Author Archive
Have Arsenal Supporters Lost The Plot?
Posted by: | CommentsSo the run is over. We have finally lost to them lot down the road and I must say, it did hurt quite a bit. Take a step back though, and you realise how frustrating, infuriating and anger inducing it must have been for them to endure 10 years without a league victory.
Let them have their day in the sun; we still have bigger fish to fry. We will always have bigger fish to fry.
However, I am going to say something that may bring me down in the eyes of other Arsenal supporters. Here it goes.
I am jealous of the Spuds. I am jealous of how united their support is behind the team and the manager. We are in a position that they would kill to be in, yet our supporters seem to take defeat as an excuse to turn on the team, to turn on the manager.
Now it would seem the trend is to turn on the medical staff. Suddenly, a team that is in the title hunt and consistently in the Champions League needs a major overhaul. How is this the case?
As I said in my first post on this website, I normally don’t travel into the Arsenal Blogosphere until a couple of days after a defeat. I’d rather not douse the flames of disappointment with the oils of reactionary comment from Football Manager Specialists.
The day supporting your team becomes drawing up shopping lists of players who you believe are better than what your team currently has is the day I want to stop supporting Arsenal Football Club.
Why is there no pride in the project that we are currently undertaking? Our academy is the envy of many, and most if not all Premier League Clubs are playing catch up with us.
Our decision to live within our financial means has resulted in us budgeting towards a future free of debt, whilst nurturing young footballing talents. Why is it so hard for people to believe that once the debt has been serviced, every penny we make can be reinvested back into our playing squad if needed?
I am proud that Arsene won’t be bullied into paying over the odds for players who aren’t worth it. We were after Felipe Melo until Juventus decided to gazump us with an offer of 25million Euros, and Arsene would not go into a western style saloon shoot-out for a player that he did not believe was worth that.
In the January transfer window, the calls for a striker were deafening. I ask these so called supporters who have a shopping list to hand, who could we have bought who would be able to settle in straight away and have a better goal ratio than Nicklas Bendtner has had since returning? That’s 9 goals in 11 games by the way. Not just consolations. Invaluable goals. Match changing goals. Match winning goals.
Wenger refuses to spend unless it is completely necessary and I stand by that. I stand by financial prudence. Manchester United could not afford to keep Carlos Tevez, and bought in Michael Owen on a free. United’s financial instability is starting to impact on their ability to reinvest in the squad, at a time when we are starting to be able to just the opposite.
We were close this season, and next season we will be even closer. We may not even win anything again, but we will be nowhere near closer to bankruptcy. We will not be relying on a trio of bankers to save our club from the clutches of debt with… more debt?
I don’t know too much about the Red Knights, but I don’t know too many people with £1billion to throw at a football club in this financial climate. But that is another blog post altogether.
My point is this. Don’t use the excuse of the manager being tight on the purse strings as a whip to beat him with. Praise him. Calls for Usmanov to hoover up Lady Nina’s shares so that he can be our Eastern European sugar daddy are born out of frustration at our lack of silverware, and not rational thinking as to the future well being of our club.
As fans we should rally behind the team after a defeat, not carry out a post-mortem into the deficiencies of this team and the manager. Defeat should be the cue to come together even tighter, to get behind this team and show them that they have our unwavering support.
It is not a time to jump on your favourite scapegoat. It is not a time to ridicule a manager who has brought so much to our club, and will continue to do so years after he has gone.
Title or not, I am proud of what this team has achieved through the adversity from not only outside but, more cruelly, from within.
Supporters. Let’s Support.
Speaking of supporters, you might have missed us talking about Arsenal ‘customers’ masquerading as supporters. We’ve even broken down the anatomy of your typical Arsenal doom and gloom merchant so that you’re able to pick them a mile off.
And don’t forget that you can find Nyasha at Nashis Arsenal when he’s not writing for Stone Cold Arsenal every Friday.
We thought Darius was anal when he worked on Holloway Road right next to the Emirates and had a fantastic view of the stadium from his office window and took lunch time walks to see the construction and enjoy the magnificence of the finished stadium.
