Wenger: tonight it's points, not panache

IF, AS Arsène Wenger suggested yesterday, his personality and demeanour are reflected in his team’s style of play, then he is a lot edgier than he’d like to admit ahead of tonight’s Premiership head to head with Man Utd at Highbury.

The champions have taken one point and scored one goal in their last two games against Blackburn and Aston Villa and the hesitancy displayed in both has been starkly at odds with the swashbuckling swagger with which Man Utd have torn Liverpool and Newcastle apart in their most recent Premiership outings.

Though they were 220 miles apart yesterday, Wenger and Alex Ferguson were preaching similarly confident messages. The latter, however, had recent evidence to legitimise it.

Though Arsenal have limped into tonight's showdown, Wenger used his round of media duties yesterday to remind the sceptical that no visitors go showboating at Highbury.

In a wide-ranging debate on Wenger's philosophies, his relationship with Alex Ferguson, his ferocious ambition and the Vieira-Keane comparisons, the Arsenal manager maintained a narrow focus on three points this evening against his most able rivals.

"When you prepare for a game like this, you don't think of the consequences of defeat. It's like a boxer - you prepare to win the fight. If you lose, you cope with it afterwards."

With five games remaining after tonight for Arsenal the next being a difficult trip to Middlesbrough's Riverside Stadium on Saturday Wenger does not buy into the hype-driven theory that the winner takes it all against United. However he conceded that if either side is to claim all three points, they will have a decisive edge in the title race.

"I don't believe we have been affected in any way by Man Utd's recent form, though I cannot deny they are on a good run. The game comes at a very timely moment for them.

"But I think we have done well also lately against teams that might appear a little less prestigious but I would say that a team like Everton is probably more difficult to beat that anyone else in the Premiership at the moment.

"I feel our team is highly focussed and very determined. That's a good basis from which to start for me."

Wenger had begun by declaring everyone available for the game, but he appeared less than confident that Robert Pires is ready to start a game of such magnitude after three weeks out with an ankle injury.

Patrick Vieira will start because Wenger dare not send his team out minus their most charismatic and effective influence. Especially with a certain Cork man ready to exchange pleasantries.

"They are both great players. Patrick is a world class player, but I know Keane is as well. However Patrick is six years younger than Keane he has much time to improve in front of him, something that Keane doesn't have. But, yes, Keane is world class."

The tetchy relationship between the Arsenal and Man Utd managers continues to burst into tabloid life on occasions but neither manager was willing to stoke the issue any further yesterday, despite several attempts at Arsenal's London Colney base in Hertfordshire.

"Do you dislike Alex Ferguson?"

"I have no hate for anybody."

"I didn't say hate. Do you dislike him?"

"We are both very passionate about football and we share a common desire for success. He has lasted a long time I have too so to survive in this job, you need a big passion because there are a lot of highs and lows for even the successful managers."

"Does it bother you that he appears to dislike you?"

"No. These are not things that occupy my mind before a game. I'm thinking 'I hope Patrick is alright', 'I hope we deal well with the first corner', 'that we are focussed in the opening five minutes', 'that we are careful of the break from our opponents'.

"I don't think about Alex Ferguson. Does he dislike me? I don't know but it's not something that takes my sleep away.

"I want to win the game because I want the Championship. Is it Man Utd or Man City we are playing? I don't care. It's not personal."

Whereas Ferguson is never slow to credit the hard streets of Govan in Glasgow as the source of his desire, Wenger pointedly refuses to open the book on his past or personal life. Those who want to investigate his philosophies need only look at his Arsenal sides, he said.

"I grew up with a big passion for football but I don't like to speak too much about myself. The most important thing is the team and that it expresses the way the manager wants to play football. Part of your personality is in the team. If you are an introvert personality, your team will always play defensively.

"You have an intuition in the dressing room before the game whether the players are up for it, or if a team is struggling.

"But it's difficult to identify the differences between your own feelings and the team. Sometimes you can transfer your own fear to the team. But I don't have that worry tomorrow night."

The French man has the opportunity to become the first manager in English football to win successive doubles, but immortality comes later. For now, he's too busy winning, and he talks up his team's chances with a degree of logic.

"People forget we have a game in hand, so a draw would not be a disaster for us.

"When we are at our best, we can talk with Man Utd. But I would have signed up for this position if someone had offered it to me at the beginning of the season.

"I want to win the title again because consistency is the mark of a big club. Maybe our achievements have not been highlighted enough because we are in our third FA Cup final, we won the league last season and we are still in a position to win it again this season. We have always been first or second.

"But the credit can come later. When you are in the midst of something, you get judged on the moment.

"We have been consistent, but we want to be consistently first, not second.

"My team has a deep strength which I believe in, and which always presents itself when the need is greatest like the FA Cup win at Chelsea."

That Stamford Road show of defiance has been more the exception than the norm of late. But when Wenger stressed yesterday that Man Utd will not have the chance to show off their bells and whistles at Highbury, it is manifestly evident that, for one night at least, the result is everything.