The mere mention of the Invincibles tends to elicit the same response from their opponents, even 20 years on.
A deep puff of the cheeks is let out as if to make room for banished memories to flow back in.
“Where do I start?” they ask.
Perhaps it is wise to brace themselves before revisiting their meetings with Arsene Wenger’s last great Arsenal team, the 2003-04 edition whose ‘0’ never had to go.
Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp, Patrick Vieira and Sol Campbell. It was a footballing vertebrae of Jurassic proportions, but rather than hone in on an individual player, the first place many go to is the tunnel.
“They were a team of giants,” says former Wolves midfielder Alex Rae, who checks in at 5ft 6in (168cm).
“I remember standing there with Colin Cameron who, believe it or not, is shorter than me. We turned, saw Vieira, then turned back to each other. ‘Look at the size of these boys!’
“It was like the Billy Connolly sketch where we’re the two wee Scottish guys saying: ‘Let’s get into them,’ and then you’ve got these guys at 6ft 4in looking right through you.”
Patrick Vieira taking on Alex Rae (Mike Egerton/EMPICS via Getty Images)
For Leeds United’s Dom Matteo, that is also what caught him off guard.
“They had presence. I was captain at Leeds in that season and I’m walking to the front of the line where Vieira is ready to go. He’s absolutely massive,” Matteo tells The Athletic.
“I’m not saying I was scared or intimidated because I didn’t think like that, but if you thought you were going to bully them or if you thought they might be a soft touch, those few minutes in the tunnel told you a totally different story.
“It can get into your head before you’ve kicked a ball. I can still see Vieira leaving a bit on Eirik Bakke in the tunnel before we lost 5-0 at Highbury. I didn’t play in the first game at Elland Road but something must have gone on between them. Vieira hadn’t forgotten. He was waiting for Bakke and as soon as he saw him, he barged straight through him, a bit like: ‘I’m right here, don’t think I’ve let it go.’
“They were ultra-competitive, they were ruthless. Never mind the fact they had ridiculous amounts of talent.”
This week marks 20 years since Arsenal embarked on the famous season in which they played all 38 Premier League games without recording a single defeat.
Not since 12 clubs launched the English football league in 1888-89, when Preston North End went 22 games undefeated, had a team achieved the feat of invincibility. That was the Victorian era, however, when football as an organised, commercial entity was only just emerging.
The game then was largely viewed as little more than a pastime by many and the sport did not dominate the public conscience. The reason 115 years passed before it was achieved in the modern, global, cash-rich era is that it is the ultimate act of quality, consistency and durability.
None of Sir Alex Ferguson’s dominant Manchester United teams, Chelsea’s array of title juggernauts, Jurgen Klopp’s all-conquering Liverpool side or Pep Guardiola’s serial winners at Manchester City have managed to do it.
Arsenal won 26 games and drew the other 12. They were not perfect and it now stands as only the joint-12th-greatest points total recorded since the establishment of the Premier League in 1992, but the accolade of being impossible to beat for an entire season carries weight.
Wenger’s side has formed the stencil for subsequent Arsenal teams to emulate. And last season was the closest they have come to ending the drought.
Mikel Arteta’s team will be feeling the pressure this time, especially given this season’s home kit pays homage to the Invincibles by featuring a white trimming containing the sequence of results from that season.
Wenger gradually reinvented the team he inherited in 1996, transforming the perception of the championship-winning team of 1997-98 as solid but boring to expansive and free-flowing.
“They are Prozac for those used to the prosaic,” The Times wrote in February 2004 after they surpassed the club’s unbeaten run from 1990-91 under George Graham.
What made Arsenal unbeatable that year? And what can this Arsenal team learn from them? The Athletic spoke to opposition players involved in some of the most competitive duels that season to lift the curtain on what made them so special.
The first lesson about the Invincibles was delivered on the opening day of the campaign when the streak could have been over before it had even begun.
Arsenal went down to 10 men against Everton after just 25 minutes when Thomas Gravesen picked up the ball in midfield and burst past two players, including Sol Campbell. The Arsenal defender stuck out a leg at the edge of the box and was shown a straight red card for stopping the Dane from bearing down on Jens Lehmann’s goal.
Alan Stubbs’ rifled shot was blocked by a wall of six men, a snapshot of the resistance that would come to underpin the remaining 37-and-three-quarter instalments. Arsenal did not yield to momentum. They weathered the storm and managed to win 2-1 to fire the starting gun.
As well as tests of character, there were plenty of exhibitions of Arsenal’s attacking talent. No team suffered more in their two meetings with Arsenal than Leeds, losing 4-1 at Elland Road and 5-0 at Highbury.
“I played in midfield for that 5-0 at Highbury but most of what I remember is me running back between The Chief (Lucas Radebe) and Dubes (Michael Duberry) and feeling like a third centre-back with the goals flying in,” says Matteo.
For some reason, we played a really high line in that game and I’ve no idea why. It was asking for trouble and it was asking for someone like Henry to do that thing he loved to do – knock the ball past you and then leave you for dead.
