From Franky in Falmouth : It’s not Arsenal that’s crumbling, it’s English football
ANR will have made unhappy reading for The Professor this summer should he be a regular reader, which I’m guessing he’s not.
The negativity is easy to understand: all too familiar weaknesses in the team, season after season, not seemingly being addressed has stretched the patience of supporters to breaking point, especially season ticket holders.
And yet……..I argue that Arsene deserves our support.
It hasn’t escaped my notice that there is very little to admire in English football, either on or off the field in the 21st century.
On the field, the players produced in this country are almost exclusively one-dimensional, barely literate cretins.
Witness the most recent international against Switzerland – the cream of our talent! Players who jump out of the way of free kicks and miss open goals from six yards if you please.
Their reward for this level of achievement are weekly salaries that would take the average person many years to earn and all this at a time when the nation’s vital services such as health, police and armed forces are having to suffer unprecedented cuts to their budgets, after 10 years of New Labour living off the biggest credit card in history.
Elsewhere in the Premier League this debt-fueled approach to business that has led the country to virtual bankruptcy still runs amok, with transfer fees and wages INCREASING at a time when almost all the other industries are in contraction. The day when the price for all this will be paid has not yet come – BUT IT WILL.
There is at least one man who believed that there is a different way.
In his early years at Arsenal he produced a team that played a brand of football the like of which we have never seen on these shores before, and perhaps, never will again.
I truly believe The Invincibles will be a once-in-a-lifetime team which we were all privileged to watch every week.
On the back of all this, the club were able to move from their pokey, out-dated ground to a spanking, new stadium just down the road, that in years to come will mean that Arsenal will be financially self-sustaining, without having to rely on the economies of the jungle favoured elsewhere in the game.
Arsenal are one of just a handful of clubs in the world with the long term vision that could have done this as successfully as they have done. Of course, this has cost Arsenal on the field in the short term as their spending power for players has been dwarfed during this era by Manchester United and Chelsea. ‘Short Term’ of course being the only world in which English football operates nowadays – both clubs and players and most supporters.
Instead, Wenger has chosen to try and develop talent largely from within, to improve and develop players’ technique gradually. Clearly in terms of silverware this approach has not quite paid dividends, though they have still been the most competitive team outside of Chelsea and Man Utd, and have still qualified for the Champions League every season since the stadium move. And of course Wenger has discovered that the only loyalty players have nowadays is to their wage packet.
In my view the position of Arsenal’s rivals is not as rosy as it may seem on the surface. Man Utd. are being sustained almost entirely by a canny 70 year old Glaswegian bully and a bond issue that is going to bite them very badly in about 6 years time.
Chelsea have an aging squad that a bored billionaire will not have the stomach or expertise to replace. Liverpool have an out dated stadium and a manager who will be back on the golf course by the spring.
Spurs have an outdated stadium and a manager who wants to take over from Fabio.
Manchester City are existing as a strange quasi-income stream for Arsenal, whereby they are paying for the new stadium AND taking unwanted players off our hands……
Arsenal’s time is coming. It may not be this season, in fact it may not be for another 5-10 seasons.
And it may not even be with with Arsene – I’m not saying that he has got everything right. But in 20-30 years time people will look back at this era and truly see how lucky we were to have Arsene Wenger as our manager, and wonder just where the club might have ended up without the input of ‘Arsene Who?’.
Myles says:
Thanks, Franky.
I think we know that most English footballers are dolts and tossers. We agree on that.
And this is just what I need. A balanced, wise reader who sells me the future !
In 30 years time people will look back on this era and say; Why did we have Almunia in goal for four years? Did that have anything to do with Arsenal not winning a trophy?
Three years ago the message on your plastic season-card holder was OUR TIME IS NOW or something similar.
Now you tell me Arsenal’s time is coming 10 seasons from now.
Fine.
Would you like to write and edit ANR for the next 10 seasons?