Guest Post – TTG – A Tradition Of Excellence
Jan 27th, 2016 by 'holic
It’s always a pleasure to find a little surprise in the evening’s email, and today’s guest post from our very own TTG was very much one of those pleasant surprises. thank you so much for this piece about the excellent left-backs we have been able to boast in the last 45 years or so. I hope it prompts some pleasant memories for the older ‘holics as well as a history lesson for some of the fitter young souls who pop by.
The news that Nacho Monreal had signed a new contract was greeted with delight by Gooners everywhere. His sustained excellence in the left-back role has been widely recognised but for supporters of the club who study our history and traditions a top-quality Arsenal left-back is not an unusual thing.
If we go back to the first double team we were served in that position by Bob McNab who joined us from Huddersfield in preference to Liverpool, despite the prolonged overtures of Bill Shankly. That choice alone established Bob as a favourite amongst fans but his consistency and quality, which saw him become an England international when caps were not tossed around like confetti, was incredibly valuable in forging a formidable rearguard. Better defensively than going forward he still made a massive contribution to Arsenal folklore by providing the cross that John Radford headed in on that momentous night in 1970 when we beat Anderlecht to win the European Fairs Cup. Amazingly, he revealed recently that he played through the double season with a muscle injury that he sustained early in the season. He was terrified of being dropped and the emergence of his understudy a young Irishman called Sammy Nelson.
Sammy, who is still often seen around the club, was an extrovert but highly effective left back with a fierce left-foot shot. He is remembered for mooning the North Bank after scoring one evening against Coventry after previously scoring an own goal in the same game.ย I was very close to his performance and it provoked great hilarity and relief, but he was part of a strong defence and a team where we had a strong Irish influence from both sides of the border. I remember meeting the referee, Clive Thomas on the tube one evening and he suggested that Sammy in today’s parlance, ‘liked a tackle’! He was left out of the starting eleven in the 1980 Cup Final and the next season saw his place taken by England’s left-back of the day, Kenny Sansom.
Kenny’s signing was a rather bizarre one as he came in a swap deal for Clive Allen and Paul Barron. Allen had never played a proper game for the club and many still believe there was some sort of Venables-inspired chicanery involved in the deal. Kenny was an exceptionally good player, equally good defensively and offensively. He was capped over 80 times for England and maintained a high record of consistency in performance at a time when the team went through some difficult periods. When George Graham joined the club and we achieved belated success, starting with a League Cup victory in 1987, Kenny lifted the trophy.
The following year he was back at Wembley in the same competition against Luton and saw the game swing on a missed penalty when we were 2-1 up in one of the most bizarre finals Arsenal have ever played. The culprit was an emerging left-back playing on the other flank, Nigel Winterburn, a signing from Wimbledon who the following season pushed Sansom out of the team and off to Newcastle. Kenny has fought a difficult battle with various addictions in the last few years and it is to be hoped he can stabilise his life. He still retains a huge affection for Arsenal and was for many years an enthusiastic and informative tour guide.
Nigelย is still heavily involved with the club after a first-team career which lasted around a dozen years. With a tackle like a ten-ton truck his one-footedness was rarely a source of difficulty because of his speed, dexterity and improvisation. A scorer of some occasional but spectacular goals, and none was more remarkable than a right-footed screamer (yes that was right- footed!) that he notched against Wimbledon in the last home game of the momentous 1988/89 campaign that ended so triumphantly at Anfield. Capped sparsely by England he gave yeoman service to the club and ‘Nutty’ remains one of the favourite players of his era.
He was replaced relatively briefly by Brazilian left-back Silvinho. In his period with the club he showed incredible attacking ability and was a decent defender but doubts over his passport saw him transferred expeditiously from the club and he became one of the few Arsenal players to have some success at Barcelona. A great equalising goal at Chelsea in 2000 was a fitting memory of his time with us.
Had he not left we might not have persisted with Ashley Cole who was recalled from an immensely successful loan to Crystal Palace. Ashley’s emergence was very similar to that of Hector Bellerin. He took everything in his stride and within a few years during which the side achieved massive success he was arguably the best left-back in the world . Sadly Ashley does not inspire the affection that many of his predecessors did because of his defection to Chelsea, apparently because of a niggardly salary offer from Arsenal which almost forced him to swerve that week’s sports car off the road .
He was replaced by Gael Clichy, a talented Frenchman and typical Wenger discovery who was a fledgling Invincible, but suffered occasional costly lapses in concentration which blotted an otherwise creditable copybook. His error at Birmingham in the infamous game where Eduardo was maimed by Martin Taylor of Birmingham may arguably have cost us the title that season. Clichy left for Manchester City along what became a well-trodden path and Kieran Gibbs who is still with us replaced him. Kieran is a decent left-back with speed, intelligence, and passing quality, but his defensive and positional deficiencies, coupled with a fragility that sees him regularly unavailable have been thrown into relief by Nacho Monreal. Nacho, a January emergency signing from Malaga three years ago, has matured into a magnificent left-back, good in both halves, a fine reader of the game and a brilliant crosser of the ball.