They loved smelling blood and they had trigger points, knowing the exact moment to go through you and cut you open. With guys like Henry and Bergkamp, it was like mind games. You were trying to second guess them all the time and sometimes it was impossible. Do you go tight to Henry or do you give him distance?
What I think happened that season was that they developed this aura where everyone knew that if you dropped your standards a little, they were going to do you all ends up. It makes other teams think they’ll be lucky to get anything against them and feel like there’s quite a big chance of you getting battered.
Henry and Bergkamp with the Premier League trophy (Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
Wolves had been promoted only the previous season and were firefighting in an attempt to retain their Premier League status. The 3-0 loss in December was one of those comprehensive matches, but the visit to Molineux in February was trickier, even if Arsenal ran out 3-1 winners in the end.
“They went 1-0 up early and I was thinking it could be a long afternoon, but we equalised and had a one-on-one after that with Lehmann,” says Rae.
“We went in at half-time thinking we were going to be the team to end it as it had become a big talking point by this time. We started the second half well but just as you’re thinking ‘We’re in this’, they give you two rapid punches and you’re lying on the canvas.
“The psychologist at Wolves went into the manager’s office after the game to see Wenger and ask him what his half-time team talk had been.
“He said it is usually the same message: ‘It’s impossible for them to keep up this effort. At some point, someone will physically or mentally switch off and, because of the quality we have on the pitch, the opportunities will present themselves. Stick to the game plan.’
“That’s what happened when Bergkamp played Henry through and the centre-half never matched it. For the last 20 minutes, we couldn’t get a kick of the ball.”
Wenger subsequently headhunted the psychologist that summer as he appreciated his inquisitive questioning despite losing that day.
Rae was a combative midfielder who grew up in the youth academy at Rangers, where Graeme Souness was the emblematic figure. He revelled in the physical side of the game and was used to Premier League opposition having been at Sunderland. For him, one of Wenger’s Invincibles stands head and shoulders above the rest.
“I loved playing against Vieira but, man, what a player. He was the best,” he says.
“He gave you a chance because he was so graceful and didn’t panic on the ball, but the amount of times it would pitch up about four foot and you’d fancy yourself to get a nibble only for him to flick it over your head… He was incredible as you thought you had him, but you really never did.”
It’s a common theme among those to have played directly against Arsenal’s midfield in the early 2000s. It could have been Gilberto Silva, Edu or Ray Parlour, but Vieira was the constant as captain.
Lee Bowyer was not shy in mixing it and his Newcastle team gave Arsenal one of their most stressful tests of the 2003-04 season.
“Vieira gave as good as he got,” he says. “The thought back then was that you could get in the face of some of the foreign players as they wouldn’t like it, but those lads were physical and enjoyed that side of the game, so you knew you were in for a battle.
“With Vieira, whenever you felt like you had got away from him he’d slide and stretch that long leg out and get a toe on the ball. You’d think: ‘How have you done that? I thought I was gone!’
“When he was in possession, he’d use his wingspan to hold you off and that’s when you felt how strong he was. Usually, we’d look to Shearer to bully centre-halves, but with that midfield in front of them, it made their job so much easier as they covered the ground so well.”
Vieira mixes it with Jermaine Jenas and Lee Bowyer (Owen Humphreys – PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images)
Newcastle were one of the teams Wenger name-checked as their rivals going into the season given they finished a place behind Arsenal in third the year previous.
They arrived at Highbury in September with optimism and a determination to take the game to them, but that belief was fuelled further when Vieira went off injured in the 18th minute, just after Henry had put them ahead.
“It weakened them so we got a lift from it as he was their leader. They weren’t a loud team as I remember the spare player would stick their arm in the air to signal for the ball instead,” says Bowyer.
“If they weren’t performing, they weren’t shy in letting each other know. I remember Keown in that 3-2 game being, let’s say, very vocal when we got it back level.
“Henry won it with a penalty and they saw it out really well, but that’s why their bench was so important when you started to tire. Pires came on and he was so good at killing the game and changing the pace of it. He would take the ball, stand still to invite you in and then take it on a run and win a foul.”
Most opponents accepted that they were inferior to Arsenal on a technical level and looked for ways to level the playing field by making it a physical game.
The same went for Southampton when they visited Highbury in February, but Danny Higginbotham soon realised there was a limit to the success you could have with that tactic.
“In the lead-up to their first goal, I went up for a header with Parlour and he caught me with an elbow. They were comfortable going into a physical fight with you as that is when their football would come through,” Higginbotham says.
“When I was at Stoke later in my career, Arsenal still had wonderful players but they didn’t have the physical element. We knew there was something we could be better at and that’s why we beat them 3-0 in the FA Cup. We could try it in the Invincible era but they’d come out on top in that department, too.”
Arsenal’s second goal to seal the win that day is not one Higginbotham looks back on fondly, but neither does he have a solution as to how he could have stopped what Henry did to him and Rory Delap (below) just prior to scoring it.
“I actually read what he was going to do but he still got away from me! The best thing you could hope to do was get tight so that he wasn’t facing you because once he got his momentum up, you couldn’t stop him.
