Arsenal and Manchester United: Two unsinkable battleships are ruling the EPL waves once again

At which point it seems a good time to ask: is that it? Were those the wilderness years? We can be enthralled by the revival of two grand institutions - good to have them back in sound playing health under astute managers - but we might also ponder if they really went away.

Those dark periods in full: United finished seventh in the first post-Sir Alex Ferguson season, subsequently endured three campaigns in sixth place but also won an FA Cup, League Cup and Europa League in their years of crisis.

Arsenal twice ended up eighth but, even in those worst of wilderness seasons, lifted the FA Cup and reached the last four in the Europa League (a couple of years after making the final) as handy compensations. They missed European qualification once, in 2020-21, but that now feels more a catalyst than a failure.

In short, crises aren’t what they used to be, even in the convulsions of coping with the departures of two of the greatest managers in the history of English football who not only put their own unmistakeable stamp on teams but shaped every aspect of their clubs. The exits of Ferguson and Arsene Wenger created huge voids that we filled with questions - what next? How low can their clubs go? - but rock bottom turns out not to be down a deep, dark well. In fact, not much of a tumble at all.

Seventh? Eighth for a season, or two? Is this as low as a “big six” club can fall these days, even one run so haphazardly for years by Ed Woodward and the Glazers? Are the vast annual revenues ranked by Deloitte this week - United fourth in the world, Arsenal tenth and sure to surge upwards - such an insulation against poor judgment, bad recruitment and lack of strategy that you would have to be not just rubbish at running a club - Farhad Moshiri-level bad, say - but determinedly useless not to float back to the top while overseeing one of the “big six"?

Seeing Arsenal and United come together in such an appetising collision is great for audiences, a genuine Super Sunday, but it almost made me nostalgic for a proper crisis.

My children refuse to believe that United were relegated in my lifetime. I have to show them the evidence that this great club did actually plummet through the trap door to spend a season in the second tier in 1974-75, with all the drama of Denis Law’s famous backheel in a Manchester City shirt and the subsequent league trips to Millwall, Leyton Orient and York City.

United’s absent season (Carlisle United were one of the teams to replace them in the top tier, which my children also assumed I must have made up) coincided with Arsenal finishing 16th. It was even worse the following year for Bertie Mee’s team, scrapping against relegation over a fraught winter after taking eight points from a possible 42 during one hapless period. They stumbled home in 17th.

Ah, the good old days when suffering felt more meritocratic. Of course, even then these big clubs had in-built advantages through crowds and revenues to help them recover, but there was a real sense of jeopardy if they screwed up. Have the Glazers or the Kroenkes, the Arsenal owners, ever fretted, or lost a wink of sleep, over their worst decisions?

Fans have, and we should acknowledge crises - shambles! sack the board/manager! - are relative to resources and expectations. For Liverpool supporters, those three decades without a title after 1990 felt like an agony, even if their average finishing position of 4.5 during that time is the sort of predicament all but a few clubs would happily embrace.

United’s post-Ferguson struggles have had their own fascination and we are never backward in making a drama out of a crisis, or even a blip. When United were thrashed by Brentford as recently as August, there was a car-crash fascination. Arsenal fans endured all those years of arguing about Wenger’s longevity and whether he was undermining his own legacy but if it sounded self-indulgent and whiny then, it certainly does in hindsight. Ancient history, too, as they bounce back so impressively under Mikel Arteta.

Like corks, these clubs quickly float back to the surface. Chelsea collapsed to tenth in 2015-16 yet were champions 12 months later. Todd Boehly, who led the takeover of the club in May, seems determined to test the thesis with his wild, extravagant spending but, while it may cost him a lot of money in the short term, he knows that buying enough good players is a form of insurance policy.

This insulated existence is not enjoyed by many. The fragility of those outside the “big six” can be seen at Everton where half a billion has been spent, astonishingly, to make a team worse. Other historic clubs have known violent lurches. Nottingham Forest are back where former European Champions will feel they belong but only after a visit to League One. Manchester City knew third-tier indignities not long before becoming one of the world’s super clubs.

Big, historic clubs can fail but Leeds United’s financial implosion was one of the drivers of the Financial Fair Play rules that protect the richest teams so that Woodward’s tenure of United - in which the squad, scouting department, stadium, training ground and pretty much everything else went backwards - is rescuable with a few key, smart decisions.

And so to Arsenal versus United, to the joy of the broadcasters and wider audiences. The Premier League product benefits from having two globally renowned names back in business. For many of us, it is also bound to stir memories of the greatest rivalry of the modern era, established on the brilliance of Ferguson and Wenger and the polarised nature of their personalities.

It was personal. Old Vinegar Face, as Ferguson would call the Frenchman, and the players made it even more ferocious in those clashes of flying pizzas, tunnel bust-ups, tumultuous duels and historic battles for trophies which make a list of humdinger contests elsewhere on these pages.

For those reasons and more, it is fascinating to have Arsenal and United back on this upward trajectory - but then they never really went away, not really. And I guess the point is that, however grave the self-inflicted blunders and screw-ups, seemingly they never will.

-The Times

Originally published as Arsenal and Manchester United: Two unsinkable battleships are ruling the EPL waves once again