Arsenal Shows World Cup Disruption Has Been Overblown

Tucked away in an executive suite at the Emirates Stadium a familiar face cheered Arsenal to a 3-1 comeback win against West Ham United.

For the first time since 2018, legendary manager Arsene Wenger decided to visit his old haunt and watch his former team play.

Over a quarter of a century has passed since the bookish Frenchman turned up in North London with his low-pitched Alsace accent and large spectacles.

Dismissed by rivals, like Sir Alex Ferguson, as someone not cut out for the ‘English game’ Wenger oversaw a revolution in professionalism that transformed not only Arsenal but the rest of the league.

Current boss Mikel Arteta wanted to make it clear, his predecessor’s legacy is still keenly felt.

“Thank you so much for him coming and hopefully walking through the building he is going to feel everything that everybody thinks of him, everything that he left here, but also his presence is something that has to be very attached to this football club. So, thank you for doing that because it means a lot to everybody at the club,” he gushed at the final whistle.

“Obviously, it’s great and winning my mood is going to be better to speak to him and be around the team. He picked the right moment. It’s a really special day because Boxing Day [December 26] is a beautiful day to play football and I thought the performance today was at a level that he deserved and that hopefully he would like,” he added.

But this was not the traditional post-Christmas round of games Wenger was taking in. It was the first game of domestic soccer after a month-long hiatus for the World Cup.

Not that the Frenchman, who is FIFA’s Chief of Global Football Development, would need reminding about the unique scheduling of his employer’s top event this year.

Ever since the 2022/23 campaign began the World Cup break has prompted endless speculation about the potential impact on the flow of the season

Arsenal in particular it was felt, in the midst of a red-hot streak of form which had seen them climb to the top of the table, may be vulnerable to the disruption of losing several key players for an extended period of time.

Even Arteta confessed to being fearful of what the tournament might do to the great intangible; momentum.

“I’ll touch wood and hope for the best,” he said as Arsenal moved five points clear of Manchester City in the last round of fixtures before the break.

“When everyone is back we’ll assess where we are and go from there.”

If the majority of results in the first round of fixtures in England’s top flight were anything to go by, then any talk of disruption was massively overblown.

Business as usual

It wasn’t just that the sides who were expected to win did so convincingly, the teams that were in good form ahead of the break continued where they had left off.

Newcastle swotted aside Leicester City, Brighton and Hove Albion’s comprehensive victory over Southampton maintained the club’s strong showing this season and Fulham’s 3-0 win over Crystal Palace showed the break had not hurt the club.

Arsenal, the one side who appeared to have been provably maimed by the competition having lost key striker Gabriel Jesus, was also undisturbed in the win vs West Ham.

Although the three months Jesus is believed to be out for could be crucial in the long run it is worth highlighting that this was more of an unfortunate accident, rather than the result of the tournament putting a damaging strain on Jesus’s legs. He wasn’t even the nation’s starting striker and was injured whilst deputizing in a game Brazil did not need to win.

In fact, were this a regular season the Brazilian would have played far more for Arsenal than he did for his country.

Arteta for his part was philosophical about the one injury blighting his otherwise rosy picture. “If you’re going to be at the top there’s going to be those challenges,” he said ahead of the 3-1 win against West Ham.

Hangover, what hangover?

The realization the tournament has not been as energy-sapping as some predicted has meant the debate on impact is now concentrating on the mental after-effects.

“This is unknown territory,” warned Jonathan Wilson in the Guardian, “World Cup hangovers affect different players in different ways and determining the general impact is difficult. But that there is an impact seems hard to dispute.”

Quickly such discussions become about individual players or micro-team dynamics.

“How will Hugo Lloris react to the disappointment of losing in the final?” Wilson asked, “Will Harry Kane be haunted by his penalty miss against France? Is Kevin De Bruyne extra-driven after Belgium’s group-stage exit, but if so can that last? How will Fabian Schär respond after his nightmare against Portugal? Are Bernardo Silva and Bruno Fernandes seething after Portugal’s quarter-final exit to Morocco?”

The simple answer to all of those questions is they’ll get on and play. For many of those players, these disappointments are already several weeks old, they’ve had a holiday and time off before getting back to their clubs.

The finalists France and Argentina had a mere 10 Premier League players in their squads combined, less than a tenth of the total number who headed to Qatar.

If you consider how many exited the competition early or didn’t play at all the number is reduced further still.

The congested fixture schedule the players will encounter on the other side of Christmas as a result of the competition may cause problems.

But the tournament itself, as Arsenal’s win against West Ham showed, has been way overblown.