25 August 2001, Highbury, N5, London.
I usually like to start these with some light hearted reminders of how things were at the time the match took place but nothing has changed in film or music from my Matchday 2 post and the big cultural event that happened on 25 August 2001 is that the singer Aaliyah and 8 others died in a tragic plane crash in the Bahamas.
I had forgotten many of the details about her tragic life and death, probably because the events that would happen a few weeks later just changed everything in the world. 9/11 just took over everything anyone talked about for the next 10 years. But we aren’t quite there yet and I’m not sure how I’ll talk about that post when it comes up. For now, I have to say RIP to Aaliyah and that if you do go look up details of her life, I need to give you a child sex assault warning.
We are still in that place where the world was teetering on the edge of the nightmare to come and in those spaces sometimes there are days where beauty can be found. And it was a beautiful day in North London on 25th August 2001.
Highbury was bathed in a rosy 3pm, late summer sunlight. The kind of light that turns white pillars orange and blows out all the highlights from everything it touches. The kind of sunlight that makes grown men take off their shirts in a public space which would otherwise not permit such activity so that they can sweat profusely and soak up the vitamin D.
Arsenal started with a bit of an odd lineup – Henry was dropped to the bench and Bergkamp started up top. Pires and Wiltord started again along with Ljungberg in attack. Van Bronckhorst was paired with Patrick Vieira while the back four was Lauren, Campbell, Adams, and Cole and Seaman in goal.
The Leicester lineup featured former Chelsea “hard man” Dennis Wise (aged 35) and part-time footballer, full-time thug Robbie Savage. Other notable players were Muzzy Izzet and Andy Impey. I don’t remember which game it was (probably FIFA 2001? 2002? The one with Henry on it?) but I remember playing some simulation game with my friends and I think Izzet and Impey were in the Leicester side? I just remember that they were sort of the best of the worst and that their names stood out to us when we were playing. And Mart Poom. Every time I played with Poom as the keeper and made a save against my friend I would yell out POOOOOOM. I think is was 32 at the time. Embarrassing!
Back to the match at hand, Arsenal’s early gameplay was one of total domination. Leicester sat deep in their own half as Arsenal probed through Pires and Wiltord running off Dennis Bergkamp who was playing a sort of point man in the middle of attack. Every clearance was either swept up by Patrick Vieira or Sol Campbell and then Vieira would just play in an incredible long pass to one of the Arsenal attackers and start the whole process over again.
The first goal is a bit of a long sequence but perfectly illustrates how hopeless Leicester were in this match. Vieira has the ball in midfield with zero pressure. He clips a looping pass to Pires wide on the right and Pires plays in a cross. Leicester manage to clear the ball for a corner. On the corner (van Bronckhorst) Sol Campbell heads across at the near post and Tony Adams runs the ball down, managing to keep it from going out. Pires picks it up and plays it over to Wiltord and then le Bob just makes a run off the back of his man, Wiltord plays in the easy pass, Pires is free in the box, Ljungberg makes a run past his sleepy defenders and Pires crosses for the easiest goal you’ll ever see. The goal was so easy, I thought it was an own goal at first.
From there, Arsenal were physically dominating the game. Leicester could hardly get close to the Arsenal players unless it was a lunging tackle or a kick from behind. However, it was Vieira who picked up a booking for what would nowadays probably be a red card. Refereeing has always been vibes and these days the overton window on the vibes has shifted so that a scissors tackle is more often a red card than it used to be. Regardless of the vibes, it’s very likely that that tackle is the one which injured Muzzy Izzet who had to be removed a few minutes later.
Like in matchday 1 and 2, there was quite a bit more foul play than we are used to seeing in football these days. In the early going of this game, Bergkamp deliberately kicked someone, then Robbie Savage tried to go in hard on Patrick Vieira and lost out on a challenge, but a few seconds later when Giovanni van Bronckhorst won possession back with a hell of a slide tackle, Savage just kicked him to the ground. It was one of the most deliberate kickings you’ll ever see in a football match. I think he got a yellow card for it.
Arsenal kept plodding away and soon enough got a second, which was almost a carbon copy of the first: the goal involved Pires passing to Wiltord and then running in behind his defender on the right. This time Wiltord’s return pass (and run) were just a bit off and the ball went to Bergkamp first but the Dutchman had the speed of thought to simply backheel the ball to Pires who was then free to slot the ball to Wiltord. Just a dazzling bit of forward play by the Arsenal.
