In part two of our interview with Ray Parlour, the former Arsenal midfielder talks to JOE about being Invincible, and if the current Gunners side can go the distance…
Who out of the current Arsenal team do you enjoy watching the most?
We all know they play some great football, they’re really a joy to watch. A neutral would always want to watch Arsenal play.
I always look at my position: centre midfield or right midfield. Aaron Ramsey’s been superb and I just hope that Jack (Wilshere) can have a really good season. He’s gone through terrible injuries over the last two or three years.
You can just see the quality he has when he put the England shirt on and got two cracking goals. So he can do that, but the problem he’s had is just staying fit week-in week-out.
I’m hoping that Wilshere and Ramsey can really have good seasons again because I do enjoy watching them play. They’re two different types of players. Aaron likes to get forward and score goals, whereas Jack is the one who can make things happen and find a pass.
How do you think the current group compares to the Invincibles?
They’ve got a very good squad. It’s probably the best squad they’ve had since the Invincibles.
There’s good harmony, I think there’s a very good team spirit which is so important. You’re going to get highs and lows throughout the season, so when you do get a down you’ve got players there that can say “Okay lads, we’ve had that down, let’s get on with the next one and get back to winning ways.”
We certainly had characters like that in our dressing room in 2004 and I think they’ve got them now.
I think it’s a lot more competitive now, it’s a lot harder to win the Premier League than it was in 2004 when it was really only Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea. Now you’ve got Man City, while Liverpool are trying to get back in the top four. Spurs are trying to improve. Everton are trying to have a better season than they did last year. So it’s a tough league to win.
I certainly believe that Arsenal have got the tools to win it. They’ve got to have a little bit of luck along the way as well, which most teams have. It’s all about being involved at the end of April with two or three games to go. They’ve got a great chance to win it. If they can do that, I’m sure it’ll be a very exciting time for Arsenal fans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCbwiQ4CV2M&feature=youtu.be
How did the Invincibles deal with the pressure of the run-in?
It’s a good question. I don’t think you can worry about how big the game is. We won the league at White Hart Lane in 2004, and probably the hardest four games we played that season were the last four games.
We just had to keep focused on who we had to play. (After winning the league) we faced Birmingham, Portsmouth, Leicester and Fulham. On paper, we should be winning those games easily. That’s where Arsene Wenger did a brilliant job for us. He said: “Look, we’re unbeaten still. Can we keep this going?”
You’ve got to have a winning mentality. We never knew when we were beaten. We could be a goal down, two goals down sometimes, but we knew we had players to come back and win the game.
You’ve got to have the belief you can do it, you’ve got to have confidence that you can do it. I think that the two FA Cup wins in the last two seasons will help Arsenal to say “Look, we are a good side. We can win trophies. Let’s go that extra step now and try and win the league.”
How did you feel when you went 1-0 down in the last game of the Invincibles season?
That’s right, at half-time it was 1-0. Arsene Wenger changed the tactics a bit in the second half and we ended up winning 2-1, so it was an amazing turnaround.
It is tough sometimes, because you’ve done your job for the season. Your motivation is to win the league. Once you do that, you can take your foot off the pedal. In 1998 we did it and we lost 4-0 in the next game. It didn’t matter then, but this time around it did matter because we were still unbeaten.
It wasn’t that long ago that you stopped playing, but it seems the sport has changed an awful lot in that time. Do you agree with that?
It’s got more competitive. There’s no doubt that teams have got better.
When I played Man City were probably in League One. It just shows you how things can change. Maybe it’s got a bit more professional. There’s a lot more at stake.
Football is more of a global brand now than it was when I played. Look at the teams now and where they’re going on pre-season: Australia, America, Singapore. Usually we went pre-season to Austria and places like that. It just shows how big the Premier League is now in the world of football.
ramsey😍😍 with Arsenal's fans in #singapore 💓 pic.twitter.com/aQIgtOyQde
— Aya AL Rahman ʚïɞ (@AyaALRahman1) July 15, 2015
Ray Parlour and the Carlsberg Fan Squad are all about making football better for fans. That means making sure stadiums are filled with real supporters in the 2015/16 season. Follow @CarlsbergFooty to find out how you can win tickets from the Official Beer of the Premier League.
