The managers in the respective dugouts tonight have diverse approaches but Europe is their only hope of success this season, writes Richard Williams
ARSENE WENGER did not pussyfoot around. "The next 12 days will define our season," he said yesterday. The Arsenal manager was making brave noises about how his team are still in with a chance of the Premier League title, but what he meant was that the season's balance sheet will be determined by the outcome of the Champions League quarter-final which begins tonight in north London.
His opposite number tonight could have echoed his words, but with even greater emphasis since Liverpool have no chance of catching the three clubs competing for the league championship. Rafael Benitez, who has re-established the club's expectation of doing well in Europe, needs to get through to the last four of the Champions League even more urgently than Wenger, for whom success in the competition represents an ultimate ambition.
Failure for either man would inevitably provoke a degree of self-examination and outside analysis. Each has a distinctive modus operandi which, in the case of elimination at the end of the two-leg tie, would come under increasing scrutiny by those fans who believe that neither of these big-four clubs has punched its full weight in recent seasons.
For Wenger, hugely in credit with Arsenal and their supporters after winning three league titles and four FA Cups in 12 years of increasingly delightful football, failure against Liverpool would leave the glass half-full. For Benitez, seemingly incapable of mounting a credible challenge in the domestic championship and operating against a background of boardroom strife, ejection would leave a total of only two trophies - the European Cup of 2005 and FA Cup of 2006 - to show for four seasons of work and investment.
Both teams come into tonight's match at the Emirates stadium on the back of encouraging league victories at the weekend, but the feeling remains that, thanks to Wenger's long-term philosophy and the underlying stability of his club, Arsenal enjoy the greater freedom to fail. Many of their fans expected a new young team to win nothing this season and have been impressed by the fact that the players maintained their rhythm and their sense of purpose all the way to the back end of March.
"I don't think the season would be a write-off if they went out against Liverpool," Nigel Winterburn, the former Arsenal full-back, who played for four years under Wenger, said yesterday. "It would be very disappointing, in the sense that a few weeks ago they were five points clear of Manchester United in the Premier League and still in the Champions League. But in terms of where people expected them to be at the start of the season, they're probably still ahead of schedule.
"The board look at what Wenger has done over the time he's been at the club and I know he's got their full backing. I suppose some of the fans might be a little frustrated if Arsenal come out of the season with nothing to show for it. But this team have really only been together for the last 18 months and, although they play wonderful football, there are bound to be doubts until they actually win something. And when they do, they'll go on to win a lot."
This season's major sign of progress has been Arsenal's determination not to let more rugged sides shove them aside, a quality evident from the start of the campaign. "In recent years Arsenal have fallen behind the leaders early on and had to play catch-up," Winterburn continued, "but this season they've been up there all the way. Ultimately you're judged on what you win, of course, but for me there have been real signs of increasing maturity."
That maturity is of special value to Arsenal, given Wenger's preference for developing young talent. "He prefers to spot huge potential and nurture it," Winterburn said, "and I don't think that will change."
At Liverpool the development policy is less easy to interpret. Few can remember the last time a locally nurtured player made it from the academy to the first team, and the great success of the €34 million capture of Fernando Torres has simply pointed up the less than satisfactory outcome of most of Benitez' other adventures in the transfer market.
The fact that the manager is still popular with the fans is due partly to the credit accumulated on that delirious night in Istanbul three years ago and partly to the contrast between the manager's obvious commitment to the job and the grubby manoeuvrings in the boardroom.
"I don't think he'll get the sack if they lose," Gary Gillespie, a centre-back in Liverpool's last championship-winning side in 1989-'90, argues. "Look at their results in the Premier League. In my day you could afford to lose five or six games and still win it. Now the bar's been raised and two or three games is the most you can lose. Liverpool have lost only three this season. It's just unfortunate that they've had so many draws.
"Maybe it's a coincidence that the performances have been better since Benitez stopped rotating his squad. But when you look at the recent performances of the clubs that tried to put out their strongest side from the beginning of the season, like Aston Villa, Everton and Manchester City, you'll see that they're starting to run out of steam.
"Rafa has spent quite a bit of money in the transfer market. When he was given big money last summer, he bought Torres. The spine of the team is strong, but he needs more players of that quality if he really wants to push United and Chelsea."
While Wenger watches his young players acquire experience, sometimes painfully, Benitez hopes to buy it. Whichever of them emerges still standing at the conclusion of the tie, neither is likely to change his approach.