Nyasha and his mates used to steal footballs and cones from the training ground at London Colney before Wenger tightened the security. They have to get their footballs from JJB nowadays (or is it the DW).
Also, if you haven’t yet, we’d like you to subscribe to Stone Cold Arsenal to receive automatic updates of our content.
Does The EPL Destination Signal The Crossroads For Arsenal?
Posted by: | CommentsThe title to this article sounds like some of the hyperbole regularly spewed by football nonsense talkers ala pundits, exaggerated opinion used to rack up hits and views.
Yet as this season conjures up twist after turn, surprise after surprise, and reprisal after failure, I find myself increasingly feeling like whoever comes out of this title race on top could be influencing more than the colours of the ribbons on the trophy.
That sounds pretty dramatic, and even as I write, I do so more in hope that it is us rather than conviction that I somehow know what the future holds.
I just feel that for each team in the title pursuit, and that definitely includes Arsenal, the line between success and failure could not be thinner with far reaching consequences dependant on where we land.
Following the Champions League exit I declined to read or watch any media related to Arsenal until April 8th, two days later. Part of this was the hurt at being eliminated with such clinical conviction by Barcelona and, in particular, Lionel Messi.
Another part was accidentally, catching Sky Sports News out of the corner of my eye and seeing a collage of post match interviews of Arsenal players followed by a clip of Messi giving Eboue and Vermaelen the run-around before slotting the ball in between Almunia’s legs.
Mostly though, the procrastination on my part to indulge in my daily routine of sitting on NewsNow was due to past experience. Past experience being the reaction to the defeats against Chelsea and Manchester United earlier in the season, where the Arsenal Blogosphere seemed to turn against Wenger more vociferously than before.
Personally, I hated this. I dislike the cries for the team to need a major overhaul, ignoring the financial purity with which we proudly run our club and the financial recklessness that has allowed our rivals to stay that little bit ahead of us.
The argument about whether Wenger should go or not is an entirely different debate, and one that will rage harder than any other football related discussion at the end of this season. That is, however, should we fail to win the league.
On the other hand, should the title end up nestling in a cabinet at the Home of Football then we could just see the beginning of a glorious future for Arsenal.
Just imagine what a title could do for our club?
The fans would unite behind Wenger, as even the most boisterous of anti-Wenger followers would have to begrudgingly admit that he is the right man for the job.
There would be a heightened sense of atmosphere at our home ground, songs of how we are the Champions of England bellowing out to the minions who step onto the hallowed turf.
Most importantly, it would give this squad that little bit of self belief and swagger that is needed as part of the arsenal of a great team.
Yes we have been beaten by the best this season, but no-one remembers that in the annuls of history. All that people will remember is that the season 2009/10 champions were Arsenal.
It will be the making of this squad, the end of the United dominance of our domestic league, and two-fingers up to Chelsea’s wasted millions.
Of course, the flip side, is that we fail in our bid to become Champions, falling just short. It will hurt, and a post-mortem will be carried out by every Arsenal fan both privately and publically.
I am not going to dwell on the negative as I still have hope in my always trusting heart that Arsenal can achieve success this season.
What I will say is this. Should we fail to win the Premier League this season it will not be because we are so bad that we need a huge overhaul of our playing squad or manager.
A sense of perspective is needed from fans, many of whom have bought too easily into the “I want it now” disease that has engulfed football worse than the Plague did to London centuries ago.
Were the good times good because you saw the club that you loved achieving success, playing beautiful football and spending within its limits? Or were the good times so good because you could waltz into work or school the next day and brag about just how good the Arsenal were?
If it was the latter, and I suspect for some that it was, then you are not a supporter. You are a customer. A customer who bought into a package that no longer does what it says on the tin.
If this is the case, then it’s not Wenger who should leave. It’s not Wenger who should plunge our club into financial deformity.
It’s you who should think twice about which team you support or buy into.
A little about the author:
Nyasha is an economics student who clearly has too much time on his hands, but luckily spends most of it on Arsenal. When he’s not writing for SCA, you can find him pontificating at Nashis Arsenal.
Also, don’t forget to subscribe to Stone Cold Arsenal to get automatic updates of our content.
Tue 13th September 2011; 19:45, Dortmund