I wrote after Saturday’s 2-0 win against West Brom how
that result and performance gave us something to build on, and how it hopefully
would set the standard for our remaining football in December when we had a
real opportunity to make some progress in the League and Cup.
Yet it was just 48 hours after I clicked publish that we
were not just back to the drawing board, we’ve sunk so far beneath it it’s
almost invisible to our naked eye. Realistically there were only two
competitions we could win this season; both of them domestic cups. Last night
that possibility was halved after a penalty shoot out defeat against Bradford
City, of League Two, in the Capital One Cup. We’re back in crisis town, and it isn’t pretty.
In fact, the aftermath of this defeat was as ugly as I
think I’ve ever seen in the Arsenal world since the social revolution enabled
us easy access to each other’s thoughts. That includes Cup Final defeats,
player departures, poor AGM displays and comments, and many lacklustre League
games against lower table opposition that have ended miserably. Unsurprisingly,
last night seemed to top them all. And it’s not hard to see why.
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| Wenger after the shoot out. |
There are many reasons why we Arsenal fans are unhappy
right now. Some direct it at our transfer policy, others at wages. There’s
Boardroom issues, commercial shortfalls (that have only recently been put
right), ticket pricing, strategy, and probably most prominently the actual
performance of the team on the pitch that has led us to our worse start to a
season in the Arsene Wenger era.
All perfectly reasonable and understandable concerns, most
of which I share (although to varying degrees), but that’s not what I’m here to
talk about today. My main issue with Arsenal Football Club currently is that
the winning mentality, ambition and drive of the club as a whole has pretty
much completely evaporated almost into thin air.
It hasn’t always been this way. There was a time in recent
history when Wenger was laughed at by reporters for saying he believed his side
could go a whole Premier League season unbeaten. The epitome of a winning
mentality, and he proved himself right with that comment given the unequalled
success of the Invincibles.
But today it’s different. Going a season unbeaten has
transformed into ‘finishing fourth is like a trophy’,
an often repeated statement that drives Arsenal fans around the bend. I
understand it’s importance, but it’s not a trophy. If it was, our recent
success would be almost unmatchable, we’d need a stadium expansion to fit a new
trophy cabinet, and this whole debacle wouldn’t be occurring. The Wenger of ten
years ago would’ve laughed at that sentiment. The Wenger of today is latching
on to it at all costs to justify his employment at a club that has gone seven
(preparing for eight) years without an actual tangible trophy.
I get that a lot has changed between now and then. I know
that two clubs bankrolled by billionaires throwing money at them for fun have
overtaken us. Who can offer twice as much as we can on transfer fees and wages,
and that loyalty in football is dead so players are more interested in the ‘£’
line of a contract than that of the history and heritage of the club they’re
negotiating with. I get that we had a stadium move, from the homely historical
Highbury to the gigantic commercial haven of the Emirates, and that with this
came financial strain and year after year of careful spending and planning to
pay off debts that otherwise could’ve sent us down a route painfully explored
by the likes of Leeds United and Portsmouth.
I know that sacrifice had to be made, and I do appreciate
what Wenger has done to keep us competitive (to an extent) and in the Champions
League, so we have remained a leading global brand of this crazy sport that has
resulted in a new bumper commercial deal with Emirates, and money making tours
in Asia and other parts of the booming world that in the long term business
side of things is nothing but good news.
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| For a competition we don't give a shit about, it sure has hurt us in recent years... |
But all I ask is that we, as fans, get something back in
return. Something to cling on to. A bit of hope. A bit of ambition and desire
to win any fucking competition. Trophies aren’t guaranteed I know, and
supporting any sports club doesn’t come with a seal of definite achievement.
We’re a victim of our own success in many ways, but the attitude of today is so
far removed from what we saw ten years ago. Back then we were in it to win it.
Today we’re all about reaching the bare minimum.
You don’t have a winning mentality if you continue to sell
your club captain or your star players. You’re accepting mediocrity if you
continue to blame external factors (referees, weather, length of grass, I
dunno) for shortcomings in games and competitions, rather than admitting that
the players that you pick on the night simply weren’t good enough, and haven’t
been for some weeks.
You’re never going to win matches when you persist with a
tried and tested formation that simply isn’t working. You won’t even beat a
League Two side when you start three attackers all playing out of position,
despite having done so before to again, no decent effect. No shot on target for
70 minutes from a full strength Arsenal side playing Bradford Fucking City (who
were great I should add, but this isn’t about them). That’s atrocious, and
every player bar maybe two were well short of the level we expect at this
football club.
Sir Alex Ferguson dragged Rafael off the pitch after 30
minutes against Reading after he had an absolute shocker, which is the sort of
tactic that drills it into a player that he hasn’t done well enough and needs
to work harder. Rafael then turns up a week later and plays a blinder in a victory
at the home of the defending League Champions. Wenger doesn’t do this. He
doesn’t react; he waits. He’s too protective and lets players get away with
being average, and won’t sub or drop them because we never have a squad good
enough to keep said players on their toes and working to always improve and
play well enough to get a starting birth. Or those on the bench are far happier
getting their substantially undeserved wage that they can’t even be bothered to
make any effort on the pitch (or in training, I’d imagine).
It’s not a winning attitude. It’s a “make-do” attitude.
And it’s been the same shit for seven years now. When the going gets tough, the
tough get going as they say. Ferguson and Man United have winning etched in
their bones as a club. Under the slightest bit of pressure, Arsenal crumbles.
Last season their squad was almost on par with ours I’d say, yet they finished
19 points up the ladder and were 20 seconds from winning the League. This
season they’re already 15 points ahead. It’s frustrating because we have the
basis, the infrastructure, the fan base, the quality of players and the history
that suggests we have what it takes to be competing at the very top, but every
year we’re falling further and further behind.
Tom Fox, Arsenal’s Chief Commercial Officer, this month
said in no uncertain terms, ‘winning isn’t everything’.
Whilst again I can understand what he’s getting it in a round about way, his
comments are wide of the mark in terms of what fans actually want. And it’s
just another example of the point I’m making with this blog.
Football’s a results business at the end of the day. And
Arsenal currently doesn’t have the appropriate mentality from top to bottom to
achieve results consistently enough to win the trophies that we once competed
for.
And until that’s fixed, the pain, suffering, and wait will
go on.
Follow me on twitter: @mattlittlechild
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