Former Arsenal star Gabriel Silva has revealed that Arsene Wenger only mentioned going the season unbeaten with four matches left to play, telling them to ‘do something special’.
The Brazilian midfielder played a key role alongside Patrick Vieira in our famous ‘Invincibles’ season of 2004, and has been reliving his time with our side of late.
Silva claimed that despite talk in the media for some time, the team and coach refused to mention the prospect of seeing out the season until the title was already won.
‘Honestly we heard more from the media than talked between ourselves,’ said Silva.
‘The only time we spoke about it was after the game against Tottenham and became champions. We had four games in hand, Arsene came to us and just said “Listen you won the league with four games in hand but we can do something people will never forget and do something special and go all the season unbeaten. You are able to do this you can do it.”‘
‘For us it was just about winning the games and going to win the league and achieve the results that we trained for during the week.
‘When we spoke about it afterwards with four games in hand we start to think he’s right we can do something even more special than just win the league.
‘Not just win the league but after you win it what else can you do to make your time at the club even more special’.
Our side of course did go onto make history that season, accomplishing a mean feat that a number of teams can only dream of, including this season’s runaway leaders.
Liverpool were on course to match our incredible feat but fell way before the crucial hurdle by going down an embarrassing 3-0 to Watford.
I would be very shocked if any team was to match our unbeaten season in my lifetime, not in the Premier League at least.
Did Wenger’s timing spur the team on to earn the unbeaten title? Would players have gotten relaxed with winning the title without the added challenge from the boss?
Patrick
Crazy how we went unbeaten that season, and 16 years later, we haven’t even challenged for another league title.
Neither as Manchester United and as much as I hate to say it, they’ve got more resources than us
@jon fox, nice you took note.
I was about to search if he has another name, Gabriel.
Some article, at least get them to debate, or comment, or argue, or even hate.
I think The Arsenal fans, real fans, have got to really examine what personality or object of mis-informed image many these articles writers, radio or tv or youtube are insistent on creating for The Arsenal supporters.
The talk of going whole season unbeaten started 2002/03, it put too much pressure on the players, and they lost the league in 2002/03 which they were on the course to win, only to be overhauled by ManU that were struggling to chase them. Yeah, the target of unbeaten was set, they did not talk about it because the player showed earlier in 2002/03 they could only cope with a game per time pressure, and le Prof who knew the possibilities and probabilities, knowing the quality of his squad, was gunning for the Invincibility and guiding the team, match by match. So talking at four games to go was just a reminder of what was already in the agenda since, 2002/03. I didn’t check this, Gilberto maybe just came in 2003/04.