Invincible: Inside Arsenal's Unbeaten 2003-2004 Season by Amy Lawrence

Author:Amy Lawrence [Lawrence, Amy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241970508
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2014-10-23T00:00:00+00:00

ARSENAL 4–2 LIVERPOOL, 9 APRIL 2004

What are you made of, Arsenal? It was the question Haunted of Highbury was asking at half-time as Liverpool were on course to continue the path of destruction begun by Manchester United and Chelsea. What was at stake did not need spelling out. Here was the crossroads: one way pointed towards cataclysm, the other catharsis.

When Michael Owen slipped Liverpool into a 2–1 lead on Friday, watching Arsenal was like looking at a boxer being pummelled on the ropes and wondering how much more punishment he could take, whether there was any defiance left somewhere in the pit of the stomach to summon a recovery. With morale on the floor, to recover from going behind twice demanded what one Arsenal coach described as (pardon the expression, but nothing else suffices) ‘big balls’.

Losing two ferociously contested and finely balanced cup games is one thing, but to throw away nine months of excellent work in the league would be madness. Arsenal knew it and responded superbly. And, let’s face it, it would have been understandable had they wanted to sneak out of Avenell Road and run away from the volcanic pressure of this very public implosion.

Thierry Henry said that the cup exits ‘felt like the end of the world’. He may not always be the man for the big occasion – critics cite a series of key fixtures in which the alter ego of this magnificent forward plays as if he has a big, dark cartoon cloud hovering an inch above his head – but on this most crucial of Premiership days he delivered so comprehensively that he went home with the match ball and Gérard Houllier’s nomination for goal of the month.

‘When you are a winner, you are never in doubt,’ Henry said. ‘If we had doubts, we wouldn’t have come back from 2–1 down at half-time. We came out with such hunger and I have never seen the team feel such vibrations. We responded with our heart. It was extraordinaire.’

Observer

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