That’s a litany of some outstanding players and the big question is who the best of them was. In my view it’s a close call between Sansom and Cole but the latter’s behaviour and comments towards the club mean for me at least that my choice would be Kenny Sansom. But it’s not easy and good to know that the club who produced Eddie Hapgood, Walley Barnes, and Lionel Smith, still has a great production line in place.
61 Responses to “Guest Post – TTG – A Tradition Of Excellence”
Bnag (sic)
Left back was my first position.
In the dressing room.
Some bugger had to quarter the oranges…..
Good work ,ttg.
Nice piece Mr Tiny. Is that really the whole list right back to 1971? A pretty impressive line up indeed!
Wot…no Andre Santos ๐
Excellent piece TTG, indeed a veritable tradition of LB riches.
Going back a little earlier than ’71 then it’s gets a bit thinner on the ground. Shortly before then the notorious Peter Storey first emerged into the starting XI at LB before eventually settling into his midfield destroyer role – a most appropiate title going in this instance!
Thanks for the memories, thunderous one. Sure wish Clichy hadn’t slipped up against the swamp dwellers in that 4-4 draw. I arrived late at the NYC bar where the game was on having just got in from work and seeing us up by 4-2 felt brief elation only for Clichy to slip up almost immediately leaving it 4-3 on the way to that late equalizer.
Hehe Dr z. ๐
Excellent Guest post TTG/OAP
And welcome to the Club.!
Good to see you back in the bar Zico,and to see you have lost none of your acerbic wit.
It has been missed recently, to counter the hand wringing,disgruntled and disaffected among us after we drop points.
So try and keep in touch regularly old chap.
BTM carries a heavy load without you.
Great piece TTG!
I didn’t know about Kenny Sansom as I became a glory hunter just after he’d left. Since you rate him so highly I was looking for clips and found a couple showing indeed impressive skills and grit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7rJM2_26tc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8SHT3Z_684
Thank you for enlightening us, well me at least ๐
Excellent piece, Ttg. Brought back some memories. But as Uply said, what, no Santos! ๐ Eddie Hapgood though set the bar.
Andre Santos was one I tried to forget ( and obviously did?)
He doesn’t deserve a place on this roll of honour.The RolyPoly one was a rare aberration by Arsene and had frustrating shirt- swapping tendencies. He did score for us at the Bus stop and in that vital game at West Brom but I rather like my left backs to weigh less than me!
Kenny for me too, TTG, a tough defender and one of the first to advance past the half-way line in attack (which was considered a crime when I played the game).
Oskar
…one of the first full-backs to advance past… ie.
Cheers TTG.
Personally I have always loved Nutty. Maybe in part because he never got as much England recognition as he deserved, but that just made him all the more ‘ours’. He was part of a truly awesome defense that never gave away an inch. But unlike the rest of them he used to score thirty-yard screamers. What a man.
Agree with Oskar & TTG, that Kenny Samson was the best of a very good bunch – equally proficient in defence and attack. I think that A.Cole was probably as talented as Kenny but loses out to the poor attitude during & following the transfer to the dark side.
Hoping that life is on the up for dear Kenny.
Transfer tattle question: What is the difference between “signing” a deal and “sealing” a deal? The Ukrainian publication universally (?) known as Sport apparently has published an article saying Arsenal have sealed a not inexpensive deal with Dinamo Kyiv for the transfer of a player called Yarmolenko (nice name, the way it rolls off one’s tongue) but the caveat is he would not come to Arsenal until the Summer. Deal sealed in blood, sweat, tears, money, or nothing?
That was a good read TTG.
Google ‘yarmolenko’ and his transfer to us is everywhere, bt8. Don’t know anything about him myself, but Transfer Markt has his value as 25m Euros, so sounds useful.
Oskar
…but all those links are simply repeating the Sport report, so it remains just the one rumour.
Oskar
Yarmolenko looks useful: 26-years-old winger who has been playing wide right recently, full Ukraine international since 2009 with 22 goals in 55 games; 108 in 283 games for his club, Dynamo Kyiv. He was Ukraineโs Footballer of the Year in 2013. Said to be quick. Doesnโt seem to get injured much, though I am sure we can fix that. ๐ Mrs Y looks as if she would brighten a wet Wednesday in Stoke, too.
I only saw Winterburn towards the end of his career and then Ashley and hence for me Cole was the best left back who played in the modern day Arsenal. Yes he acted like a money grabbing —– but then he was just that off the field. His off field antics attracted far more news than his on field one for which he deserves a lot more adulation. Monreal currently is head and shoulders above Gibbs who i think has stagnated and makes the same mistakes as he used to, positional awareness will never be his forte.
