortmund what Paolo Maldini was to AC Milan, a one-club man, and there is something startling about the thought of paying that much for a defender in January. Defenders, logically, need to be signed early in pre-season so they can work on structure with the rest of the defensive unit.
So desperate is United’s situation, though, so badly do they need a high-class defender, that it is conceivable that they might make a record-breaking move like that.
United’s revenues far outstrip Arsenal’s. The 2014 Deloitte money league (based on financial results for 2012/13) showed United as the fourth-richest club in the world with an income of £423.8mn (Dh2.44 billion), with Arsenal eighth on £284.3m. The question is, despite the larger stadium, despite numerous commercial deals, how long can that be maintained if there is no Champions League football? And, given United spent £156m on transfers in the summer, what is the cost of maintaining the club’s status?
Football has never preserved its financial status quo as well as it does now, yet English football is far more precarious than other leagues in Europe.
Research by sportingintelligence.com shows that, in the Premier League last season, the club receiving the most money from central funds took 1.57 times more than the least.
In Spain’s Primera Liga that figure is 14 times as much, in Serie A it is 10, in Ligue 1 3.5 and in the Bundesliga 2.0. With Financial Fair Play dictating a club effectively cannot buy its way out of trouble with one year of splurge, it is easy for a club to get trapped in a cycle of underachievement. Or, perhaps more accurately, of achieving just enough.
Given he was able to take £3m out of the club this year, what incentive is there for Stan Kroenke, Arsenal’s majority shareholder, to invest enough to make a title challenge anything more than a distant possibility?
Even within that, it is hard not to think that Arsenal, in particular, could have spent their money better. They will start against United with either the left-back Nacho Monreal at centre-back (and recent games against Swansea City and Anderlecht have shown how he can be bullied by a powerful forward) or with Calum Chambers at centre-back and Hector Bellerin, a right-back with one league start for Arsenal, behind him.
So obvious and so long-standing is their deficiency in central midfield that goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny said this week that when he plays the computer game Fifa, he sells himself in order to buy a proper holding midfielder.
Jack Wilshere, now a regular at the back of midfield for England, could perhaps adjust his role at Arsenal, but it is cobbling together a solution for a problem that should never have existed.
Yet, strangely, while United must look at Arsenal’s persistent fourth-place finishes and fear a similar future, the example of United equally ought to be a warning to Arsenal. The departure of a long-standing manager goes can be traumatic. The old certainties fall away, and new demons spring up. What if Wenger, rather than being the cause of Arsenal’s problems, with his weird blind spots over the back end of the team, is actually the man holding the club together?
Ten years ago, Arsenal against United was the biggest rivalry in English football. When they meet on Saturday, both clubs will look back at the past with a sense of regret, and at each other and see a potentially terrifying future.
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