Robson's birthday wish for a city crying out for glory

The sign on the advertising board behind him said "Sage" and the trophy standing on the table next to him bore testimony to the enduring effect of his sagacity. Eleven days short of his 70th birthday, Sir Bobby Robson had the Premiership Manager of the Month award for company at his weekly press conference.

Not that he was clutching it close to his bosom. The silverware Newcastle United's manager really wants at St James' Park is of the first-class club variety that was last deposited in the trophy cabinet when Bob Moncur returned from Budapest with the Fairs Cup in 1969.

"With our public support," Sir Bobby said, pondering the pressures of managerial life near the top, "this is a major football city not demanding success but crying out for it." If the cries of the Toon Army are to have any hope of meeting with success this season, the fortress of St James' will need to hold out this afternoon. Newcastle have won their last 11 Premiership matches at home, but today they will have to contend with the firepower of the Gunners.

Robson's last match as a sexagenarian is a make-or-break chance for his team to turn the domestic title race into a three-horse affair. Victory would put them five points behind Arsenal with a game in hand. "We know what we're playing for," Robson said. And the knight of St James' knows what he and his team will be playing against: the best team in the country, in his estimation, and one of the best football managers of all time. Robson, who left school at 14 to work as an apprentice electrician at the local pit, holds Arsène Wenger, the economics graduate from Strasbourg University, in the highest regard.

He might have the January Manager of the Month prize to polish, but Wenger has the two pots which matter most, the Premiership trophy and the FA Cup, both on display at Highbury – and for the second time in the Frenchman's seven years in England.

"I first got to know Arsène when he was at Monaco," Robson reflected. "I used to pop over as England manager to watch Mark Hateley and Glenn Hoddle. He's done an exceptional job at Arsenal. He runs a great club and he runs it very well. He's one of Arsenal's finest ever managers and they've had some very good ones.

"He's a good judge of a player. Look at Pires. Look at Henry. Look at Wiltord. Look at Ljungberg. Look at Vieira. He's handled everything over here so well. He's under pressure at the top end, because people expect Arsenal to win everything, and he handles that pressure. He handles it very well."

The pressure at Highbury is something Robson himself once craved. In the summer of 1995 he accepted the job of replacing George Graham, only for the president of Porto to revoke a verbal agreement to allow him to leave the Portuguese club if a "big club" made him an offer. The lost opportunity remains one of the biggest disappointments in Robson's 53 years in football, but it would be another if he were to finish his career without ending the decades of trophy-less hurt on Tyneside.

Last season Sir Bobby's boys finished 16 points behind Arsène's Arsenal. Their challenge fell away after they lost to the Gunners in the corresponding fixture, a 2-0 defeat precipitated by the balletic Dennis Bergkamp strike that left Nikos Dabizas standing like an ancient Greek statue.

"We've improved since last year," Robson said. "We have a better squad, a stronger squad. Our younger players are better. Kieron Dyer's a better player. Jermaine Jenas is a better player. Aaron Hughes is a better player. Andy O'Brien is a better player. Craig Bellamy's a better player. And Laurent Robert should be a better player.

"I can see that we've gone up two grades. Our home form tells you that. We lost games here at home last year. We've never looked like losing one this year – not even the one we lost against Leeds. We played very well against Leeds, absolutely murdered them for an hour."

It would be a sign of progress if Newcastle were to murder Arsenal for 60 minutes this afternoon. It would be even more of a step forward if their defence were to hold out for a fourth successive match. Jonathan Woodgate will not be fit or available to make his debut until the visit of Chelsea on 1 March, but the £9m man will be presented to the crowd before kick-off. There will also be a formal presentation of the Manager of the Month award to the man who turns 70 on the day his team next play, away to Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions' League a week on Tuesday.

At the age of 69 years and 356 days, Bobby Robson only has the one major domestic prize to his name and it is 25 years now since Ipswich's FA Cup win at Wembley. "Can I see myself ever wanting to give up?" he said on Friday, pondering an enquiry. "When it gets too much for me. When I've had enough of it. When I get irritated by it. When I don't need it. The answer to that would be yes... But all of those things, at the moment, are not in my head."

Come 4.05pm today the only thing in that wise old head will be the trophy gleaming brightest in the Highbury display case.