“It’s not impossible to go through the season unbeaten and I can’t see why it’s shocking to say that. Every manager thinks that, but they don’t say it because they’re scared it would be ridiculous.” – Arsene Wenger, 20 September 2002.
The words which were met with ridicule from the media and rival supporters alike. Labelled “Comical Wenger” for daring to dream.
Less than two years later, on 15 May 15 2004, Wenger’s words came true. Arsenal did the unthinkable and went unbeaten.
Nearly 20-years on and no other club has since achieved what Arsenal achieved. Oil-states and oligarchs have spent billions trying to do what Wenger achieved on a shoestring budget.
Is Yours Gold? is a unique look at that season, told by a fan that was there.
Author Darren Berry watched on from the North Bank as Patrick Vieira latched onto Dennis Bergkamp’s through ball and slotted home the goal that would secure a 2-1 win over Leicester City, and Arsenal a place in football history.
But this book is not just Darren’s story. It is a collection of memoirs, photos and more from Arsenal fans around the globe who experienced the unbeaten story. This is OUR story.
Invincibles Game-by-Game
Every Premier League game from that incredible season. The Battle of Old Trafford. Henry against Liverpool at Highbury. Winning the league at White Hart Lane. Vieira cementing our place in history with the winner in the last game of the season.
Invincible Memories
Stories and photos from Arsenal fans around the world that experienced the glory of the Invincibles.
We’ll look at the pretenders that have come and gone and ask the question…. Is Yours Gold?
Bonus Chapter – “We’ve Got Super Mik Arteta”
A look at exciting times for Arsenal fans ahead. Are we on the way back?
Pre-order now
Is Yours Gold? The Arsenal Invincibles Twentieth Anniversary is available to pre-order now.
Get your name in the book All advanced purchasers will have their name automatically included in the fans’ roll of honour section of the book if purchased during the pre-order period before the end of September.
SheWore
We released our first set of #Arsenal inspired shin pads last week!
Yesterday, Nicolas Pepe joined Turkish team Trabzonspor on a free transfer, 4 years after he joined Arsenal for £72million. Just want wrong for Pepe at Arsenal?
I was excited when we signed Pepe. It felt like a huge statement.
Just turned 24, he had scored 35 Ligue 1 goals in the previous two years for Lille from the right wing. We had signed one of the most in demand attackers in Europe.
At 6′ 2″, Pepe had pace to burn and a box full of tricks. He also had a wand of a left foot. It felt like he had all the physical and technical attributes to be a Premier League superstar.
“Arsenal did one hell of a deal,” former Lille owner Gerard Lopez told talkSPORT. “They got a player that other people wanted and they got a player whom one club [Napoli] were offering more money for.
“It was Pepe’s management team that asked us to go to Arsenal and so we accepted slightly less money than we would have got somewhere else.”
So what happened?
Tought first season
In his first season at Arsenal, Nicolas Pepe was inconsistent. But so was Arsenal.
A lot of fans point to his “scintillating form” under Unai Emery, but he only actually scored two league goals before the Spanaird in November.
He finished the season with just 5 league goals having played under 3 different managers.
Arsenal finished 8th that season, and the team had struggled throughout. But Pepe took a brunt of the criticism having joined us for such a big transfer fee.
Arteta-Ball
Mikel Arteta is often criticised for not getting the best out of Nicolas Pepe. But in the Frenchman’s second season at the club (and Arteta’s first fall season), he scored 16 goals across all competitions. 10 of these came in the Premier League.
Whilst his output was decent, it did not tell the whole story.
Pepe often drifted through games, doing very little. He would then, on occassion, pop up with a goal. This is not how Arteta wanted to play.
You look at Arsenal’s front line now – Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Jesus and Grabiel Martinelli – and they all work very hard for the team. They do not play on the fringes of the game waiting to get the ball. They look to move across the pitch and find the ball themselves.
Pepe showed in his second season that he was perhaps the wrong sort of player for Arsenal.
At Lille, he could neglect his defensive duties, and often hung about on the half-way line as Lille looked to play counter attacking football. This gave him time and space in the opponents half to unleash his ability.
Arteta looked to play a more possession based game, with the aim of keeping the ball in the opponents third of the pitch. This means less space, less time. Pepe failed to adapt his game to having to play with opponents in a lot closer attendance.
Despite his obvious talents as an attacker, Arteta was clearly becoming increasingly frustrated by his inability to follow instructions.
