FA Cup final: Why Arsene Wenger hasn't had the credit he deserves for astonishing achievements

One suspects Arsene Wenger and George Ramsay would have got on like a house on fire. Ramsay was a diminutive 21-year-old winger when he met up with the Aston Villa football team in 1876. Wowing them with his bewitching ball control and dribbling skills, the young Glaswegian was asked to join the team with immediate effect. He later became their manager, implementing the Scottish passing style. And how! Under his progressive, intellectual, mould-breaking yoke - yes, he'd have got on with Wenger all right - Villa won six league championships and six FA Cups.

Six league championships and six FA Cups

Ramsay's record league-title haul was equalled by Bob Paisley in 1983 and surpassed by Alex Ferguson in 2001, but right now his FA Cup record, set in 1920, still stands. The picture might change this weekend, though. Unless his modern counterpart at Villa, Tim Sherwood, can work out a way to stop Alexis Sanchez, Santi Cazorla and Theo Walcott, Ramsay will be joined at the top of the all-time FA Cup managerial honours list by Arsenal's coach.

Wenger's achievements in the FA Cup, already monumental, are strangely underplayed. The fact of his winning the thing five times, in 1998, 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2014, is rarely mentioned, such is the one-eyed modern focus on the Premier League and European scene, and relegation in status of football's oldest and grandest cup. More fool all of us; Wenger's achievement is nothing short of astonishing.

He could have had even more FA Cup success, too. Had Dennis Bergkamp put that penalty away at Villa Park in the tumultuous 1999 semi-final against Manchester United, Arsenal would have almost certainly dispatched Newcastle in the final with ease. (Just look at what Man U did to them, in what effectively turned into a training-ground exercise.)

In 2001, Arsenal were the victims of one of the great FA Cup final larcenies, Liverpool lad Michael Owen latching onto a top-class Paddy pass to complete one of the great smash-and-grab raids. Arsenal should have been out of sight.

Though maybe it's swings and roundabouts: Manchester United were all over Wenger's side in 2005, but somehow couldn't break through, then contrived to lose on penalties. Sometimes you kick, sometimes you get kicked.

Wenger's current record of five FA Cups is the equal of Ferguson - who won his over a longer period of time - and Thomas Mitchell, whose own jaw-dropping record of five FA Cups in eight years at Blackburn Rovers, between 1884 and 1891, comes with an asterisk alongside it, as nobody has been able to ascertain whether he'd joined the club in time for the 1884 final or not. Mitchell went on to become the first manager of Woolwich Arsenal, albeit not a particularly successful one. It's a tangled web, football.

The scale of Wenger's success is further amplified when you consider there are only 19 other multiple FA Cup winning managers. Some of football's biggest names, major figures in the legend of the FA Cup, trail in Wenger's wake.

Matt Busby and Bill Shankly only (only!) won the famous old competition twice. Also with just two (just two!) victories to their name are greats such as Stan Cullis of Wolverhampton Wanderers, John Lyall of West Ham, Kenny Dalglish of Liverpool and Herbert Chapman, who picked up his first at Huddersfield, his second with Arsenal by beating Huddersfield. (Yes, a tangled web.)

The legendary Bill Nicholson won three for Spurs in the 1960s, for a long time the modern record until Ferguson and Wenger came along. Neither Brian Clough nor Bob Paisley ever won it. Paisley never even got to a final.

Now Wenger has a chance to take his place at the very top of the tree alongside Ramsay. It's fitting that a team representing Ramsay's club stand in the way, ready to defend their man's record to the bitter end. It should guarantee quite a game. The 2015 FA Cup final will be of great historical import, whatever happens.