Arsenal’s win raises more questions than answers

Thierry Henry, Arsenal’s double Player-of-the-Year award winner, attacking midfielder Freddie Ljungberg and playmaker Dennis Bergkamp were all involved in the move which led to Robert Pires’s 38th-minute winner.

The 2002 double winners also forced two goal-line clearances and had other chances blocked as their neat passing football, combined with Henry’s ability to run at defences, upicked the Saints rearguard.

But the fragility under pressure, which ultimately cost Arsenal their League title under Manchester United’s sustained attack, was also in evidence beneath the closed roof of the Millennium Stadium.

The fear of defeat was almost palpable as Arsenal tried to waste the last five minutes of an FA Cup final by keeping the ball squashed up against the corner flag.

The tactic spoke volumes about the traumatic effect of having lost the league — surrendering an eight-point lead over United in March — because of their failure to defend a lead when it counted.

It was not the only nightmare to haunt Wenger’s team, who were also 1-0 with seven minutes left of the 2001 final against Liverpool before being poleaxed by two Michael Owen goals.

When the ball was finally released from its prison by the flag on Saturday, Southampton poured forward and only a last-minute clearance off the line by Ashley Cole preserved Arsenal’s slender lead following two nerve-jangling corners.

Wenger was well aware of the danger, having seen his team buckle too many times already in 2003 — decisively for the league title race in their 2-2 draw at lowly Bolton Wanderers.

The Frenchman’s comment after the match: “Had the last corner gone in, I don’t know what would have happened in extra time,” was a telling one.

It was also a bitter irony for a club whose defending, over a period of decades rather than mere seasons, had been the very cornerstone of its success. To explain the vulnerability, Arsenal could point to the absentees, notably injured skipper Patrick Vieira in central midfield.

Yet Oleg Luzhny played perhaps his best game in an Arsenal shirt as a replacement for suspended Sol Campbell in central defence, the usually ponderous Ukrainian reducing the threat of James Beattie to the bare minimum.

What was inescapable, though, was that Arsenal ended the day by retaining a Cup which they had more convincingly won the year before against a better team, Chelsea.

The success could also only partially offset the season’s disappointments in the championship and the Champions League, where Arsenal failed at the second group stage.

Satisfied though their fans were on Saturday night, as they away from Cardiff, Arsenal’s players will need to be more resilient to win back their league title next season. (Reuters)