“He had such incredible pace that he would be jogging and you’d be at top speed finding it hard to keep up. He could do all his tricks and changes of direction at 100mph.”
Henry finished second in the Ballon D’Or that year and ended with 39 goals in all competitions — 30 of them in the Premier League.
He produced audacious skill on a weekly basis, but in the 2-0 away win away at Blackburn, he went a step further. As goalkeeper Brad Friedel went to kick the ball from his hands, he pinched the ball away with his foot while it was tossed in the air and tapped into an empty net. The goal was disallowed.
Thierry Henry cleaned up for Arsenal – and for himself – as part of the Invincibles (Clive Mason/Getty Images)
“That wasn’t really an incident to me. He should just have been booked,” Friedel tells The Athletic.
“You’re in possession of the ball until it hits your foot, so what he did was an infraction on the rules. I wasn’t upset with Thierry trying to do it, I’ve got no problem with people trying to push the envelope a little bit.”
What about when he curled home a free kick from 30 yards after the break?
“Henry liked to come in from the goalkeeper’s right so you knew his favourite was to curl it around you into the far post, but he was so quick-footed and precise that if he saw you leaning he would take it to the near post, so you couldn’t cheat.
“He could wrap his foot around it to create such power it was like he had hit it with his laces. The variety meant you couldn’t gain an advantage reading him. I’d rather face a shot that was sheer power as the accuracy usually wasn’t as devastating. If you anticipated, you were dead.
“Bergkamp had this melancholy approach to the game. It was all very calm and you’re watching them rotate looking for an opening. You could feel comfortable and within two seconds I’m on the ground. He could place it superbly.”
Ewood Park was not an easy place to visit at that time, as shown by the fact Manchester United failed to win a Premier League game there between 1999 and 2006.
That Arsenal team managed to grind out wins by one or two goals so often, though, and Friedel believes it was their efficiency that helped them be so strong across the full 38 games.
“They knew when to take a break. You can’t go full tilt 100 per cent of the time, but when they really needed the burst, they never seemed to be tired,” he says.
“They had the killer instinct. When the game was on the line and you see Bergkamp and Henry closing you down, it sent you a message. That’s why they were invincible.”
Former Fulham midfielder Lee Clark learned how suffocating their pressing could be despite conceding only once to them in two games, becoming the first team in 46 games to keep them out for a full 90 minutes at Highbury.
“It was a bit backs-to-the wall at times. We were a team who liked to play through but I remember feeling like I had so little time to think on the ball,” Clark says.
“You would have a picture in your mind when you were receiving it and then suddenly, as you turned, they had shut off every angle and were surrounding you. It was so hard to find a way out.
“If you ever needed your goalkeeper to play a blinder, then that was the day! And big Edwin did.
“The problem in the second game was that we played better but he maybe got a bit carried away and tried to dribble around Pires, which gave them the goal!”
Portsmouth were one of only two teams not to lose to Arsenal that season, along with Manchester United. Does former Scotland international Nigel Quashie hold onto some cherished memories of being in that select group?
“Yeah, I remember I slept the best I’ve ever done after it! I should have brought a pair of Nike Free Runs instead of a pair of football boots. You were just chasing. I even asked the ref at one point if he wanted to bring another ball on so I could get a touch!
“You watched them on Match of the Day and there would be a delay of two seconds until they played through a gap. Down on the pitch that’s blinking pace. When they’re keeping it so well and shifting one and two touch, the ball travelled at serious speed.”
Portsmouth competed well under instructions from Harry Redknapp to get in their faces high up the pitch. They were the first team to take points from Arsenal that season when they drew 1-1 in north London, and they again took the lead in the third-last game of the season.
“We were doing well but it was breathtaking how they could flick the switch,” Quashie says.
“Pires left his leg in and won a penalty (in the first game). We couldn’t believe it as we carried on normally. It took the wind out of you as we put in so much effort to get ahead, so I wish VAR had been around then!
“Yakubu had two massive chances to win it at the end for us but Lehmann was massive in goal and probably deserves more credit.”
Sealing the title at White Hart Lane (Odd Andersen/AFP via Getty Images)
Arsenal had already wrapped up the title by then, at the home of their rivals, with a 2-2 draw against Tottenham. It meant when they arrived at the final day of the season, a home game against Leicester City, it was expected to be a procession.
Paul Dickov changed that when he headed in a first-half opener.
“We had a tactic to hit a lot of diagonal balls onto Ashley Cole and play from there,” says Leicester’s James Scowcroft.
“That’s how we got the goal in the home game (a 1-1 draw) and we took the lead by breaking down that side, but it was just a case of surviving the 90 minutes.
“They didn’t get going and I remember Wenger having a go at Henry. He just went through the gears. It was like a kid in the playground. People rave about (Erling) Haaland but he is nowhere near that level of all-round player that Henry was.”
Twenty years on, the football produced by Arsenal’s Invincibles stands the test of time. For their opponents, it is the perfect marriage of style and steel that made them the ultimate team.
They could be slick, they could be nasty, they could counter-attack and they could hunt you down. Whatever answers the game demanded, Wenger’s team had them.
Additional reporting: Phil Hay
(Top photo: Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
