From Andy Hill : Reasons to be happy
“Happiness is the longing for repetition.”(Milan Kundera)
It’s been a couple of days.
The initial jolt of pain has numbed.
Now it is all in the psyche, and in the words of pundits, who are better fashioned to writing than doing.
And life goes on. Arsenal goes on.
This is not in any way an apology for Wenger, or where Arsenal finds itself this week, but rather a reality check. For me, if nobody else.
Take yourself back a few years, to when we were still at that cramped, and decaying (though forever beautiful) art-deco venue half-a-mile up the hill. Vieira , Henry, Bergkamp, Pires, Ljungberg. The Invicibles. In the context of where the game was going (Sky, billionaire patrons, salaries that would make bankers wince), it was unsustainable.
I wrote in a previous post (that actually got published) of my long-term love affair with my “village team” (I am an Islingtonian).
My point then, as it is now, is that Arsenal does not, in the modern avatar of the national game, have any god-given right to call itself a big club.
The fact that it is remains so is something we should, as true Arsenal supporters, feel stupefyingly cheered about.
In an age of the international football franchise, where the competition can spend hundreds-of-millions on any player that catches their eye (sometimes with cash, often with debt), and where success can be largely bought, we’ve been fighting well above our weight. And pretty darn well.
Last season we may have finished fourth, but for two-thirds of it we were within touching distance of another title. We were in the Champions League for the umpteenth time. We even staged wins over United, Chelsea, and Barcelona along the way.
We consistently played the most entertaining and attractive football in the EPL. And all played out in a stadium (in the heart of the village), that any team in the world would be proud to call their own.
So we lost a brilliant player in Fabregas. But no surprises. And Nasri is a loss, but given Arsenal’s particular style of game, he was a wasted asset anyway (a bit like Arshavin). Gervinho can fill that slot.
We are crying out for a decent centre-half, but even the most despondent amongst us know that it will happen (if it hasn’t already). And probably a solid left-back, and a potential goal-scorer. Maybe a creative midfield talent.
Yes, we’ll buy last minute, and they’ll be bargain basement.
No, they won’t be ready-made stars. When, during the Wenger era, were they ever? Henry, Vieira, Pires? Even Fabregas? I don’t think so. The future is still bright, as the rhyme goes.
We’ll still be the little North London club mixing it with the big boys of Europe, and the billionaire, or mega-debt, funded fantasy teams. Titles or trophies? Probably not next season.
Even a top-four spot is looking like a push this time round.
But you can see that this is a club that is still in the solidifying process, in a whole new, and somewhat unforgiving, sports-business environment.
As a club, Arsenal still looks as good as any of the rest, and, in many ways, less vulnerable.
The next manager – and he needn’t come too soon – is going to owe a huge debt of gratitude to his predecessor.
As should we.
So the United result may have inflicted a little more pain and pressure than Arsenal or Wenger probably deserve. But in the bigger picture of where we are, and where we are going, the future isn’t really that bad. In fact it’s still ‘somewhat dynamite’.
From Scott A : Times They Are (Not) A-Changin’
Sunday witnessed a systematic and globally public destruction of Arsene’s house of cards , not just blown over by a strong wind, but battered, destroyed and crippled by a hurricane of era-changing proportions.
At least, it should have been of era-changing proportions. In the 3 hours surrounding the game – from team sheet announcements, to the game, to the post match interviews – every systemic crack in the Arsenal system was there for the world to see.
The absence of the owner for the highest-profile away game of the season; the threadbare, inadequate team; the youth team bench; the lack of leadership on or off the pitch; the inability to defend; the lack of a plan B; the sight of the manager sitting isolated with neither aide nor subject for company; the attempt at tired, cliched responses at the post-match press-conference; the plea for (yet more) time; the horrendous error in admitting Arsenal have 20 scouts working on finding players who can strengthen our team, but if we don’t sign them it’s because we don’t find them’; the Board coming out and backing the manager as a victim of “extraordinary circumstances”.
As I sat and ruminated over the day’s proceedings, many thoughts went through my mind, but the most nagging and unemotional response I was left with was : What now for Arsenal Football Club?