Yarmolenko is a winger, does that mean theo off in the summer? Or is it Ox? time shall tell.
Le Coq and Elneny in the training pics and expecting them to feature this weekend. Rozza as well but then i expect Sanchez and Ozil to feature too which could mean an interesting team selection.
Fine piece TTG. A most enjoyable read.
Like Oskar, my number 1 is Kenny Sansom by a country mile from Cashley, with Nutty separating them. It’s a shame that Kenny didn’t have a better team around him when he was at his peak or he would have lifted more silverware.
I went on the Highbury tour with KS3 back in the early naughties and he is a lovely man, with a great love for the Arsenal and a wicked sense of humour. I wish him every success in his battle against his demons.
There’s a nice piece on his favourite moments on .com today with a chuckle about his ‘goal’ for Newcastle against us at Highbury in 88/89.
I know he’s not a left back but Flamini deserves an honourable mention for his heroics in the position when injuries gave us no other options.
Excellent Article Ttg.
For me the best left back we ever had was unquestionably Cole for all the unpopularity of mentioning his name. A superb player both at full back and supporting the attack. He played in our only CL final and went on afterwards to play at the very highest level consistently. As you say, I’m quite sure the club would have handled things differently if they had their time over – but the club were just as culpable of making the situation much worse than it ever should have been. If memory serves me correctly, I think Vieira as Captain got negatively involved in that dispute as well and it did him no favours either.
Rosicky and Coquelin back… YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!
Along with Alexis .. let’s give this one a good go!
๐
Picture 6 of 11 at arsenal.com of the players training ahead of the Burnley match. Looks like BFG is picking up a few goal keeping tips from PC33. A way to extend his playing career or part of a Wenger master plan to deploy a surprise double goal keeper system??
With a tackle like a ten-ton truck
No wonder he always looks so happy.
I know heโs not a left back but Flamini deserves an honourable mention for his heroics in the position when injuries gave us no other options.
I will go to my grave convinced that picking Cole in the CL Final ahead of Flamini is what lost us that game. Not that Cole was a bad player by any means, but Flamini had done so well in some our biggest ever matches in the CL, he deserved to play.
And Cole had been a total prick with Chelsea.
With you there 100% Cynic.
Nice work TTG.
I remember them all and given their various contributions would find it impossible to pick any one over the other.
I would have no such trouble in placing Santos on the list – unless it was a pie-eating list.
UTA.
Cynic
I think having our goalie sent off after ten minutes was slightly more important but I share your sense of injustice that Cole got preference over the Flamster. The Eboue/ Senderos/ Toure/ Flamini defence set a record in that competition for not conceding . Looking at those four , all still playing, it is hard to visualise that lot defying Real Madrid, Juventus,and Villareal but defy them they did. The work of Keown in drilling that defence had a huge amount to do with it. Come back Martin please.
No Senderos either, TTG, Campbell playing alongside Toure. And So scoring of course, which I couldn’t imgine Senderos doing in my wildest.
DB10 on the subs bench. And Hleb on the wing. Hmmm.
Oskar
*So = Sol.
Spot on Cynic.
Campbell shouldn’t have started either, but we would not have been thirteen minutes away from Big Ears if he hadn’t.
I have known only a couple of days that have left me feeling lower than that. I mean low with a capital L…
I would also not have picked Pires, who hadn’t played much as I recall, and stayed with Reyes.
People may argue that Lehmann getting sent off made all of this irrelevant, but a different team selection changes the course of events.
Every decision you make steers the future down a particular path. There is theoretically an infinite number of futures because every decision you make changes not only your future, but that of everyone around you and their decisions in turn affect everything else.
Pretty fucking scary eh? ๐
Cheers, TTG, a very good read and lots of memories.
Oskar,
TTG is quite correct. As he said, the back four he named, coached by Martin Keown set a defensive record for the Champions League during many consecurive rounds prior to the final. If memory serves, eleven hours without conceding, I believe.
Cynic, spot on about Cashley.
I wasn’t disagreeing with TTG, Trev, just pointing out that Senderos didn’t start either. That may also have made a difference, although Sol’s goal can’t be denied. We just ran out of steam as I remember it.
Oskar
Eboue/ Senderos/ Toure/ Flamini.
What makes great teams is that they are more than the sum of their parts.
Too right H. It took two people 45 minutes to get me home that night along a route that is normally a four minute walk. At the final whistle I walked out of the pub to the cheaper one down the road and bought 5 shots and two pints. I did the shots in a line, drank the pints in ten minutes and was back at the bar ordering God Knows What as my mates filtered in.
Operation ‘get so paralytic I don’t even remember there was a football match’ proved successful.
