‘Owen was doing things that made me think, “Hang on, if so-and-so was in that position, would he have done that?” And the answer was, “No, he wouldn’t have had the pace.”’
Glenn Hoddle
Number 9s during the Premier League’s formative years were stereotypically tall, strong target men who stationed themselves inside the penalty box and thrived on crosses. Dion Dublin, Duncan Ferguson and Chris Sutton were the classic examples; they could out-muscle and out-jump opposition centre-backs, but rarely threatened to outrun them.
The Premier League’s newfound love of technical football, and its new breed of deep-lying, creative forwards, necessitated a different mould of striker. Increasingly, managers wanted strikers who could sprint in behind the opposition defence to reach clever through-balls between opponents. Gradually, speed replaced aerial power as the most revered attribute up front.
Two of the most memorable Premier League goals in 1997 were solo runs by quick strikers dribbling through the Manchester United defence: Derby County’s Paulo Wanchope in April and Coventry’s Darren Huckerby in December, both in surprise 3–2 wins for the underdogs over the Premier League champions. These goals epitomised the change in the nature of centre-forwards, but the most revolutionary individuals were two teenage prodigies: Arsenal’s Nicolas Anelka and Liverpool’s Michael Owen.
The similarities between Anelka and Owen are striking. Both were born in 1979, made their debuts in the second half of 1996/97, before making a serious impact in 1997/98. That season Anelka lifted the title with Arsenal, while Owen won the Premier League Golden Boot and the PFA Young Player of the Year. The following season Owen retained the Golden Boot, while Anelka finished just one goal behind and succeeded Owen as the Young Player winner – although he courted controversy by going nightclubbing rather than attending the awards ceremony.
When both strikers left the Premier League it was for Real Madrid; Anelka in 1999, Owen five years later, although both lasted just a season in the Spanish capital and played the majority of their career in England. Anelka eventually hit 125 Premier League goals, Owen 150. Both were rather distant, aloof characters, and despite all their achievements, neither are remembered as a legend at any one particular club. The main similarity, though, is simple: they were astonishingly quick. Pace had always been a dangerous weapon in a striker’s armoury. The likes of Andy Cole and Ian Wright – 187 and 113 Premier League goals respectively – were prolific in the Premier League’s first half-decade, and clearly weren’t traditional target men. However, they were primarily finishers who happened to boast a turn of speed. Anelka and Owen were essentially sprinters also capable of scoring, and in an era where centre-backs were built for battles in the air, scored easy goals by exploiting their sluggishness on the ground.
Anelka was a wonderful talent, boasting a sensational mix of speed, trickery and coolness when one-on-one with the goalkeeper. In Premier League terms the Frenchman was a forerunner of compatriot Thierry Henry, a more celebrated player who became an inspiration for the likes of Theo Walcott, Daniel Sturridge, Danny Welbeck and Anthony Martial. That mould of athletic, lightning-quick striker can essentially be traced back to Anelka’s initial impact for Arsenal.
Anelka started his first full season, 1997/98, behind Wright in Arsène Wenger’s pecking order, but had a crucial impact in Arsenal’s double-winning campaign. His first Arsenal goal was the opener against title rivals Manchester United in November 1997, a crucial 3–2 victory, and he ended the season by scoring the second in the 2–0 FA Cup Final triumph over Newcastle. His most typical goal came in a 4–1 victory away at Blackburn Rovers on Easter Monday, when he collected a long chip from Nigel Winterburn, streaked away from the opposition defence, then dummied a shot to put goalkeeper Alan Fettis on the ground, took the ball around him and lifted it past the despairing lunge of a defender into the net. That made it 4–0 before half-time, a typical example of Arsenal’s ability to blitz opponents through speed in the opening stages, and produced a round of applause from mesmerised Blackburn supporters.
