SOCCER/Arsenal 0 Inter Milan 3: This was the most severe defeat Arsenal have known in the Champions League and yet that is not the worst of it. Internazionale, with a forward line composed of gifted reserves, dispatched the English club so easily the gloom could linger for months.
It will make Arsenal shudder at the thought of the forthcoming trips to Lokomotiv Moscow and Dynamo Kiev, but their journeys through their own country also look full of dangers. A side that wishes to be more resilient were all but defenceless last night and on Sunday they go to Manchester United. Their ability to challenge for the English Premiership title is in grave doubt.
Inter, with their poignant failings in Serie A and this competition, suffer sneers for being unequalled when it comes to finishing second best, but there could be no fresh mockery from Arsenal tongues. Inter were beyond jibes as they moved 3-0 in front before the interval.
The superiority of the Italians was unsparing and extended even to penalty kicks. Arsenal should have narrowed the advantage in the 31st minute, when Marco Materazzi gave Freddie Ljungberg a shove in the back as the midfielder was chasing a Robert Pires pass towards the byline.
Francesco Toldo then delayed the taking of the penalty by declining to return to his line, but it was his talent as much as his gamesmanship that thwarted Arsenal. Diving to his left, he pushed Thierry Henry's spot-kick around the post. Despite that lapse, it was not a lack of creative talent that was the ruin of Arsene Wenger's team.
They seemed equipped to pierce the visitors and after quarter of an hour a Pires tackle began a move in which Ljungberg stepped inside Ivan Cordoba before hitting a mediocre shot at Toldo. The attackers, all the same, did not have the greatest cause to reproach themselves.
The booing at half-time ought to have been directed at the defence, the area which has been the cause of so much regret and so many promises of improvement at Highbury. The preference for Kolo Toure over the veteran Martin Keown was proof of Wenger's desire to change his side.
While the Ivory Coast international needs to be exposed to the full force of Champions League football if he is to mature as a defender, Arsenal's manager could easily have decided to postpone that experience. This, after all, was the first outing in this season's tournament and Wenger might have put a priority on breaking the sequence of five Champions League games at Highbury that began with a loss to Auxerre and continued with four draws.
If he took a chance with Toure, it may have been because he imagined, wrongly, that Inter could not be at their very best. The Chelsea offer for Hernan Crespo proved irresistible and injury plucked that other formidable forward, Christian Vieri, from the line-up. Those developments, however, have only opened up an avenue for Obafemi Martins, the Nigerian teenager, to add to his reputation.
His goal against AC Milan briefly revived Inter's hopes of reaching the Champions League final last season. A winner, despite anarchy in the penalty area, did not quite emerge in the frenetic closing minutes then and Hector Cuper was lumbered with another bad night in a well-regarded career that has none the less failed to bring him a major honour in Spain or Italy.
The frustrated Argentinian may have decided, in disgust, that he has no further use for caution. Andy van der Meyde and Kily Gonzalez, the new signings for the flanks, concern themselves only with undermining defences and they also encouraged the superb Javier Zanetti in his overlapping from right back.
Ashley Cole, on Arsenal's left, was often targeted but it was from the other flank that Inter broke through in the 22nd minute. A Cordoba throw-in was headed behind Toure by Martins to release Julio Cruz and Vieri's understudy dinked the ball into the far corner of the net.
Two minutes later, Kily Gonzalez, a former player of Cuper's when both were at Valencia, showed why he has been reunited with the coach. His testing cross from the left could only be glanced on by Sol Campbell and van der Meyde's volley was too fierce for Jens Lehmann to keep out.
With 41 minutes gone, the weaving Emre moved towards the penalty area and Toure, stepping forward to try to reach him, left the Turk to ease a pass through to the powerful, mobile Martins. The forward held off Campbell and thumped a drive home.
Arsenal substitutions were delayed until more than an hour had gone, as if Wenger not only understood the futility of alteration but also felt it would do no harm for his initial line-up to contemplate their inadequacies at length.
Guardian Service
ARSENAL: Lehmann, Lauren, Campbell, Toure, Cole, Ljungberg, Vieira, Silva (Kanu 64), Pires (Bergkamp 64), Wiltord (Parlour 78), Henry. Subs Not Used: Stack, Keown, Edu, Cygan.
INTER MILAN: Toldo, Javier Zanetti, Materazzi, Cannavaro, Cordoba, Van der Meyde (Helveg 69), Emre (Lamouchi 66), Cristiano Zanetti, Gonzalez, Cruz (Kallon 84), Martins. Subs Not Used: Fontana, Luciano, Adani, Buruk. Goals: Cruz 22, Van der Meyde 24, Martins 41.
Referee: Manuel Enrique Mejuto Gonzalez (Spain).
