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Your support makes all the difference.Arsenal 0
Port Vale 0
Only one Arsenal player emerged from this grim stalemate with his standing enhanced. Unhappily for Arsene Wenger, who must now add the arcane pleasures of the Potteries to an increasingly congested fixture schedule, it was the suspended Ian Wright.
He has scored just once in his last nine appearances, is a serial disciplinary offender and could well have been an Everton or Middlesbrough player by now. But the sight of Port Vale's patched up defence relishing a rare clean sheet confirmed for Wenger what 35,000 supporters already recognised: even in his 35th year, Wright remains indispensable.
What should worry the Arsenal manager is that it is a status the England striker enjoys by default. The only other viable partner for Dennis Bergkamp, the 18-year-old Nicolas Anelka, was obviously foremost in his thoughts when he acknowledged that certain players were simply "not ready" for the first team.
Wenger pronounced himself mystified by the discrepancy between Anelka's awesome potential and his anaemic performance against Vale. "Every player will tell you he's a super talent, but he can't show it," he said.
Persuaded to elaborate, Wenger listed his compatriots' shortcomings. He lacked anticipation and aggression. His movement off the ball was poor. Nor, unlike the extrovert Wright, was Anelka a naturally confident character. As critiques go, it made Glenn Hoddle's comments about Michael Owen sound like lavish praise.
So Arsenal's record marksman will return in tomorrow's Coca-Cola Cup derby at West Ham, yet Anelka's travails are symptomatic of a deeper malaise. There is insufficient depth in the squad, while the young understudies are too raw to provide adequate competition for a surfeit of old stagers.
The long term answer, mused Wenger, was for the Gunners to produce better home-grown players. The corollary of that might appear to be an influx of big-money buys in the interim, but the Frenchman warned: "It's very difficult to improve your team. When you go abroad for a player, a club like Arsenal used to fight with 10 other clubs. Now, because of TV money, you compete with 60 or 70 of the same financial potential."
Arsenal's most pressing need is for creativity of the kind Liam Brady and Paul Davis once supplied. A series of abject set-pieces exposed the poverty of their passing. Gilles Grimandi was another weak link; Emmanuel Petit looked what he is, a centre-back operating in midfield; Marc Overmars achieved little more than Anelka, and even Bergkamp fell well below his pre-suspension standards.
Credit is due, however, to Vale's pounds 1m team. Making nonsense of their place at the foot of the First Division form table - one point out of 24 - and the fact that both Neil Aspin and Mark Snijders had spent the previous month injured, they put in what Wenger conceded was "a great defensive display".
Stewart Talbot marked Patrick Vieira into mediocrity, and Ian Bogie, who has the priceless ability to make a frenzied contest stand still while he selects his passing option, demonstrated technique on a par with opponents who will perform on the global stage next summer.
John Rudge, who was also splendidly served by goalkeeper Paul Musselwhite, was too shrewd to claim that Vale would emulate the epic Cup victories over Tottenham and Everton. Having devised a strategy to stifle one of the Premiership's top sides, he is aware that beating them may prove more problematic for a team with one goal in 762 minutes.
Still, a night in Burslem will be an education for the urbane Wenger. In the meantime, as the onus falls on Wright to salvage Arsenal's season, it will be revealing to hear the reaction of those who booed them off on Saturday were John Hartson and George Graham to cause their old club further grief at Upton Park or when Leeds visit Highbury.
Arsenal (4-4-2): Seaman; Grimandi, Keown, Bould, Winterburn; Parlour (Boa Morte, 70), Vieira, Petit (Hughes, h-t), Overmars; Bergkamp, Anelka (Wreh, 70). Substitutes not used: Upson, Manninger (gk).
Port Vale (4-5-1): Musselwhite; Hill, Snijders, Aspin, Tankard; Ainsworth, Porter, Bogie, Talbot, Corden; Naylor (Foyle, 79). Substitutes not used: Mills, Glover, Jansson, Van Heusden (gk).
Referee: P Alcock (Halstead, Kent).
Bookings: Vale: Porter, Corden, Talbot, Snijders.
Man of the match: Bogie.
Attendance: 37,471.
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