Muzzy Izzet was removed in the 31st minute and replaced by Delaney. Gary Rowett came off 10 minutes later, also because of an injury. The substitutions hurt Leicester but there was no question that Arsenal were going to win this one by a big margin. Every single Arsenal possession was a probing pass or a shot. Bergkamp played an almost post-up role (as in basketball) with his back to goal. Arsenal would play passes in to him and he was able to pass the ball in to runners in behind the toothless Leicester defense.
The Arsenal just overwhelmed them with our talent. Even if they had played with more organization and some pressing (there was a surprising lack of pressing in this match) Leicester were physically and technically well outmatched by Arsenal. Just to prove the point: Leicester were relegated at the end of this season, finishing dead last in the table. Brian Deane was their leading scorer in 2001/02 with 6 goals.
The 2nd half didn’t get any better for Leicester. Still outmatched physically and technically, and with Arsenal hemming them into their own half, they resorted to straight up violence. Savage attempted to get into a wrestling match with Ljungberg and, on the sly, elbowed him in the head and face. That prompted the official to give Savage a sternly worded warning.
Then Dennis Wise stepped up and decided it was time he got involved. Wise was a former “crazy gang” member at Wimbledon and “Chelsea Legend” having won two FA Cups and a European Cup Winners Cup. Wise was 35 at this point though and whatever talent he’d once had had long ago evaporated into nothing but a rancid pool of bile. Midway through the 2nd half he decided he’d put his stamp on the game and ran over and literally stamped the back of Vieira’s foot and when that didn’t knock the Frenchman off the ball, he just hauled off and kicked him from behind. Like a wolf hearing the chihuahua bark at him, Vieira dispassionately turned around and told him to politely fuck off. This prompted the official (Andy D’urso) to give both players a warning.
Knowing the outcome of the match and many of the flashpoints I kept a close eye on Wise and Vieira at this point. Both men were the focal points for their teams; Vieira doing the job of holding the ball in the Leicester half, winning possession, and starting the attack, and Wise trying to do the same, but far less successfully. Wise tried to dribble past Vieira and the younger man snapped the ball away from him easily but other than that there weren’t any flashpoints.
There weren’t any flashpoints until Wise kicked Ljungberg from behind and as the Arsenal man was on the ground, stood over him and said something to him while pretending to fix his socks. That prompted Tony Adams to come over and say something and the official finally gave Wise a yellow card.
Gary Neville was once asked who the dirtiest player he’d ever played against was and he said “Dennis Wise. Dennis Wise. It’s amazing what he could get away with. He’ll gouge your eyes out, Dennis Wise.”
Things didn’t settle down much from there. The Leicester players were content swiping at the Arsenal players and I can sort of understand why: when you are outclassed by that much it’s frustrating. And the Arsenal players were sort of hamming it up, falling over a bit easily, even by today’s standards. But the foul that kicked off the two red cards was actually between Pires and Delaney. It was a legit foul but Wise thought Pires had dived and said something. That prompted Pires to make the funniest “cry baby” face I’ve ever seen from a player and then Vieira stepped in and then Wise and Vieira “butted” heads. It was the “rutting stag” sort of headbut but imagine one stag is 6’2″ and the other is 5’6″. The ref sent both Wise and Vieira off and as they went into the tunnel, together, I thought they were going to fight! They didn’t.
Wise’s frustrations might have been a holdover from the FA Cup match the season prior where Arsenal won 3-1 (Wise was still at Chelsea) but which saw a bit of a scrum after Pires fouled Wise from behind. But who knows, after the match Vieira was fairly calm and just said “There was a challenge on Robert Pires and then Dennis Wise came up and shouted at him. I told Wise to be quiet and just carry on playing football but then he shouted at me and we went head to head. Everything happened so quick.” For all of the physical tackles in this game, including the elbow by Savage, the headbutt was one of the least violent moments in the match.
Wenger responded to the red cards by bringing on Thierry Henry for Wiltord and Grimandi for Ljungberg.
If you don’t want to watch Arsenal players getting kicked and get red cards for their trouble, I would suggest skipping forward 1:20 and just watch Thierry Henry play. Every time I see him play I am reminded of how scintillating he was. He was like a cat on the prowl; assured, hunting for an opening, feinting his defender and going for the kill, but he didn’t just kill, he wanted to play with his prey for the next 30 minutes. He only scored one goal in this cameo (it’s his 50th Arsenal goal) but he had several stunning chances and reminded me why I’d fallen in love with this club.
The front line is just stocked with talent and while I’m gushing over Henry it’s important that Ljungberg, Wiltord, and Kanu get their flowers as well. All four scored in this match and while I don’t remember it as well as I would like, the supporting three played such a critical role in this title winning season.
Kanu scored the 4th when Henry’s header was saved back toward Kanu and he headed it into the net.
It was, literally, the last header of the match.
