It caused a flutter of interest last week when Arsène Wenger was quoted referring to the manager’s position at Manchester United as a “dream job”. He had apparently outlined his old foes’ failings in some detail while admitting “I have ideas” when it comes to any potential vacancy at Old Trafford. As it happened, Wenger had made no such comments during a broadcast interview in which his actual observations were considerably more moderate. Somebody had completely made them up and, in a parable for these times, undue haste in places that should know better ensured the nonsense quickly spread.
The rush to inform the world that the former Arsenal manager had dangled vaguely provocative remarks in relation to United told of something else, too. Where there would once have been a queue of protagonists capable of fanning the flames before this fixture, the most expedient way to set pulses racing before Monday night’s meeting was to stir controversy through voices from the past.
“On Monday at eight o’clock, in all the world, if someone wants to watch a game of football it’s this one,” said a current participant, Unai Emery, last week. He was right in one way, because it does not clash with any other game in a major league. But anyone still tuning in for the spit and snarl of the 1990s and 2000s – the bust-ups involving Schmeichel, Wright, Keane, Vieira, Keown, Van Nistelrooy, Fàbregas, a pizza buffet, Wenger and Ferguson – will be short-changed. This used to be the perfect Premier League rivalry: a showdown between high achievers from London and the north-west who, deep down, knew they had more in common than anyone would admit. Nowadays, viewers coming in from the cold would require a history lesson to ascribe any real gravitas to what they are watching.
There are, at least, plenty of similarities this time; just nothing anyone would crow to their established rivals about. Both clubs finished outside the top four last season, the second time that has happened in three years; there are question marks over both managers, still trying to rebuild after being dealt questionable legacies by their famous predecessors; both must grub around in the Europa League for their continental gratification and neither has yet made a compelling case for a return to the top level next season.
Thirteen years have passed since Arsenal last won a league game at United’s home and they have tended to let them off the hook there of late. Last season the hosts were deep into the end times of José Mourinho’s reign but the London side, despite going ahead twice, failed to see out a game riddled with mishaps. Most of their visits since the 8-2 capitulation in 2011 have at least been hard-fought but Arsenal’s arrival has broadly become a pick-me-up: an occasion on which United can persuade themselves they have the number of a fellow pretender to the elite.
It means United’s distressing injury list may yet prove less of a hindrance than any mental block Arsenal have developed. But it is doubtful that, under Wenger or Emery, the away side have come up against a weaker Old Trafford adversary than the one Ole Gunnar Solskjær will send out. They have a clear opportunity to shake off their hoodoo and, in the process, distance themselves from those comparisons of mediocrity. Even if Paul Pogba, Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial were fit, there is plenty to suggest Arsenal have better players – or players of greater potential – than United in most areas. Mason Greenwood is an exception to the latter but it would be a tall order for him to repeat the impact Rashford had when Arsenal visited in February 2016, scoring twice on his Premier League debut.
A callow Rashford’s fortunes that day added to the lore of Arsenal being an obliging visitor. This season Emery’s team have been fun, their frailties compensated for by the clinical brilliance of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and – in recent weeks – the wild-eyed tenacity of Mattéo Guendouzi. But the head coach’s strategy is hardly obvious and there is a sense that a weekly white knuckle ride is not exactly the way he would rather have it. Whatever plan Solskjær has for United is little clearer: the Norwegian’s appointment was largely predicated on the fanbase’s vast reserves of goodwill for their old hero, an advantage Emery has not been able to enjoy in struggling to establish a rapport at the Emirates, but his reign’s early exuberance was soon weighed down by question marks.
It was Arsenal who warned, four days after United’s spirited but streaky win at Paris Saint-Germain in March, that Solskjær’s magic might have limits when they won 2-0 at home. Granit Xhaka was one of the scorers and the debate over his selection as Arsenal captain seems light years from the era when Solskjær and Freddie Ljungberg – an increasingly visible presence alongside Emery in Arsenal’s technical area – would take their lead from Keane and Vieira. Neither set of fans would have dreamed of jeering their own skipper from the field, as happened to Xhaka last weekend against Aston Villa, back then, but the context and personalities surrounding this fixture have changed beyond recognition.
“Will they emulate what Giggs, Scholes, Beckham did over the years? Personally I’m not convinced,” Wenger said of United’s current crop in quotes that, this time, were incontrovertibly his. Even the most one-eyed regular at Old Trafford might agree. Anyone seeking to set fires raging around this year’s encounter with Arsenal is left flailing for ways to get the old feeling back.