I wonder if there are any Arsenal fans who, deep down, would be willing to accept that Fabian Hurzeler makes some legitimate points.
They might not like the way he described their side’s tactics as “not football” after Wednesday’s match at the Amex Stadium. They might not appreciate his tone, the barely concealed disdain, or the fact that the manager of Brighton & Hove Albion seemed absolutely determined to get under Mikel Arteta’s skin. But that doesn’t necessarily mean he was wrong.
Watching Arsenal… it’s not pretty, is it? It’s not a team that will make you quicken your step, even subconsciously, if you were walking to see them play. It’s not like watching Sir Alex Ferguson’s great Manchester United sides, or Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool, or the best Manchester City teams assembled by Pep Guardiola, Manuel Pellegrini and Roberto Mancini.
Of greater relevance, perhaps, it’s nothing like the peak years of Arsene Wenger when Arsenal played football of butterfly-beauty and Brian Clough, another of the sport’s great purists, commented: “Arsenal caress a football the way I dreamed of caressing Marilyn Monroe.”
Even now, almost a quarter of a century on, I can remember almost floating out of Elland Road’s pressbox one Sunday afternoon after watching Wenger’s Arsenal produce possibly the most illuminating team performance I have seen from any English team.
It finished 4-1 that day against a Leeds United side who were nobody’s mugs. I was working for The Guardian at the time. The headline on my match report — “Wenger goes for total football domination” — was a measure of Arsenal’s superiority, and I don’t recall anyone thinking Wenger was unduly boastful when he compared his champions to the Dutch national side of the 1970s. “Danger everywhere, tremendous spirit, a privilege to watch,” he said. “It was total football.”
The modern Arsenal will be remembered differently and, as they are currently finding out, that brings a lot of scrutiny when many people in football would still prefer to believe that the team that finishes as champions should do so, for the most part, in an aesthetically pleasing, viewer-friendly way.
Mikel Arteta has Arsenal’s first title in 22 years in sight (Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
And yet, does anyone think that a club with Arsenal’s current objectives will particularly care about the opinion of Hurzeler, or any of their critics, if they can go on from here to win the league and put to bed the accusations of being nearly men, serial bottlers, and everything else that has been slung at them?
Twenty-two years since the last time Arsenal showed off the championship trophy, does anyone believe it would spoil their victory parade that a line-up of critics are feeling increasingly emboldened, it seems, to question the way they have gone about it?
Will there be an asterisk beside Arsenal’s name in the history books to remind everyone in future years about what was said of the 2025-26 title-winners: *Not hugely popular, hard to watch sometimes, and criticised by Fabian Hurzeler, among others.
Or is it far more likely that Arteta and his players just want to get over the line, however it is done, and that they should care little at this stage of the season for what other people think?
Hurzeler did, in fairness, make this point among his various complaints after his side was defeated 1-0 on Wednesday, when the losing manager remarked there was “only one team who tried to play football”.
He was aggrieved, in particular, by Arsenal’s time-wasting and some of the other tactics that Arteta’s team have specialised in, and which tend to be characterised as “game management” in the modern football lexicon.
“There are different kinds of winning,” said Hurzeler. “If they (Arsenal) win the Premier League, nobody will ask (in future years) how they won the Premier League. You can really feel that they will do everything to win. In the end, it is about the rules. At the moment, I have the feeling they are making their own rules.”
There was more — lots more, in fact — and it was quite something to witness, given that most Premier League managers in these bland, media-trained days tend to avoid criticising other teams, let alone one with a seven-point lead at the top of the league.
“I will never be that kind of manager who tries to win in that way,” Hurzeler added in his post-match news conference. “If I asked everyone in this room if they really enjoyed this football game, I’m sure maybe one would raise his arm because he is a big Arsenal fan. Besides that, no chance.”
But isn’t that the point? It might not be fun to watch, you might hate the penalty-box grappling at every set play, and you might find it strange that Arsenal take this route when their expensively assembled squad features Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard, Declan Rice, Eberechi Eze and various other category-A players. Arsenal, let’s be clear, are not short of outstanding footballers.
Yet Arteta might also be entitled to look back over the club’s modern history, with all the near-misses and mockery it has attracted, and think it will be all worthwhile in the end if this is the way to achieve his target.
Perhaps it is also worth reminding ourselves of Arsenal’s longer history here, too, and understanding that this is not the first time they have been in this position.
Lots of us can remember George Graham’s Arsenal snatching the league from Liverpool in 1989 and the epic, almost indescribable drama of Michael Thomas scoring the decisive goal with virtually the last kick of the season.
Arsenal players celebrate their 1989 league title win at Anfield (Allsport/Getty Images)
Yet I also remember Arsenal winning the title in more mundane circumstances a couple of years later, and the chants from rival fans of “boring, boring Arsenal” that accompanied it. I remember a team that was more renowned for its offside trap than brilliant, scintillating football, and this being an era when their centre-backs could cynically take advantage of there being no rules to outlaw tackling from behind.
It is a long time ago, admittedly, and perhaps there would be Arsenal supporters arguing that it is a distorted memory. But there were other observations, too, from people inside the game about the pre-Wenger years. “If (Osvaldo) Ardiles had gone to Arsenal,” Danny Blanchflower, the former Spurs captain, once said, “they would have had him marking the opposition goalkeeper.”
We could go back even further to the 1939 crime-thriller film The Arsenal Stadium Mystery, when the team’s manager, George Allison, plays himself giving a team-talk. “You’ll have to watch these Trojans,” he says of Arsenal’s opponents. “They don’t play your game — they play an attacking game.”
Arsenal won the league on Allison’s watch in 1935 and 1938, but who could be sure what rival teams made of their tactics? “One-nil to the Arsenal, and that’s the way we like it,” was another of his quotes.
The point is that success will ultimately be remembered as success. Yes, Hurzeler made some good points. And yes, I suspect many Arsenal fans know it. Sometimes, however, it is more important to win the trophies and then worry about the rest later. “The rest is bulls**t,” to quote Harvey Keitel’s character in Mean Streets.
The stakes, for Arsenal, have rarely been higher. And Arteta comes across, unapologetically, as a the-rest-is-bulls**t kind of guy.
