Arsenal played Malaysia on what seemed on TV pictures to be a ploughed field. Eisfeld scored his first goal and appeared to have a bright future with the club. It was the series of games that was supposed to include a match in Nigeria, but never did. Eisfled moved on to VfL Bochum but his career was blighted by injury.
As for the start of the league campaign that also was uninspiring – a goalless draw at home to Sunderland who seemed to have a 12 man defence (one of whom was the referee) and a goalless draw away to Stoke, for whom the rules of engagement seemed to have little to do with the rules of association football.
But then a 2-0 away win at Liverpool and a 6-1 home victory over Southampton seemed to disappoint the gathered journalists who already had their copy about Arsenal fighting relegation written and presented to their editors.
For the fans, the thought arose that maybe Arsenal were not going to be doom and gloom all the season
In the end, following an away win at Bayern Munich in the Champions League to make it 3-3 (we lost on away goals) a final run in of eight wins and two draws in the last 10 games of the season gave Arsenal fourth.
Which as the media reminded us daily, was not a trophy.
- Arsenal Day by Day: the stories
- Arsenal in July: All the anniversaries day by day
- Anniversary video index: an Arsenal video for (almost) each day of the year
- Arsenal today: Untold Arsenal