Yet, somehow, the next morning the hangover still wasn’t the worst thing…
BMBD
My abiding memory of that game is TH14 missing a one on one with the keeper, one that he would normally eat, which I recall would have put us 2-0 up.
Fine margins – so close.
UTA.
Your #39, GSD, reminds me of the days of my youth when we would drink our way across the top shelf, and then attempt to beat our record time for the trip between that pub and the next. On our Surrey back lanes this meant whoever was shotgun standing up in the Elan to check it was safe to cross the centre line on corners.
Oskar
As I recall( and nobody in Paris that night could afford to get drunk at their prices) Senderos was injured and Sol came in having walked out at half time against West Ham. But had he not been injured I agree Senderos deserved to be picked .
But Cynic I’d never pick Reyes over Pires. That man was a superstar.
How times change, eh, Oskar?
You gotta make the most of the good days, to paraphrase my favourite Holic sign-off line.
After Lehmann was sent off did we really replace Le Bob and leave Hleb on the pitch?
Noosa. You are right. To take up Cynic’s point, the world fractured in a thousand different directions when Titi took that shot. And we all ended up on one of the roads where he missed it.
Other Gooners in another set of worlds got drunk for very different reasons that night. But then again, maybe they never saw him come back and score against Leeds. The unlucky buggers!
We will have to live in hope that our European dream may yet come true…
still a feckin shower
Grrrrrrrrrrr
Indeed they have, GSD, too much traffic on the roads for such stunts these days. Which probably means my record times are still standing.
I’ll drink to that!
Would you believe I bought another Elan during my mid-life crisis 20 years ago? Best driving car I ever owned. That’s when actually on the road and not in the garage to fix bits that break or fall off … about 50/50 in my experience.
Oskar
Cheers TTG!
My favourite (not necessarily best) left backs were Nutty, Sammy Nelson, then Kenny.
Please do not remind me of that paris night. In india it was about 2 in the night when Sol scored and i woke up my father and was crying that we scored, we scored and then 12 minutes to the whistle, Henrik Larson and the offside goal ensured we lost the only chance of winning the champions league. I felt so sick after the game that i did not come out of my room for days. I was way young then and i could not handle that defeat at all.
The other game that made me cry was the pool quarter finals. theo’s run we are on the way to the semis and then that dive, toure and the penalty. I just buried myself.
After that there have been joys and sorrow but i have managed to handle myself better but games like chelsea makes me feel sick.
Positive news though is Coquelin back, we have no reasons now till the end of the season not to win the league. Full strength squad, 8 home games, this is it Arsenal and Arsene, time to deliver.
Talking of the boss, mail for the last 2 days has been harping on the successor and whether his reign has been a success or not, well the later part is not even a discussion, the former does merit one, should the boss be after 2017? I just want him to win the league and leave on a high this season. The great man deserves a grand send off not a failed legacy.
Vinay
To be honest when we began that CL campaign in 2006 I could not see us going anywhere. At the Bernabeu I was extremely pessimistic but the performance there showed how good Wenger is at turning things around. After that we had a new lease of life and came so close. That second half in Paris was unbearable . Hopefully we will get another chance to go back and repair the damage of that night
Off to listen to the Guvnor’s words of wisdom on today’s Arsecast. ๐
Ospina should play …along with Elneny i hope!
We’re fast having our full squad back.. and not a minute too soon!
Only waiting for Wilshere and Cazorla now..
๐
Oskar,
How did you sit in your Elan ?
In the Lotus position ?
?
GSD,
I need to know how to cook some asparagus .
Got any tips ?
?
Burnley have signed Paul “Misses” Robinson this week.
Please let him play tomorrow. I can’t remember his exact goals per game record against us but it is horrendous / hilarious*
*delete as required
Trev.
Put some salt in some water in a large saucepan and bring it up to a rolling boil (as hot as you can get it). Cook for 3 minutes. Possibly a little less if they are thin stems. Drain and serve immediately. Use a timer- thirty seconds makes a lot of difference when it is 17% (or whatever) of the overall cooking time.
If serving them with a meal then cook the rest and plate it up then do this last. If you are brave then set your timer, drop the asparagus in the pan and then you have three minutes to get the rest on the plate. If you don’t make it in time then still get the aspargus out after three minutes before carrying on…
OVERCOOKED ASPARAGUS MAKES THE DEVIL HAPPY.
Oh, and enjoy the fruits of your labours. Good quality, well-cooked asparagus makes God smile!
Not to mention whoever is eating it.
Good quality, well-cooked asparagus makes God smile!
And makes your wee smell funny
Amazing advice, GSD.
I’m now not sure if I’ve been double played here.
All I really wanted was a chance to say “Asparagus …… tips”.
Thanks anyway ?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Cynic @58… which God finds hilarious!