Arteta was building a team where the strength was in the XI rather than any individual talents. Pepe failed to grasp that he needed to work for the team, not just himself.
Language barrier
Pepe’s 3rd season saw him score just a single league goal and start 5 Premier League games.
“You cannot create your figure, your identity, within the dressing room and the club without being able to communicate,” was one line from the Spaniard.
A week later, during an interview before a game for the Ivory Coast, Pepe said “ It is also about communication. Sometimes it’s not easy to communicate with the language barrier.”
Arteta expects his teams to play in a very complex manner. He and his coaches do a lot of one to one coaching with players to ensure that they know what to do and where to be like it is second nature. It is a lot harder to explain, and understand, the complex instructions if you do not have a grasp of the language being spoken.
When Pepe came to the club, he was taken under the wing by French speakers Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexander Lacazette. This probably slowed down his English as the pair would translate for him, and speak only French socially.
After 3-years in England, you would have expected Pepe to be fairly fluent in English, but it was not much better than when he joined.
He was struggling to learn on and off the pitch…
Bukayo Saka
During 2021/22, Nukayo Saka had played at both left back and on the left wing. He was clearly a talent, but had scored just 5 league goals against Pepe’s 10.
The next season, some quarters heavily criticised Arteta for playing 20-year-old Englishman Bukayo Saka ahead of Pepe. They saw Saka as an inferior player and an example of Arteta “playing his favourites”.
Arteta (and many Arsenal fans) saw Saka for what he was. A potential world class player, and he responded with 11 league goals and 7 assists.
I do not think it can be underestimated about how Saka impacted Pepe’s career.
It must be very disheartening for a 26-year-old to lose his place to a then 19-year-old after hitting double figures in the leage
If Pepe was bad at listening and unable to take on instructions, Saka was the complete opposite.
I imagine Saka is a dream for a manager to work with. Always listening, always learning, always working hard. It is those attributes that often lift a player from being very good to being world class.
Last season, Saka scored 14 league goals and added a further 11 assists. Only Mo Salah produces more on the right wing in the Premier League, and you will struggle to name too many more right wingers in world football who are better. Saka is simply one of the best in the world.
Final thoughts
Whilst Saka has only just turned 22 and continues to get better and better, Pepe found himself in a position where no one wanted him. He has ended joining a team that finished 6th in the Turkish Süper Lig last season.
I always think you begin to get an understanding on how a player is viewed by the experts by where he ends up.
Whilst us fans have a tendancy to hype players up and put them on a pedestal, those views are destroyed when a player departs for a lowly club.
Take Folarin Balogun. Demanded to be a regular starter at Arsenal. Demanded to leave. Arsenal fans dug out Arteta for not giving him a chance. But then no other top club came in for him. Ended up at Monaco who finished 6th in France. If he was as good as he (and some fans) claimed, he would have been picked up by a much better club.
Pepe is the same.
Nice did not want to re-sign him after a very average season on loan. No other Premier League side sniffed around him. nor anyone from French side. Or Spanish. Or German. Or Italian. And so on.
He has ended up at a Turkish side who are not in Europe and finished 31 points behind the champions Galatasaray.
A lot of miss-truths have been typed about Pepe’s time at Arsenal.
He was poor under Unai Emery, had his best season under Mikel Arteta, and then lost his place to Bukayo Saka. That is the real story.
a) There were not too many strikers in the market that were available and be happy joining to be 2nd choice to Gabriel Jesus. And many of these level players went for an unreasonable price.
b) Having spent £200m, we did not have much left in the pot to sign someone better than Gabriel Jesus.
In conclusion, I always stated that I think a new forward will be bought next year. That will enable us to solve both problems mentioned above.
We now have 12 months for our scouts to unearth a gem. Find someone like a Jurrien Timber that no one is talking about right now. Run the rule over them for the season and then sign them in the summer of 2024.
Alternatively, with no real obvious big money requirements next season, we might opt to invest heavily into a top striker who can play ahead of Jesus. It is this second one that I can see happening.
Next season I expect us to do similar business as we did this signing – one big, big money signing and 2 mid-range signings.
One of those mid-range signings will be a Thomas Partey replacement. Expect us to spend maybe £40m on someone who can cover Declan Rice (and provide an option when Rice is further forward). The 2nd one might be David Raya.
That leaves us with being able to spend big money on a new striker. And the man on everyones lips right now is Evan Ferguson.
Evan Ferguson is the best teenage striker I have seen since Wayne Rooney.
I remember when Rooney announced himself on the scene with THAT goal against Arsenal.
