What does 'doing an Arsenal' really mean, and can Arsenal avoid doing it?

 

We live in strange and troubling times. The polar icecaps are melting, and the weather is getting angry. Donald Trump continues to continue, saying the things which he is saying, dressed in the manner in which he is dressed. And at the top of the Premier League, Arsenal are starting to look like they might not do an Arsenal.

"Doing an Arsenal" is quite a tricky concept to nail down, even though it is by now a familiar one. Apart from anything else, it's an exceptionally malleable concept, capable of absorbing and then dismissing the fact that Arsenal, despite all the Arsenals that they've done, have managed to win the FA Cup twice in two seasons. Perhaps the fundamental Arsenality of Arsenal was the pillow over the face for the poor old competition: If they've managed to win it, being them, it can't possibly be any good.

But generally speaking, to do an Arsenal is to suffer a crisis that is simultaneously extremely surprising yet entirely predictable: To reach a point where defensive vulnerability, mental fragility and idiosyncratic recruitment come together, explode everywhere, and leave Per Mertesacker and Mathieu Flamini standing around, hands on hips, as some mid-table no-hopers giddily shred Arsenal's title bid into ribbons. Yellow ones, presumably. Two or three more disappointing results quickly follow, and the club are forced to settle for the consolations of Champions League qualification and a finish above Tottenham. The poor, poor lambs.

So, what's to stop this happening again? After all, the injuries are all present, correct, and extending far beyond the initial prognosis; Francis Coquelin's damaged, Alexis Sánchez has missed the last month or so, and here we take a moment to remember Danny Welbeck, who is still out there, somewhere. We hope. So far this transfer window Arsène Wenger has brought in a young Egyptian central midfielder from Switzerland, and while Mohamed Elneny is presumably a very promising player, that sentence does make it sound like Wenger's doing it on purpose.

The difference is that this season, for arguably the first time since Jens Lehmann hung up his boots, looked at them funny, then threw them onto the roof of the net, they have a proper goalkeeper. Before the season started, John Terry predicted that Petr Cech would be worth 12 or 15 points to Arsenal, and according to the Daily Mail, he's on track to beat that mark. But in addition to the basic work of turning losses into draws and draws into wins, Arsenal just feel tougher, more resilient. This is because everything looks better with a decent goalkeeper around: Defenders worry less, are told where to stand by somebody who knows, and this communicates on through the team. As a rule, a team's penalty area should be as unwelcoming as possible, and Arsenal, thanks largely to the fact that they have a grown-up in net, have finally learned not to be such accommodating hosts.

There have been moments when the first stage of doing an Arsenal has arrived — the 2-0 loss to West Ham on the opening day of the season; the weird referee-assisted meltdown against Chelsea; the inexplicable hammering by Southampton — but the next stages, the continued slump and the slide down the table, have so far been avoided. Arsenal haven't lost two league games in a row all season, and all but one of their four losses have been followed by an immediate win. And, of course, they managed to sort themselves out in Europe, though obviously they went and got themselves Barcelona in the next round.

It's all very strange, and quite discombobulating. Of course, we're only in January, and there's plenty of time yet; should they collapse, then the eventual Arsenal will be even more Arsenal for the fact that Arsenal seemed to be set to escape the inevitable Arsenal. There are, perhaps, one or two signs that things might be just beginning to creak: Cech aside, they looked leggy and uninspired throughout their recent 0-0 with Stoke, and Joe Allen's late equaliser at Liverpool was the first result-altering, points-stealing goal they've conceded in the last 10 minutes all season.

More generally, things are still very close at the top. Maybe closer than they should be. Arsenal beat Manchester City on Dec. 21 and went four points clear of their most likely challenger; a month later, that gap is back down to one point. And Leicester City — who visit the Emirates in three weeks — are still there, level on points at the top, carefully picking their way through the thorniest part of the fixture list. Arsenal have trips to Old Trafford, White Hart Lane, Goodison Park and Upton Park to come, before the penultimate game of the season takes them to the Etihad. Are Arsenal, quietly, already doing an Arsenal? They have Chelsea coming next weekend ...

This is the thing with Arsenal. They could be 10 points clear, having just kept 12 clean sheets in a row, and this piece would be speculating on whether they were about to fall prey to a crippling bout of overconfidence. The club, from Wenger down, through the squad and outwards, quivers with fragility. With potential disaster. With memories of William Gallas sat on the floor, tears in the eyes at the unfairness, at the Arsenalness, of the world.

Which may not be fair, and which may not be relevant this season, but so it goes. The possibility of doing an Arsenal is so fundamental to the club that it's almost impossible to imagine them making it from here to the end of the season without one. And if they do win the league this season, then we can ignore those people who might claim that they only had to beat Leicester and an underpowered City. They'll have triumphed over their own fundamental nature, and that is the hardest battle of all. It's just a shame that their fans won't get to enjoy it, as the world slips to its inevitable, fiery doom.