Steve Bruce leapt like an Atlantic salmon scaling a waterfall to head the ball beyond the diving Chris Woods to not only propel Manchester United towards their first Premier League title but spawn a myth that would spread through English football in the years ahead. It was the start of “Fergie Time”.
Bruce’s winner against Sheffield Wednesday back in April 1993 arrived in the seventh minute of stoppage time, back when referees used to calculate additional time on the back of a fag packet and that sort of time added on was rare.
For decades after, fans and pundits would discuss and debate Fergie Time – the extra minutes given to Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United sides to find late winners. Even though, much later, the stats disproved the theory.
But, ultimately, that didn’t matter – it was about the mystical folklore, the pressure it exerted on opponents, the fear it instilled in them that if they didn’t get the game done in good time, Fergie Time would come to haunt them.
And it is the sort of perception that has taken shape around Mikel Arteta’s Premier League-topping Arsenal side, from Leandro Trossard’s 11th-minute stoppage time strike in the Community Shield at Wembley against Manchester City to level a game Arsenal would go on to win on penalties to Declan Rice’s devastating winner against Luton Town on Tuesday night in the seventh minute of time added on.
You could say it’s only Luton, but Only Luton have already got a point off Liverpool at Kenilworth Road and came close against Spurs there too. Arsenal play a teasingly delicate style of football under Arteta and Luton wanted to see if the players would break. Gabriel Martinelli, in particular, found himself on the end of some hefty challenges. Instead, Rice’s header, to win a game in which they had twice been ahead and once behind, displayed Arsenal’s resilience under the most intense pressure.
And then there are all the late goals in between. Drawing with Manchester United, Arsenal scored in the sixth and 11th minutes of stoppage time to turn one point into three.
There was an 86th-minute winner against Manchester City in the league. An 89th-minute winner against Brentford away from home. They were two goals down against Chelsea but managed to escape with a point via goals in the 77th and 84th minute.
Those extra points earned late on are already making a significant difference: late goals have earned Arsenal nine points in the league this season – an average of 0.6 per game. Over a season that would work out at an additional 22.8 points. Marginal moments with massive potential gains.
Rice, a new signing in the summer who appears to be the missing puzzle piece from their close but failed title-pursuit last season, described it as “that never-say-die attitude that we’ve got that we keep pushing, keep fighting to the end” after the win in Luton. He added: “We should start scoring a bit earlier! But to score in added time, it shows what we are made of and we will never stop believing.”
That victory moved them five clear at the top of the table, a gap expected to close when Liverpool and Manchester City next play. But, more than the current points tally, they have the whiff of champions about them.
It is, of course, too early to say who will be the front runners coming round the final bend on the last few months of the season. But you can see it taking shape, get a hint of what is to come, a sense of how it will unfold.
It doesn’t matter that you can’t feel it yet, or really truly know it is there. Like Fergie Time, it is about creating the myth, generating that doubt in your opponents, fuelling the idea that Arsenal will score late against you, inducing that panic that will win matches without late goals. And by the end of May we will see if Arteta’s Aura has won them a title.
