Professor fails to find right answer

IT was Harry Redknapp, with his customary flair for undiplomatic language, who observed that his opposite number in north London might be in the process of losing it.

And he didn’t just mean the race for the title, literally the last thing Arsenal have left to lose this season.

He used to be The Professor, observed ‘Arry of Arsene, and then he became one of the biggest nutters of all.

Of course, it takes one to know one, and over the years, ‘Arry, with his full repertoire of facial tics and neck twists — as though desperately trying to loosen the pressure of a noose, not a shirt collar — has often looked like a gaffer on the verge of a nervous breakdown himself.

Not so much this season, of course, when his Spurs side have so splendidly over-achieved, in contrast to an Arsenal team which seems to find ever more ingenious ways of failing to live up to billing.

As it happens, neither manager really got what he wanted out of Wednesday night’s draw at the Lane, a result which will have been most warmly received in both halves of Manchester. But for neutrals, the game itself was sheer bliss, the Premier League at its best in the kind of six-goal thriller which, back in the day, we would have been obliged to call a ding-dong, end-to-end cracker, Brian.

If there was a moral winner, however, it had to be Spurs, since the home team were obliged to come back from 3-1 down to salvage a point — and, indeed, but for some heroics from Wojciech Szczesny in the visitors’ goal, would have gone on to complete a sensational comeback.

Unfortunately for Arsenal, this was the same Wojciech Szczesny whose badly timed dive at the feet of Aaron Lennon had already gifted Spurs the equaliser, in what was only the latest example of the Gunners finding a way to snatch a draw from the jaws of victory. Not quite as 13th hour as that silly penalty conceded against Liverpool, perhaps, but close enough to have Gooners once again choking almost as spectacularly as their team.

Wenger didn’t see it that way, instead praising his side for being “remarkably consistent” — that’s one way of putting it, right enough — and, of course, complaining that Robin Van Persie should not have had his goal ruled out.

But then, he’d already been in fire-fighting mode even before kick-off, rushing to pour cold water over that Cesc Fabregas interview with Spanish magazine ‘Don Balon’ in which the captain questioned the manager’s philosophy and expressed frustration at Arsenal’s inability, over six seasons and counting, to take “the final step”.

This was considered and potent stuff if, one has to acknowledge, hardly well-timed or helpful from Wenger’s point of view, which probably explains why the manager’s exceptionally feeble response was simply to resort to the old routine of blaming the messenger: Fabregas’ words had been “twisted” and what appeared in print was “completely the opposite” of what he’d said.

Yesterday, ‘Don Balon’ resolutely stood over the article, saying it had been “completely faithful” to the skipper’s views. And, given how tightly controlled is media access to players nowadays, there can hardly be a hack who didn’t chuckle at the magazine’s defence against Wenger’s assertion that it had broken an agreement to let the club see the article in advance: “When they asked for it, it was already in print but we sent it to them regardless.”

But at least in one sense, Wenger and the ‘meeja’ are on the same page — both can be guilty of moulding the facts to suit an agenda. For how else to explain that, after labelling the Liverpool game a “must win”, the two draws which ensued then saw Wenger describe the title race as “wide open” — this, even as the pundits were declaring his side dead and buried but hailing signs of a resurrected title-challenge in west London. Yet, the table today shows Arsenal and Chelsea level on 64 points, so go figure.

Of course, the experts will tell you that the momentum is with Chelsea right now but we’ve already seen this season how momentum has been the one thing likely to dry up at any moment. With their six-point advantage at the top, Manchester United obviously remain favourites but, if the pattern to date is to be retained right to the end, there will be further twists and turns in the run-in, the spoils eventually going not to the side which maximises its gains but, rather, to the side which minimises its losses.

And that, therefore, is unlikely to be Arsenal, however much one would love to see them confound all the experts.

With his deep-seated persecution complex, it can be hard to warm to Arsene Wenger, especially when the blind spots in his grand vision are clearly now as evident to his own captain as they have been to numerous outside observers for a number of years.

Yet, his commitment to a higher footballing aesthetic has been an admirably distinguishing feature of Premiership football since he first fetched up in north London. And even as the old deficiencies once again came back to haunt his team at White Hart Lane this week, it was typical that Wenger’s Arsenal — playing away from home in a high-stakes derby, let’s not forget — went about their business right from the start in that familiar swashbuckling way. Of course, that’s easy for the neutral to acknowledge.

For trophy-starved Gooners, all too accustomed to seeing their side fail to keep its grip, the chance to drop the precious silverware under the wheels of the bus remains the stuff of dreams.

* Contact [e-mail]