Full-time for reign of two halves?

Might Clarence Seedorf have played a peripheral role at either end of Arsene Wenger’s time at Arsenal?

When Bruce Rioch hummed and hawed about signing the Dutchman in 1996 the Arsenal board decided the manager didn’t share their vision for the club. Seedorf went to Real Madrid. Arsenal sent for Wenger.

On Wednesday night at the San Siro, Seedorf hobbled away after 12 minutes. But by the time his side was finished with Arsenal, it was almost impossible to make out whatever vision Wenger has left for his club. The end has never appeared closer for a reign of two halves — the first filled with pots, the latter panned.

So what happened along the way? Was he just an early adopter reeled in on the curve? Arsene’s age of enlightenment fed on grilled broccoli and gobbled mystery pills. It took hot baths and massages. An osteopath gave it a full service and realignment every month. It didn’t drink water from the fridge.

But the advantages couldn’t last. By half-time in Arsene’s era, Sam Allardyce had a cast of thousands looking after Bolton’s physiology. England had opened its eyes and stretched its legs.

Is it simply cash? The arrival of the moneybags let the air out of moneyball. Contacts, scouts and a superior knowledge of the French market during his homeland’s golden age had given Arsene a fighting chance of countering Manchester United’s wealth. But the new rich have pockets deep enough to drown imagination.

A club dislocated? Nothing has been won since the Emirates move. “The heart wants to stay at Highbury, but the brain wants to go somewhere else,” said Wenger once. The heart and soul have been buried under flats along with a century of history, but the brain transplant must have been rejected, so skittishly have Arsenal defended at their new plastic new home.

And if heads were empty, so too were pockets.

The poster boy for Arsene’s first Arsenal was in Limerick this week, promoting Manchester City. There’s a parable there somewhere, but it might be the devil telling it. Wenger has won nothing at Arsenal without the man he sent on ahead to get his work started while he tidied up loose ends in Japan.

Nobody represented Wenger’s successful teams better than Patrick Vieira. Giant frame, iron lungs, velvet touch. But at the height of his success, Wenger admitted he couldn’t imagine finishing his life without winning the European Cup. Did the rot start there? Is that why recent Arsenal teams are unrecognisable from the power-based counter-attackers that drove him to early glory? In The Professor, Myles Palmer recalls an Arsenal training drill in 2001 that had Matthew Upson at centre forward to test the back four under a series of high balls. Coping wasn’t enough. Defenders had to react to the dropping ball quickly and arrow a pass wide to Henry or Pires who, in turn, had a second’s grace to find Kanu or Ljungberg running on goal. A shot was required within five seconds of turnover.

That kind of Arsenal was beaten 3-1 by Bayern Munich seven years ago — perhaps the last time they played as poorly in Europe as they did on Wednesday.

The bathwater went out, the babies came in. The new, youthful Arsenal would try to control games rather than burst them open. Possession not power was the watchword. Fabregas replaced Vieira. Now Ramsey can’t do either job.

Giles Grimandi once mentioned how Wenger had mastered Zen. “Japan taught him to stand back from events and avoid stress. His formula, which he tells me all the time, is you need to go back to basics.”

But it must be almost impossible for him to do that now. The perfect storm of conditions that made his early success possible has long dissipated. His team’s play has become notoriously complicated. He is at once coach and accountant and brand manager, trying to convince an increasingly sceptical public that there’s still a grand plan.

In added time now, especially if he loses this evening, he still deserves the opportunity to throw a fortune at his problems this summer. But is there money there to do that? And, as Seedorf glides serenely along through his stellar career, does Wenger have one more vision left in him?