Jose Antonio Reyes
Again, in my humble opinion was destined to become an Arsenal legend until Brand United’s answer to the chuckle brothers decided that kicking the crap out of Jose-Antonio for 90 minutes would ‘teach him a lesson’. Jose is currently on the fringes of the Altletico Madrid team.
Martin Keown
Keown’s last season at Arsenal became a bit of a pantomime, with Martin playing the minimum 10 games to qualify for a medal and trotting on for the last 5 minutes of the last 5 games at left midfield to fill his quota. After sparking the Battle of Old Trafford, he is now a part-time scout and coach for Arsenal, as well as a pundit for the Beeb.
My most memorable games of the season:
Battle of Old Trafford
Mostly remembered for Van Nistelrooy’s theatrics and penalty miss, the aftermath goes down in Arsenal folklore. At the final whistle, Ruud van Nistelrooy was immediately confronted by Keown, Lauren, Parlour, Cole and Kolo. Keown jumped up next to Van Nistelrooy and brought his arms down hard on the Dutchman’s back, while Lauren pushed Van Nistelrooy in the back and Parlour and Cole offered verbal abuse. Fines and bans were issued, but deep down all Gooners knew it was worth it all in the end, as this was the closest Arsenal came to losing their invincible record.
Final game of the season
Sat in the North Bank Upper watching Paul Dickov score against us, my heart sank. This isn’t how it ends, it just can’t be and it wasn’t. Thierry’s penalty & Vieira’s winner completed the season & true legends were born.
Honours
To honour the club’s achievement the Premier League commissioned a special gold version of the Premier League trophy. Arsene was awarded the LMA Manager of the Year, the first person to win the accolade twice. Wenger was also Barclaycard Manager of the Season. Along with Thierry’s awards, Lauren, Ashley Cole, Sol Campbell, Patrick Vieira, Robert Pirès and Thierry Henry were all named into the PFA team of the season. Despite The Battle of Old Trafford, Arsenal were also recognised for their fair play throughout the season winning the Barclaycard Premier League Fair Play Award. So there you have it, in 2004 true Legends were born.
The current squad are legends in the making, here’s hoping that Wenger can take them to that same level next season.
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What a great team this was. Back then we had a great golkeeper, defenders, midfielders and strikers. In general our team was great, even the players who were on the bench. What a team and I personally think we will never see a team like that again.
An Amazing Team, a brilliant article well done 🙂
@Boo,
Never despair. Arsenal will, one day soon, surpass even the Invincibles.
Until then there will be many upsets as well as triumphs.
Players will come and go and changes made in team strategy and tactics.
The Manager will be inundated with advice from all quarters on who to sign and how to play.
As a fan since the middle 30’s I can report that things haven’t really changed in all that time.
Supporting Arsenal is not, and never has been, for the fainthearted and there will always be times when the loyalty of fans is sorely tested. The past season has been a prime example of that.
The answer is simply to keep the faith and things will come right. With Arsenal, they usually do.
Bruce Rioch steadied the ship for us after George Graham left, he finished 5th after 2 years of us in the lower half of the table…saying signing Bergkamp is the ONLY good thing he did for us, i wouldn’t agree with… “the BEST thing he did for Arsenal” that statement i would agree with. Have a nice day, thanks for the read.
best team we we will see eber WHO THE F**K ARE BARCALONA
i really miss that squad. doubt if we could replace it.