Arsenal finding success despite youth movement

Cesc Fabregas (right) has helped Arsenal to an unbeaten start to the Premiership season. AP

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There are few times in sports when you can fully appreciate the end of an era before the chapter finally closes. Usually you don't know it's over until it's too late.

Maybe the star players kept playing a little too long for their (or the team's) own good. Maybe it was injuries that unexpectedly robbed players of their talents far too soon. Or maybe it was a cost-cutting front office getting rid of promising prospects just to make the bottom line.

Sometimes, though, you can see the beginning of the end as it's happening. Or sometimes you just need a drunken fan to remind you.

As I sat in the Stade de France last year covering the Champions League final between Arsenal and Barcelona, a red-and-white-clad "Gooner" got up toward the end of the match and screamed, "You better appreciate this side because it's the last time you're ever going to see them! It's the end of an era!"

It was an odd moment of forethought from a fan who would be lucky if he was sober enough to remember the game, but it opened my eyes as I gazed down onto the field and looked at the Arsenal players that had helped make the Gunners one of the most exciting European clubs in recent memory.

For the better part of six seasons Arsenal won two Premier League titles, three FA Cups and compiled a record 49-match unbeaten streak, earning it the nickname, "The Invincibles." They were led by the likes of Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp, Fredrik Ljungberg, Robert Pirès, Sol Campbell and Ashley Cole.

Fast forward one year and each one of the aforementioned names that led Arsenal to its first-ever Champions League final is no longer with the team. Suddenly "The Invincibles" have become "The Invisibles" -- a group of youngsters with loads of potential but relatively unknown outside of Ashburton Grove.

This was supposed to be a rebuilding year for the youthful Gunners after manager Arsène Wenger jettisoned nearly every player on his roster that had the audacity to turn 30. This isn't a surprise; Wenger has always been a bit like Hugh Hefner when it comes to his players -- the younger, the better. He views players like a businessman views stocks. Any player that hits 30 is a depreciating asset that loses value on the field and in the transfer market at a rapid pace until he is put out to pasture.

There's nothing wrong with this theory. It certainly makes sense financially -- buy low, sell high -- but it's an odd strategy for a club that is currently the most valuable in the Premiership. It would be like the New York Yankees, with their unmatched bankroll, running their team like the Oakland A's. Yet somehow this strategy has worked to perfection this season. It takes most teams years to reclaim the magic they once had after they part ways with legendary players and go with a youth movement, yet it has only taken Wenger a matter of months to get his youth to draw comparisons to "The Invincibles."

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