Wenger’s SOS

Can Arsenal save their season today?

In the final days of pre-season, Alexis Sanchez and David Ospina were dispatched by Arsenal’s media team to film a brief promotional video for the club’s social-media channels. The request was straightforward enough: Sanchez was tasked with encouraging viewers to “like” the post, while Ospina then asked them to “share it”. In all, the video lasts no more than five seconds. Sanchez played his part to perfection, leaving Ospina with the simple duty of saying his two words and wrapping up the shoot. But when Ospina’s moment arrived, there was a hitch.

The goalkeeper’s English remains a work definitely in progress, and he found himself flummoxed by the word “share”. The resulting effort was somewhere between “swear” and “phwoar”, and a disbelieving Sanchez immediately fell about laughing.

Although the episode hardly speaks to a flaw in Ospina’s character, it does add to the feeling that the Colombian has never felt truly comfortable on English shores. And there is a certain irony to the fact that it is the word “share” with which he so struggled, considering that is precisely what he has done with the goalkeeping duties in the past 2½ seasons.

Brought to the club in 2014, Ospina enjoyed only half a season as Arsene Wenger’s first-choice man between the sticks before Petr Cech arrived and relegated him to the status of Arsenal’s “cup goalkeeper”.

It is a modern role and one that Pep Guardiola has given Claudio Bravo, the Chilean, at Manchester City. Today’s Carabao Cup final will, therefore, be a battle of the two back-ups, a competition between two South American goalkeepers who, between them, have mostly failed to convince.

It adds an intriguing dynamic to a Wembley showpiece that is not short of plot-lines. Guardiola arrives in north London looking for his first trophy in English football, while Wenger seeks a long-awaited triumph in the one domestic competition that has eluded him. The man anointed as football’s great innovator meets an opponent who once held the title.

Given what is at stake, it would surely have been tempting for both Guardiola and Wenger to pick their respective first-choice goalkeepers, Ederson and Cech.

But both managers have resisted the clamour and insisted that they will stay true to their word.

“In big clubs now you cannot have only one top goalkeeper,” said Wenger. “You need two. You cannot rest goalkeepers any more in training, they have to work so hard. If you have no good second goalkeeper, you cannot win any trophy. If you want two topclass goalkeepers, you have to give them games or they do not stay.”

For Ospina, this meeting represents an opportunity. Cech has been struggling in the Premier League and has not kept a clean sheet since midDecember. Ospina, meanwhile, has kept three in seven games since then.

A fine performance this afternoon, on such a stage and against such fearsome opposition, would strengthen his case for promotion. “You always want to be the No 1,” said the Colombian, who as a child watched compatriot Rene Higuita’s famous scorpion kick at Wembley. “But you have to respect what the situation is at the club.”

Ospina did, though, make it clear that he “wants to be playing more”, which no doubt also applies to Bravo, even if Ederson’s exceptional form has made a return to regular first-team action unlikely at best.

Standing at little more than 6ft tall, both goalkeepers are relatively small for their position. Ospina believes they have had to develop other parts of their game, such as passing, to make up for these shortcomings.

“Some of us are aware that sometimes goalkeepers are judged on their stature,” Ospina said. “If you are closer to an average height, you learn how to compensate with other strengths and make the most of those.”

Also making the most of what he has available will be his manager, who will rely on new £56million signing PierreEmerick Aubameyang to provide the attacking thrust.

Having been unable to play in the European fixtures against Ostersund, including the dispiriting second-leg loss at the Emirates on Thursday, Aubameyang has spent two weeks in intensive training ahead of just his third game for the club.

“I think he will be much sharper than he was,” Wenger said. “You could see day after day that he is much sharper than he was two or three weeks ago. Our target on Sunday will be to find him two or three times each half in dangerous positions.”

Once the master of possession-based football, Wenger’s plan for Aubameyang shows that he will bow his head to City’s technical superiority today. The inclusion of the erratic goalkeepers adds an element of unpredictability to the fixture, but we can be sure that Arsenal will chase and counter, while City will dominate.

It is not so much Wenger passing the baton as a pragmatic step. The tide has long since turned away from the Frenchman, and the emergence of Guardiola’s skilful sides have made that ever more clear in recent seasons.

Yet Wenger knows how to win trophies, particularly at Wembley. Three FA Cup victories in four seasons are testament to that.

Time is running out, though, and today could be his last chance to stall the Guardiola revolution and fill that empty spot in his trophy cabinet.