Will Wenger survive if Arsenal lose to Sutton?
KEOWN AND SUTTON FIND OUT HOW HIS STARS WILL FARE ON THE PLASTIC PITCH
THEIR title dream has died, they face a battle for the top four and now Arsenal have to negotiate Sutton United’s plastic pitch in the FA Cup.
Sportsmail’s experts Martin Keown and Chris Sutton paid a visit to the non-League club’s Gander Green Lane ground, where they uncovered the potential pitfalls the Gunners face a week on Monday and how the tie may decide the future of Arsene Wenger. JAMES RESTALL asked the questions.
HOW IMPORTANT IS THIS FA CUP TIE?
CHRIS SUTTON: If Arsenal lose, Arsene Wenger goes. How can he survive if they get knocked out by a non-League team? Are Arsenal going to win the Champions League? Not for me. Are they going to finish in the top four? That is really debatable. This match is huge.
MARTIN KEOWN: If Wenger were to lose this I think it would seriously question whether he should stay on. Wenger said that had he lost the FA Cup final in 2014, when they were 2-0 down against Hull, then he would have gone.
If he gets knocked out of the FA Cup I think this would be Wenger’s last season in charge. But if they win the FA Cup, finish in the top four and progress in the Champions League then he could stay.
SUTTON: Wenger chooses when he leaves. That cannot be a good thing if you have a manager who decides when he leaves a football club that is going backwards — and that is what is happening in terms of Arsenal challenging for the title year in, year out.
KEOWN: Everything will be done at the end of the season so let’s wait and see what happens. Wenger would be seriously looking at whether his Arsenal career should continue if he goes out of the FA Cup. What bigger incentive could there be for the manager to make sure they win this game?
WHY DO THE WHEELS COME OFF THIS TIME EACH YEAR?
SUTTON: It comes from the top, doesn’t it? Wenger has been at the club 20 years. He has questioned the mentality of his players but it is Wenger who is signing them. That is his responsibility. It is an admission that he is not signing the right players. Why are Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez not tied down yet? Is that not damning for a big club? If they believed in where the club were going they would sign.
KEOWN: After Saturday’s defeat by Chelsea, it was interesting that Wenger said that senior players did not perform. That is really unusual for Sanchez but Ozil becomes an expensive luxury when you are out of possession. Ozil does not know his role when Arsenal do not have the ball and it is the responsibility of the manager to tell him.
SUTTON: When you look at the current Arsenal XI compared with the Invincibles or the side from the late Nineties, only Sanchez — and possibly Ozil — would get in those title-winning teams.
KEOWN: Ozil would not get in. It would be a choice between Ozil and Dennis Bergkamp. Dennis played in the same position but he would ld start higher up the pitch and then en drop. Ozil starts deep and you don’tn’t know when he is coming or going. ng. We saw it against Chelsea — Sanchez is saying, ‘ Come on’n’ but Ozil does not really want to go and press.
JUST HOW DIFFICULT WILL THIS GAME BE?
KEOWN: The Sutton players will hope Arsenal will be unsettled. Arsenal have personal masseurs, physios and doctors. They are not all going to fit in the away dressing room at Sutton — never mind the players! In the changing room Arsenal will use there is a communal bath. It reminded me of one of the tricks we used to play as apprentices at Arsenal. We would fill the away team bath with scalding hot or icy water depending on who we were playing!
SUTTON: Arsenal must forget about the facilities. What has football come to if you are worrying about where you are getting changed or the size of your bath? This is brilliant — it’s what the FA Cup is about. The Arsenal players must take it on and relish it. Arsenal have a great record in this competition and they must win the game.
KEOWN: If I was going out here to play I would be seeing this as an adventure. I would not be frightened of it. It is not going to be easy but if you want to be an FA Cup winner, you have to take it on. Arsenal cannot afford to be fearful of balls in the channels or how they deal with the bounce because the ball can deviate or stop dead on the plastic pitch. If a player has to put the ball into the stand before someone takes it off him, it will go in the stand.
SUTTON: Arsenal know they are superior, they know they have the better players — but you still have to turn up and do the basics properly. They will need to switch on quickly to the pitch conditions because the weight of pass is crucial, with longer balls tending to run away from you on this surface. Sutton will know how to play on this pitch and that will be to their advantage. Arsenal will want to get an early goal, kill the game off and cruise into the quarter-finals. After beating what was essentially Leeds’s youth team in the last round, Sutton face a totally different test. But the longer they stay in the tie, the more the crowd will get behind them and the more belief they will have.
HOW SERIOUSLY SHOULD WENGER TREAT THE TIE?
KEOWN: When Wenger picks a team, he is telling those players that he believes in them and that
they deserve to be there. I think he might bring in some of those youngsters who played in midfield in the last round against Southampton. ainsley Maitland-Niles did really well at St Mary’s.
You get a lot of injuries on this type of surface and that will be on Wenger’s mind. We could have another debate about the players who actually want to play. You do not want anyone out there who doesn’t want to play on a surface like this — and I hope that is not the case for any of the players.
Wenger will look at the strength they have in forward positions and the pace at the top of the team, but he will want to see more creativity than against Chelsea.
SUTTON: Can Wenger afford to take risks in the Fa Cup now? They are not going to win the Premier league and Bayern Munich will be too strong in the Champions league. If you are an arsenal fan, you will see this as the last competition you can win this season. Surely Wenger has to go with his strongest XI.
KEOWN: If arsenal are not at boiling point, then they are going out because there are too many obstacles ahead of them already. We have seen what Sutton have done in the competition — knocking out aFC Wimbledon and leeds — so arsenal should expect the unexpected. arsenal must bring their ‘a’ game — otherwise they are going out.
It is all set up for a huge upset and arsenal do not want to go down in history as the second Premier league team to be knocked out by a non-league club.