Life Under Rioch: 18 November 1995

I have often made the point that if only those people who have complained about football under Wenger could remember our previous manager, Bruce Rioch, they would probably shut up.

Now others have argued that it wasn’t that bad as the club ended up fifth during Rioch’s year, qualified for Europe and brought in two big name signings.

True we spent over £12m on Platt and Bergkamp, and lost Campbell and Schwarz.  True we ended up 5th.  But even so…

Take for example 18 November 1995: Tottenham 2 Arsenal 1 – a game which came during a period in which Arsenal won just four games in 15.

That game left us third in the league – but we were already 11 (yes eleven) behind the leaders.  And things were about to get worse.  Here are the results for that sequence…

Date 1995/6	Home team	Score	Away team	Result
30 October	Bolton W	1-0	Arsenal	L
4 November	Arsenal	1-0	Man U	W
18 November	Tottenham H	2-1	Arsenal	L
21 November	Arsenal	4-2	Sheffield W	W
26 November	Arsenal	0-0	Blackburn R	D
2 December	Aston Villa	1-1	Arsenal	D
9 December	Southampton	0-0	Arsenal	D
16 December	Arsenal	1-1	Chelsea	D
23 December	Liverpool	3-1	Arsenal	L
26 December	Arsenal	3-0	QPR	W
30 December	Arsenal	1-3	Wimbledon	L
2 January	Newcastle U	2-0	Arsenal	L
13 January	Middlesbrough	2-3	Arsenal	W
20 January	Arsenal	1-2	Everton	L
3 February	Arsenal	1-1	Coventry	D

By the evening of the match on 3 February with all the results counted the league table looked like this…

		P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pt
1	Newcastle United	24	18	3	3	47	19	+28	57
2	Manchester United	25	14	6	5	46	29	+17	48
3	Liverpool	25	13	7	5	48	21	+27	46
4	Aston Villa	24	12	6	6	32	18	+14	42
5	Tottenham Hotspur	25	11	9	5	33	24	+9	42
6	Blackburn Rovers	25	12	5	8	40	27	+13	41
7	Nottingham Forest	25	10	10	5	35	34	+1	40
8	Chelsea	25	10	9	6	30	25	+5	39
9	Arsenal	25	10	8	7	33	25	+8	38
10	Everton	25	10	7	8	37	28	+9	37

Arsenal were 9th and now 19 points off the top placed club.  True we had seen little signs of improvement, particularly from Bergkamp, but even so it was a tough time.

So was there an Anti-Arsenal movement within Highbury at the time, demanding the removal of Rioch?

As far as I recall no, there wasn’t.  Many of us were bemused by what he was doing, and Rioch himself did little to explain what was going on.  Watching this game the clear impression was that Tottenham were well-organised, Arsenal were not – which given the nature of our team was hard to accept.

We took the lead through a Bergkamp goal, – it was his 8th in nine games, and the thought was that we should from this point be powering ahead.  If not ahead to win the league, then at least to secure a top three finish.

But instead we allowed Sheringham to get Tottenham back into the game with an equaliser. Tottenham then changed tactics, Merson was marginalised, and there was in particular no one who looked able to deputise for Ian Wright who was suspended.  Dennis couldn’t do everything on his own.

Tottenham scored from an Arsenal corner, Dozzell clearing to Sheringham, who, knocked it on to Armstrong, on to Fox who flicked it in and Sheringham scored.  In the second half he went on to score the winner.   It was Rioch’s first derby, and when asked what he had learned from it he said, “Don’t lose”.  Not very inspiring.

So what was the team like at this time that was about to go rippling down the league?

Here are the key first team squad players with the appearances clocked up that season…

		Age	Signed	Appearances
1	Seaman	31	1990	38
2	Dixon	31	1988	38
3	Winterburn	31	1987	36
5	Bould	32	1988	19
6	Adams	28	1983	21
7	Platt	29	1995	29
8	Wright	31	1991	31
9	Merson	27	1985	38
10	Bergkamp	26	1995	33
11	Helder	26	1995	24
12	Linighan	33	1990	18
13	Bartram	33	1994	1
14	Keown	29	1984	34
15	Parlour	22	1992	22
16	Hartson	20	1995	19

Now you can’t exactly say there were not some good names in there.  But the team struggled to be organised and that period including the defeat to Tottenham was not a good time to be supporting Arsenal.

It wasn’t that on 18 November 1995 we lost to Tottenham, it was the whole long run of poor results, the tumble down the table, and the lack of a coherent way out.   If you were there you may also remember that over time Ian Wright was moved onto the wing, and ultimately asked for a transfer.  It was not a solution that really worked in itself, although finally Arsenal did qualify for Europe on the last day of the season by ending up fifth.

 

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