North London's Winter Came Early

Would Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur follow suit?

Since the transfer window opened, this had been one of the most discussed topics among Premier League fans and the media.

It was also the problem giving Pochettino and Wenger headaches.

These bitter North London rivals had still been hot topics in the title race a season ago, but now they had become a pair of fellow sufferers.

They watched Chelsea, Manchester United, and Manchester City throw money around more extravagantly than the last, while clutching their own tight budgets so hard they barely dared breathe.

Colney Training Ground, the manager's office.

Wenger sat alone behind his desk. The main lights were off, with only a desk lamp illuminated, and a handwritten transfer target list lay before him.

Night had already fallen outside the window. The silver-haired professor sat in the half-light like a frozen statue.

More than ten minutes earlier, he had taken this list to Kroenke.

After listening, Arsenal's majority shareholder had said only one thing: "I'll consider it." There had been no follow-up after that.

Wenger knew that when Kroenke said "I'll consider it," it basically meant, "Figure it out yourself."

He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. His gaze fell on the coffee cup at hand; it had gone completely cold.

Leaning back in his chair, he stared at the ceiling as his thoughts drifted beyond his control.

Twenty-one years.

In 1996, he had come to London from Nagoya Grampus in Japan.

A Frenchman in glasses who spoke broken English, mocked by the entire English media as "a country bumpkin who doesn't even know what Arsenal is."

At the time, no one had expected that this "country bumpkin" would lead Arsenal to the Double in his second year.

The 2003–04 season, that Invincibles side.