OLIVER HOLT: Read the definition of choking… That’s not this Arsenal team. We should admire, not insult them
There is a great stigma attached to the idea of ‘choking’ in sport.
It is used as an insult, an accusation of weakness that implies lack of character and absence of moral fibre.
Academic papers, a whole raft of them, have been written about it. Maybe one day, they will write one about Arsenal and the end to the 2023-24 season.
But have Arsenal’s credentials in this delicate matter really been fully established yet? I don’t think so.
I was at The Emirates last Tuesday when they played poorly against a Bayern Munich team that has had a desperately disappointing season in the Bundesliga and drew 2-2 in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final.
Arsenal’s Premier League title hopes were dealt a major blow as they were beaten on Sunday
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It felt as if Arsenal were intimidated by Bayern’s European pedigree and under-performed. Bayern, in contrast, played above themselves.
When Arsenal lost at home to a fine Aston Villa side on Sunday and found themselves two points behind Manchester City in the title race, they were immediately accused of losing their nerve.
In their 2013 paper, ‘Definition of choking in sport: Re-conceptualization and debate’, published in the International Journal of Sport Psychology, Christopher Mesagno and Denise Hill defined choking as ‘an acute and considerable decrease in skill execution and performance when self-expected standards are normally achievable, which is the result of increased anxiety under perceived pressure’.
So even though Arsenal didn’t play well against either Bayern or Villa, it feels both harsh and lazy to talk about them choking. For a start, they’re not out of anything yet.
The odds will be against them in the Allianz Arena on Wednesday night but they are good enough to get a result there if they play to their potential.
And did they really choke against Villa? I don’t think so. They came up against a side that has shown many times this season it is capable of producing outstanding displays and which is looking increasingly likely to qualify for the Champions League. They lost a game. They are still in the title race.
Arsenal made the perfect start in the first leg of their Champions League tie against Bayern
Harry Kane came back to haunt them by handing Bayern a 2-1 lead, but Arsenal fought back
Leandro Trossard ensured the two teams go back to Bavaria with the tie evenly-poised at 2-2
If you want proper examples of choking, you could do worse than to have been in Augusta this week.
Not because of what went on this year, where Scottie Scheffler stayed rock solid in the final round on Sunday as a series of rivals tried to overthrow his lead but because of what has happened here in the past.
Two of the biggest chokes in sport happened at Augusta National. Sir Nick Faldo, who could often be found last week sitting at his favourite table on the clubhouse balcony, chatting to friends and surveying today’s stars on their way to the first tee, induced one of those chokes when he relentlessly destroyed Greg Norman’s six-shot lead at the Masters in 1996.
And Rory McIlroy, who still seems scarred by the experience and is still trying without success to win the Masters, had one of the most famous meltdowns in the tournament’s history in 2011 when he went into the final round with a four-shot lead, only to drop seven strokes in six holes and finish tied for 15th.
Norman and McIlroy both fit the academic, and popular, idea of a choke. Arsenal don’t.
Greg Norman (left) choked on the final day of the 1996 Masters as Nick Faldo (right) won
Rory McIlroy endured a disastrous final round to throw away the Masters lead in 2011
It is not as if, this season in particular, they have ever been so far ahead of City or Liverpool that not to win the title would seem outlandish.
If anything, they have grafted their way into contention, eking out results without quite playing as well as they did last season.
They’re not choking. Maybe they’re not quite good enough but that’s yet to be proven and anyway, it’s an entirely different thing.
The truth is that everyone expected City to win the title this season and everyone has continued to expect City to win it. They are, after all, trying to win an unprecedented fourth title in a row. They are one of the greatest teams English football has ever seen.
If you lose to Goliath, that’s not choking. That’s just bowing to a superior force. That’s what I don’t like about the idea that Arsenal have somehow ‘bottled it’ in the Premier League because of one defeat to Aston Villa.
They have gone head-to-head with City for most of the season. They took four points off them from the two times they met. They have shown resilience and character in abundance to get this far.
Yes, I thought their display against Bayern was disappointing and that they were overawed by their opponents’ history.
But they drew the game 2-2. And they ended the game strongly, not meekly. They did not fade away. They did not submit when Bayern took a first-half lead. They were outplayed, yes, but they refused to give in. That’s not choking.
Manchester City are past masters at getting over the line in a Premier League title race
City boosted their goal difference by thrashing Luton 5-1 in the Premier League on Saturday
Last season, Mikel Arteta’s side blew a lead at the top of Premier League with three successive draws in April against weaker sides and a crushing loss to City.
Arsenal are stronger and tougher than that now. They are a team on the rise. They are a team that is getting closer and closer.
I think this iteration of Arsenal is too good to fade away again. That’s not the same as thinking they will win the title but it is the same as thinking they are packed with players now who will not go quietly into the night. Villa was always going to be a tough game and the gap to City is only two points.
Arsenal, and Arteta, deserve our admiration for what they have achieved this season. If they do not win the league, it will not because they were clones of Norman or McIlroy.
It will not be because they are not made of the right stuff or because they lack cojones or because they choked. It will be because Manchester City were better.
I’m sure I recall being told by impressionable people that not only was Todd Boehly, the Chelsea co-owner, the smartest man in the room but that his new policy of spending vast amounts of money on every football player he set eyes on but staggering payments over long periods was the way forward that everyone else was too stupid to see.
How strange then that there appears to be some alarm that new Chelsea accounts show a wage bill that is way above £400m and a club desperately trying to reduce its losses by selling property to a sister company.
There is suddenly alarm for Todd Boehly and Chelsea after their wage bill skyrocketed
Oh, and Chelsea sit in mid-table almost 30 points behind leaders Manchester City, although I’m sure Chelsea have constructed ‘modelling’ that shows they should actually be first.
Until that modelling turns into something real, maybe English football should be spared Boehly’s smug lectures on his financial acumen.
In his protracted paean to greed in The Times last week, Premier League chief executive Richard Masters wrote that the organisation was ‘in positive dialogue with the EFL and the FA, aiming to secure the future of the game with a long-lasting settlement on key issues’.
That sound you hear echoing around the grounds of the 72 EFL clubs is bitter and incredulous laughter.
