Martin Keown ‘fumed at Arsene Wenger’ over Invincibles tag during iconic Arsenal season
Gilberto Silva has revealed how Arsene Wenger’s aspirations for an unbeaten season had Martin Keown nervously sweating.
Silva and Keown were members of the iconic Gunners squad that did not taste defeat in the 2003/04 Premier League season, earning them the legendary tag of the ‘Invincibles’.
Across the entire campaign, Wenger’s side picked up 26 wins and 12 draws for a total of 90 points – 11 more than second-placed Chelsea.
The title stood as Arsenal’s last Premier League crown until this season as Mikel Arteta’s side ended a 22-year wait.
Although things may have seemed calm on the outside of London Colney during the unbeaten season, Silva revealed on talkSPORT Drive that it was far from the case.
With the Gunners continuing to pick up results, talk of an undefeated season refused to go away.
Wenger decided he’d lean into it and talked up his side’s hopes of ending the season without a loss in the media, something that Keown strongly disagreed with.
How Wenger’s quip had Keown worried
“One day, Martin Keown, he said, ‘Yes, you are the boss, yet you say we can go unbeaten? How can you put the pressure on us?'” Silva said on talkSPORT Drive.
“But to be honest, this kind of thing did not put pressure on me. I knew we had a good team.
“Of course, we didn’t think about going the whole season unbeaten. We want to win the league, this is the priority. To win the league, you had to win the games and as much as you can.
“At the time, we had to fight very hard against Manchester United… They were always very tough to play against.
“But we went step-by-step and at the moment, at some stage, we got so much confidence that we could beat anyone else.”
Unsurprisingly, no team has managed to match the feats of Arsenal’s Invincibles.
After all, the squad featured a number of superstars including Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp and Patrick Vieira, to name just three.
The Gunners of 2007/08 came relatively close, as they finished the campaign with just three defeats, but it was only good enough for a third-place finish.
Despite finishing with five losses this season, it did not derail Arsenal from ending a lengthy title drought.
In fact, they enjoyed a seven-point buffer between them and Manchester City, who finished second.
Could Arsenal’s current crop exceed the Invincibles?
Yet they could end the campaign on an even higher note, as Arteta’s men await Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final on Saturday.
If the Gunners manage to pull it off, it would mark the club’s maiden Champions League crown.
Not only that, Arsenal legend Perry Groves believes the current crop of stars would exceed the Invincibles as the club’s all-time heroes.
“I said earlier, when we had eight games to go, this group of players are eight games away from immortality, from being the greatest team we’ve ever had” Groves said on Inside Gooners.
“When we win it, it will be the greatest team, the greatest squad the club has ever had because there’s no argument.”
Ex-Gunners midfielder Adrian Clarke wasn’t as willing to go as far as Groves regarding this team being Arsenal’s greatest, pointing out they don’t have an ‘unbelievable individual’ quite like Henry.
However, Clarke believes winning the Premier League and Champions League would be ‘the greatest managerial feat of all’.
“Taking it from where we were when he (Arteta) took over and also with the backdrop of three back-to-back-to-back second-place finishes, to then go and do the greatest season in the history of the club, would be the greatest managerial feat this club has ever seen,” Clarke said.
“I’m desperate for it to happen because it couldn’t happen to a better bunch of people. I think they all deserve all the glory they’re going to get.”
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