Should Arsenal this season bring to an end their nine-year barren period without a major trophy, the arresting photograph of two of their Germany internationals, captured just after the final whistle of the 6-3 defeat at Manchester City, may be held up as an example of what turned them from a nearly team into a really fine one.
The image shows a glaring and angry Per Mertesacker pointing a finger at Mesut Ozil. His ire is not about what Ozil may or may not have done during the preceding 90 minutes, but at his compatriot’s failure to applaud the travelling Arsenal supporters.
Alerted to the incident, Arsene Wenger, the Arsenal manager, said simply: “The Germans will sort it out between them.”
The manager’s correct assumption was that the issue would be resolved quickly.
Wenger’s hands-off attitude also spoke of his trust in Mertesacker, his tacit approval of the tall defender’s values, his right to presume a degree of leadership, to order around a newcomer, even if Ozil was holder of the highest transfer fee – £42.5 million (Dh259.1m) – ever paid for a player by the London club.
There have been times in the past when a rousing, sermonising individual ready to raise his voice when he sees poor attitudes among colleagues has been conspicuously missing from Wenger’s teams.
Recall one of the low points of Arsenal’s long struggle for silverware, a match that slipped away from them at Birmingham City nearly six years ago.
Back then, the defender with the role of senior professional, the man who wore the captain’s armband, was William Gallas. As Arsenal unravelled, Gallas strode away from colleagues and stood alone at the other end of the pitch.
Once upon a time, a more rugged Arsenal were defined by the strident, martial figures they lined up in their back fours.
In the 1990s, they had Tony Adams, “the prototype leader, with all the shouting and the clenched fists”, as Dennis Bergkamp, a former Arsenal teammate put it. Adams played alongside the permanently hot-eyed Martin Keown, or the teak-tough Steve Bould.
In the plentiful years between 2000 and 2004, Patrick Vieira assumed the captaincy, vigorous on the field, universally respected in the dressing room.
Brilliant though Thierry Henry would be, he would be a different sort of captain, and like those who followed him as captain, Cesc Fabregas and Robin van Persie, personal ambition seemed to be gradually guiding him to move elsewhere.
Mertesacker, 29, is not captain of Arsenal, although in the absence of Mikel Arteta and Thomas Vermaelen at various stages of this season, he took over the job as Arsenal secured a position at the top of the Premier League table.
If that status had been achieved with some exquisite attacking football at times, it also needed a gumption and determination. Mathieu Flamini, in midfield, has brought some of that, with his return from AC Milan. Yet, Mertesacker epitomises it, week in, week out.
Of the tall, blond Mertesacker, Wenger says: “It took a while, but I think he’s improved in his mobility, in his technical ability and personality. He is not the player he was when he first arrived. He’s now one of the leaders of the team.”
It has taken two years to reach that status, and perhaps to shrug off the characterisation that accompanied Mertesacker to Arsenal initially, that he was a “panic” purchase, rather than a player born into the Arsenal way.
He was signed, from Werder Bremen, very late in the summer window of 2011, after Fabregas and Samir Nasri had left.
He looked inelegant, has never had exceptional speed on the ground and initially struggled with the rhythms and raw combat of English penalty areas.
But nobody wins 95 caps for Germany, one of the strongest national teams of the era, without sound technical skill and the fundamental sixth sense required of good defenders. Colleagues have also come to appreciate an outgoing, open and friendly companion.
Ozil, a former Bremen colleague, found Mertesacker a valuable chaperone when he came to the club, also as a late-transfer-window acquisition, at the end of August.
He would certainly have listened when his friend gave him an earful in Manchester, and reminded him that the loyalty of the club’s followers is to be cherished whatever the circumstances.
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