Rooney was just a few days shy of his 17th birthday when he scored a worldie against David Seaman in 2002, ending our unbeaten away run.
What stood out about him is that he already looked like a man. He was physically ready for senior football. No one was saying “good talent, but needs to hit the gym”. And Ferguson is similar.
Ferguson joined Brighton in January 2001 and made his debut at just 17 years old.
Last season, Roberto De Zerbi held him back a little bit, slowly introducing him into the first team/ He scored 6 Premier League goals in 19 games. This season he has hit the ground running with 4 goals in the opening 4 games.
Like Rooney, he does not look like a boy playing a mans game.
Ferguson is a big boy and solidly built. At a young age, you do not look at him and think “he will be bullied by defenders”.
He reminds me a bit of Harry Kane in that he can play as a target man, with his back to goal, but when he faces the goal he more often than not looks immediately for a shooting opportunity.
Happy to come short, as well as run in behind, he has the work rate that modern strikers need.
Ferguson is also not just a tap in merchant. Since his debut, he has scored a range of goals from tap ins to goals from distance and running in behind.
Whilst Erling Haaland might be a better goal scorer than Ferguson (right now), I think the Irishman has more to his game.
Beyond scoring goals, Haaland does not do much else on the football pitch. you can handle that when he is bagging 40+ a season. Ferguson gets involved in Brighton;s build up play.
Playing for De Zerbi’s Brighton, he is often asked to drop deeper and play as a 10, playing Kane-Esque flicks behind the opposing full back to set his winger clear. This is something you very rarely see Haaland do.
Against Newcastle, he scored a fabulous hat trick and became the 4th youngest player in Premier League history to do so (Michael Owen, Robbie Fowler and Chris Bart-Williams those who did it younger).
Now some will now be saying “but £100m+ for a player with 18 months senior football. That is a lot of money”. But if Ferguson scores 20+ goals this season as he turns 19, it will be well worth it.
Rooney was a few months shy of his 19th birthday and had scored just 15 goals for Everton. It was seen as a huge risk – £30m was probably the equivalent of £120m now!
At the time, a friend of mine said “big money, but Manchester United have signed a potentially world class forward who will lead their line for 10 years”.
Rooney would end up going on to play for Manchester United for 13 years, scoring 253 goals for them. The investment paid off.
And I see Ferguson as being similar.
You spend close to £120m for him, you are getting a striker who will score you bucket loads of goals for over a decade (injury permitting).
The alternative is you spend, say, £50m on Ivan Toney. At the age of 27, he only has 4 or 5 years left at the top. So in 5 years time you are having to invest another £50m+ on another striker.
You could spend £100-120m over the 10 years on 2 or 3 different first choice strikers. Or you spend £120m on one striker for the next 10-years.
There will be a battle for Ferguson’s signature with clubs from home and abroad chasing him. But it is a race I think Arsenal can win.
Real Madrid and Barcelona would be seriously consider him. I think the Spanish pair will be our biggest competition.
Elsewhere abroad, Bayern Munich now have their striker, whilst I think PSG is now no longer seen as an attractive option for young, hungry players.
Closer to home, Manchester City have Haaland, so will only move if the Norwegian decides to call it a day with them after two seasons.
Manchester United have just invested heavily in Rasmus Højlund. The Nicklas Bendtner looked a handful on his debut against us and you have to think they will stick with him for a bit.
Chelsea would certainly be in the market for a new striker, but at some point their big spending will catch up on them. Meanwhile Spurs failed to sign a replacement for Kane in the summer. Can not see Ferguson retiring from trophies and signing for them though.
That leaves us and Liverpool. Both realistic options. You might get Newcastle sniffing around if they are looking to make a statement.
What would this mean for Jesus?
Well Ferguson will still only be 19 -years-old, so you can not expect him to play 50 games a season. Jesus has also had a run of worrying injuries since joining, so you wonder whether he is robust enough to lead the line for 50 games.
Jesus also provides an option as cover for Saka and Martinelli on the wingers, and can play centrally in behind Ferguson. There would certainly be enough games to accomodate the pair.
Arsenal is an exciting place to be right now and we have one of the most exciting young managers in the game. Mikel Arteta showed with Declan Rice that he has a pull. When he gets on the phone to players to discuss his plans, they are drawn in, they are sold the dream.
For now, this is just a pipe dream. But Ferguson will be on our wish list. And I think we would be in pole position to sign him if we make our moves early.
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 