Everything but the financial spine of the club is crumbling in front of our eyes. The stars of the team have left. New talent is losing interest in joining. No longer are we a first-choice destination for top young talent.
The supporters are turning on the players and the manager (with a few noted exceptions).
Our chances for next season’s Champions League qualification are (already) very much in doubt for the first time.
And yet the Board and the manager both sit in an untouchable bubble of mutually beneficial suspended reality, preaching to themselves that all of this is acceptable while the club remains in a healthy financial situation.
So what catalyst is required to change?
Obviously the club will not, nor should it, walk away from sound monetary principles.
However, surely somewhere between a bulging bank account and a quick-fix, ill-advised spending spree there is a medium which exists to satisfy both shareholder and fan alike.
But what is it and what will be the tipping point that triggers it?
A 7th consecutive trophy-less season?
Failure to qualify for the CL?
Playing regularly to a quarter-empty stadium?
A takeover bid by Usmanov?
Since starting to support the club (and following football in general) during the Howe era, I don’t believe I’ve seen a situation like this.
Never have I NOT had a sense of how a club was going to get through such a tough patch. Never have I sensed such mass mis-management. Never have I felt so distanced from the club I’ve supported for over 25 years.
Never have I wished the lyrics of the great Dylan song to be so prophetic.
From Mark Burland : Losing the locker room
Myles,
I find that this idea of “losing the dressing room” doesn’t come up much in the UK media.
Maybe it is because in US sports there is a separation between GM and Head Coach. Over there, when the team is struggling and no player trades are possible (and even at times when the team isn’t) the GM will fire the Head Coach – often as a last gasp measure to save his own job.
As if to say “Look I’m doing SOMETHING!” Wenger is GM and Head Coach (and President) – it looks like he has lost both the locker room and the board room. As a result he looks a little lost.
Desperate to make some sort of bold move, but hamstrung either by his ideals, or by the board. I’ve seen some say now would be the best time to fire Wenger.
This close to the end of the transfer window? No, what could the new boss do?
The fact is Arsenal are now locked in to a miserable 2011/12 season, a transitional season – the big question being a transition into what?
From Navin : Did Wenger throw the MU Game?
Hi MP,
In the aftermath of the Manchester massacre, I couldn’t help but feel that there was something wrong in Wenger’s body language.
Just a week before, he was a different person when Liverpool beat us. He was frustrated, angry …
But during the MU game, he just sat there. He didn’t bother to change the formation or tactics at half time. He just “let” the boys play as they wished. At 3-1, he could’ve gone for damage limitation and hit MU on the counter. Getting a goal back and losing 3-2 would not have been a bad thing.
We know that the way we play, we can get the goals. So why didn’t he? Is he the most stubborn person in the world? Did he knowingly allow his youngsters to be ripped apart, destroying their already fragile confidence?
Is he that bad a manager that he can’t get the basic tactics right? Or did he do it to prove a point to the Arsenal Board? The point being: “Grant me the wages necessary to bring in good players !!!… or else be ready for more drubbing like this throughout the season…” We suddenly have signed Santos, Park, Mertesacker (almost, I heard).
A midfielder is also reported to be on his way. There was no way we could pull off such coups in such a short time unless these were players that were already on Wenger’s radar, but for some reason he was unable to bring them in. With the rumors of inside information regarding the Board being at loggerheads with Wenger, this was probably the only way to make the Board realize that in order to be relevant in the BPL, they need to do it the Wenger Way.
Was Wenger thinking of the greater good? What do you think?
To Navin, Myles says :
I reckon two things.
One, you’re overthinking it.
Just watch the many games, don’t live Arsenal 24/7.
You’ll drive yourself potty and shorten your life. It’s only football.
Two, AW is a policy-maker and a strategist and a spin-doctor of genius.
In a press conference he can think on his feet.
In the technical area, he can’t. We have seen that for 15 years and I’ve written about it 35 times.
Sure , he can chuck on a couple of strikers, and sometimes turn a game upside down.
But you could do that. Joe Bloggs could do that.