Ranieri: glory for Gunners only a question of time

Proud man talking: Vote of confidence for Wenger's Arsenal from an old nemesis

It was the evening the prisoner on execution row sensed a reprieve, maybe even a retrial; that rare occasion when the Tinkerman tormented the Professor, damning Arsène Wenger's Champions' League aspirations when they had appeared destined, at last, to be realised.

It was the evening the prisoner on execution row sensed a reprieve, maybe even a retrial; that rare occasion when the Tinkerman tormented the Professor, damning Arsène Wenger's Champions' League aspirations when they had appeared destined, at last, to be realised.

Tuesday 6 April, this year. It is a date that Claudio Ranieri recalls with contentment; Wenger with chagrin. For the Frenchman it was an opportunity missed, with the representatives of the major nations having been brushed aside like so many model soldiers on a battle-reconstruction board. It was the quarter-finals, with Arsenal hosts at an expectant Highbury for the second leg, having drawn 1-1 at Stamford Bridge. Yet even a one- goal half-time advantage was insufficient. Frank Lampard and Wayne Bridge goals quelled the premature triumphalism.

"In the Champions' League, experience of your players [in Europe] is one thing," says Ranieri, now back at his former club Valencia. "But what is really impor-tant is this: that you arrive in the right condition, psychologically fit, at the right moment. When we played against Arsenal, we were at the top. We had played, what, maybe 16 times before against them. It was always that we lost or drew, but it was 1-1, 2-2, 2-1, 3-2, 1-0. Never 4-1. It was always very tight. In the second half, we were magnificent. And why? I think because at that moment we were at the top psychologically, physically. There was the right chemistry."

Ranieri has been back in London to promote his book, a review of last season, Proud Man Walking*, the title a mischievous allusion to the fact that in his final months at Stamford Bridge, following the purchase of Chelsea by Roman Abramovich, this seemingly tortured soul had become "a dead man walking".

He had elected for dignity, not indignation, and it was not just Chelsea followers who had established a regard for him after it became known that Chelsea had attempted to inveigle Sven Goran Eriksson from the England job, in order that he should cuckold Ranieri, so to speak, as coach at Stamford Bridge.

For the Italian to secure a Champions' League final place with a semi-final victory over Monaco would have been a del-icious response to the perceived brutality of the new Chelsea regime. It had appeared not too daunting a task, either, but became so the night he attempted to break the bank in Monte Carlo but instead broke his own heart; when Ranieri tinkered a tad too far. He plunged all his chips on red to secure a victory that would make the second leg a formality. The wheel spun black. Even against 10 men, his team were beaten 3-1.

As he concedes now: "I feel certain that we would not have lost the Monte Carlo leg if I had been unaware of that meeting between the club and Jose Mourinho's agent the evening before. I was the main culprit. I gave in to a weakness. I wanted to win as a way of retaliating."

Now back in Spain with last season's Uefa Cup victors, his affection for England is as undiminished as the belief that an English club can claim the Champions' League trophy. Arsenal are so overdue it has become almost a crime against footballing rationale, you suggest. Maybe they don't play with the same freedom in Europe? "It's strange," he says. "It's unbelievable. But what more can Arsène do? Nothing! He has a fantastic team. Good organisation. Fantastic strikers. At the end, I say you must just have a little luck."

For Wenger himself, Arsenal's failure to dominate opponents as habitually as they do in the Premiership is essentially psychological. "I feel we want to deliver so much," he says. "When you always feel you have to do that, you are less relaxed and you are not so good. The problem is that we have not yet developed the same confidence level in the Champions' League [as in the Premiership].

"The fact that we failed to capitalise on the Rosenborg game makes the Panathinaikos game more important. We have to be more clinical than we were in Rosenborg. We felt were too restricted in our attitude and didn't kill the game."

But why does Thierry Henry appear not as effective as he is in the Premiership? "In the second half at Rosenborg, he suffered the most, because they only concentrated on him," Wenger said, defending his compatriot. "If we don't give him the support, he suffers. But it was more down to a team problem than the individual. Don't forget, [Robert] Pires was not at his best because of a kidney infection and he was the main supportive player of Thierry.

"We have to play a bit more relaxed. People [the supporters] get impatient now, because they feel we have gained the experience we need. Even the players are thinking, 'OK, we must deliver now'. But it's not like that, because there are big clubs who have been after this cup for many years."

Wenger is poised to sign an extension to his contract which commits him to Arsenal until 2008. His Gunners may achieve another three Premiership titles in that time. However, if he cannot motivate them to claim that elusive Champions' League pot, there is no doubt he would consider it a significant omission on his CV. "The only way to have a chance to achieve it is to believe that we can do it," Wenger stresses. "After that, after 11 years..." he pauses, then continues: "We have all, one day, to die with what we have not done. You cannot achieve everything.

"I remember recently reading an article about the French champion Jean-Claude Killy, who was a great skier when I was a young boy. He's over 60 now. For me, he won absolutely everything. Three gold medals in the Olympics. Yet he speaks only of a race he has not won. People who like to win have that. You live always with what you have not done."

Wenger is of a similar ilk. He will not rest until that ambition has been sated. If he needs any inspiration, it is evoked by the evening of 6 April, a night when his opponent, on death row, walked proud.

¿ 'Proud Man Walking' by Claudio Ranieri (Collins Willow, £16.99)