Signed for just £500,000 from Paris Saint-Germain when Wenger exploited a loophole in France’s system of contracting youngsters, Anelka impressed on the pitch but struggled to make friends. Despite his sensational speed he possessed a curious running style in his early years: head down, shoulders slumped awkwardly, barely aware of anything around him. It reflected his introverted nature and his inability to communicate with teammates, who struggled to understand him. He wasn’t an entertainer and suggested he’d happily play matches in deserted stadiums. ‘I’m bored in London – I don’t know anyone here and I don’t want to,’ he once said. Anelka never smiled, even after scoring or when lifting a trophy, and lasted just two complete seasons with Arsenal before leaving for £23m, a sensational return on Wenger’s investment two years earlier.
Arsenal effectively spent the proceeds of Anelka’s sale on Henry – and a new training ground. Anelka’s transfer was the culmination of a summer-long story that arguably set the tone for long-running transfer sagas of later years, with Anelka pledging allegiance to Lazio, Juventus and Real Madrid at various points. Some aspects were ludicrous; one of his brothers, also acting as his agent, once claimed that Anelka had settled on Lazio because their shirt colour was a perfect blend of the white of Real Madrid, his ideal destination, and the blue of France. He eventually ended up at Real anyway, with Sven-Göran Eriksson’s Lazio unsuccessfully switching their attentions to Owen, showing how the two teenage sensations were viewed almost interchangeably.
Meanwhile, Anelka’s brothers became pantomime villains for their determination to move him around Europe regularly, collecting signing-on fees in the process. Anelka eventually made 12 transfers, his globetrotting career taking in France, Spain, Italy, Turkey, China and India. Despite his initial dislike of England, however, Anelka always returned, subsequently representing Liverpool, Manchester City, Bolton, Chelsea and West Bromwich Albion. His final Premier League goal was scored 16 years after his first, and was his most infamous – he celebrated with the ‘quenelle’ gesture, described by experts as an ‘inverted Nazi salute’. The FA banned him for five games, Anelka promptly declaring that he was leaving West Brom, who announced they were sacking him anyway. It was a fitting end to an incredibly strange Premier League career.
In his early days, one of Anelka’s most impressive displays came for France in a 2–0 victory over England at Wembley in February 1999. He scored both goals, and had another shot hit the bar and cross the goal line, not spotted by the linesman. Bizarrely, Anelka wore goalkeeper gloves throughout that game on a bitterly cold February evening in London, and thrived on playing ahead of World Player of the Year Zinedine Zidane, running in behind to reach his through-balls. It was also significant that Anelka outplayed an England defence featuring Lee Dixon, Tony Adams and Martin Keown ahead of David Seaman, with Chelsea’s Graeme Le Saux the only man breaking up the Arsenal connection at the back. Even when his opponents knew his game perfectly, they simply couldn’t stop him. ‘We’ve found our Ronaldo,’ said France captain Didier Deschamps – a significant remark. France had won the World Cup the previous year despite their lack of a clinical striker, while the rest of the world despaired at Ronaldo’s pre-final breakdown, which evidently affected his Brazilian teammates. Anelka was so good that he had improved the world champions.
At club level, Anelka proved the ideal partner for Dennis Bergkamp. Although the Dutchman formed fine relationships with both Wright and Henry either side of Anelka, he considered the young Frenchman ideal for his style. ‘As a strike partner, Nicolas was probably the best I’ve had at Highbury in terms of understanding,’ Bergkamp once said, even when playing up front alongside Henry. ‘The way Nicolas played suited me perfectly because he was always looking to run forward on goal. That made it easy for me to predict what he wanted and to know instinctively where he would be on the pitch. That directness was just right. Thierry tends to want the ball to come to him or to drift towards the flanks more. Nicolas was focused on heading for goal and scoring. He loved having the ball played for him to run on to and going one-on-one with the keeper.’
The best example of their combination play came in a 5–0 victory over Leicester City in February 1999, which featured an Anelka hat-trick before half-time. Leicester’s defence, and in particular towering,