Who Are We?

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“We’re gonna win the league”.

“We’re so rubbish”.

Everyone knows whether their football team are any good or not. Except Arsenal fans.

I’ve been watching Arsenal play for 30 years now and I’d like think that I’ve got a fair idea what’s what in the world of football. I know that we were crap for most of the 80′s and I know that we were boring but victorious in the early 90′s. I know that Arsene Wenger made us good again and I know that we were unbeatable in 2004. But this season, I haven’t got the faintest idea.

I’ve seen us do ‘World Class’. Witness us taking Chelsea apart, thrashing Tottenham from two goals down and beating the richest team in the world.

But I’ve also seen a fair bit of ‘Clueless’. Stare in disbelief at defeats against Blackburn, QPR, Swansea and Fulham as well as an 8-2 thrashing at Old Trafford.

Just lately, the chart has been plotting an upwards trajectory and the bosses are happy. For the most part we’ve played well this year, nabbing 27 out of the last 30 points. But tonight we eased back into ‘Useless’ without so much as a cursory glance at ‘Quite Good’ or even considering a bit of ‘Mediocre’.

Credit to Wigan – they worked harder than us tonight, passed the ball well and defended stoutly. At this level, if one team raises their game and the other team never gets going, it can easily make up for any perceived gap in quality. But surely we could have got something out of the game – even a bit of ‘Gave It Their All’ would have helped!

It wasn’t that we played with the handbrake on. Or that we never got out of second gear. No, this evening we couldn’t even start the engine.

After being put to sleep by the referee’s first whistle, we slumped around the pitch for five minutes before allowing Wigan to sprint past us from one end of the pitch to the other and score two goals in two minutes. Despite a Thomas Vermaelen header, we never woke up. The clock ticked down – no reaction. The fans screamed their frustrations and encouragement – the players failed to respond. And to think that some people honestly thought we could challenge for the League next season. Those people, I might add, apparently included some or all of the Arsenal players.

Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal can certainly talk a good game. Almost every day we hear platitudes from the players and manager through Twitter and the official website. Even today you can read articles with headlines like “Rosicky – We’ve connected with the fans” and “Szczesny – Team spirit has turned our season”. But the meaning of these sentiments is slightly lost when you pay money, spend time travelling to games and shout your head off in support of the team only to see eleven soporific, lost individuals wandering around the pitch watching a relegation-threatened team with barely 150 supporters knock the ball around with relative ease.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining (too much) about this season as a whole. Assuming we do qualify for the (poxy) Champions League, it will have been a successful season and I, for one, have enjoyed most of it – a lot. I just want to try and understand how a team that played like Arsenal did against Manchester City 8 days ago turns out a performance like that tonight.

You can’t blame it on injuries – apart from the loss of Arteta early on tonight, Gibbs and Wilshere, we don’t really have any of them. And you can’t blame the fact that Robin has stopped scoring goals – we’ve managed to win most of our recent games without them. It’s obviously not lack of confidence because we’ve been winning and playing well. So I’m afraid I’m left feeling a bit Theo Walcott – lost. Are we any good? Or are we totally rubbish? We certainly don’t seem to have been anything in between this season.

I think my Dad summed it up quite nicely when he said “Which is the real Arsenal? Are we better than we thought? Or are we worse than we think?”

Is Talent Enough?

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It is 1 year and 3 days since Arsenal beat Barcelona. I think it’s fair to say that since then, things have not exactly gone according to plan.

Readers of this website will be aware that I am one of the more negative of those that count themselves as Arsenal fans – hell, I even use the word ‘pessimistic’ in the subtitle of my blog – but this season I have found myself defending Arsene Wenger and the club on many different occasions and trying, desperately, to believe that things weren’t as bad as some might have it. Our incredible injury list (which has been lengthened, once again, this evening) along with the current financial climate in football at the top level have turned me into an Arsenal apologist.

I am sorry, dear readers, but I cannot hold out any longer.

Every team has bad weeks. But this week has exposed cracks that were papered over by strategically convenient victories earlier in the season. This team, as it is, is finished.

There is no doubt that every one of the players in the squad at the moment have the talent that is required to make it at the very top level of football. Some of them have already proved themselves and others are clearly destined for greatness, given some good luck and the right coaching. But for some reason, as a group, they haven’t got what it takes to succeed.

It takes more than mere talent to make a good footballer – and it takes more than 11 talented footballers to make a team. Sunderland’s players showed (as did Milan) that application, energy, belief and commitment can go a long way to make up for any deficiency in talent. In fact, it goes further than that – it’s more important than just talent.

Arsenal’s technically gifted squad have given up.

For once, I’m not going to mention particular players – it is not the fault of any one man. It is a collective failing for which everyone must take responsibility. Every time we lose the fans are fed platitudes by the playing and management staff (via the website and Twitter) which suggest that the spirit is willing – and yet it is not just unwilling, it doesn’t exist.

There will be many apocalyptic articles written tonight and in the weeks to come about how the end is nigh for Arsene Wenger and his master plan. Almost all of them will be heavily exaggerated works of nonsense. But one thing is clear – something needs to change at Arsenal.

A Blend Of Youth And Useless

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Attitudes to the League Cup have changed.

Gone are the days of widespread complaints about Wenger devaluing the competition – it is now used by many clubs as a showcase for their second string, both youngsters and oldsters alike.

Us Arsenal fans have become used to watching some unknown names mix it with the known ones in these midweek adventures and I think it’s rejuvenated a competition which was seen as a dead duck a few years ago. But has Arsene got it right?

On the one hand, this is where Messrs Fabregas, Vela, Merida and Wilshere first got their chance. Seeing some of these players score superb goals, albeit often against lower league opposition has been a joy these last few years, even if not all of them have gone on to greater things in an Arsenal shirt. We’ve reached at least the quarter finals every year for what seems like a very long time indeed and nearly won it on two occasions.

The key, some would say, is the blend.

Those of you that possess a copy of the most excellent tome, Football Lexicon: A Dictionary of Usage in Football Journalism and Commentary will be aware of the following definition

Blend: Usually of youth and experience

and it is this formula that we have seen employed for most League Cup games over the last few years.

Despite the visit of Manchester City’s obscene billionaires, Arsene still saw fit to play a mainly young side last night and it nearly – nearly – worked. An excellent performance by all but a select few ended in defeat though as City won 1-0. In the end, we were undone by an end-to-end break from an Arsenal corner which wouldn’t have looked out of place on the Invincibles DVD from 2004 were it not for the fact that the team that were streaming towards the goal in great numbers were wearing blue, not red.

For the record, the likes of Frimpong, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Miquel and Coquelin were all superb last night. Whisper it quietly, but even Squillaci had a good game. Considering the quality of the players they were up against, they all performed exceptionally well, keeping the likes of Nasri, Aguero, and Johnson quiet whilst giving de Jong, Toure and Zabaleta a lot to keep them busy. But for a brilliant save from City’s reserve keeper, Oxlade-Chamberlain would have scored a thunderbolt from 30 yards and Park was unlucky to see an awkward effort from an angle clawed away.

So youth (and Squillaci) showed their mettle and did their job. Well done youth (and Squillaci).

But what about the experience aspect of the Axis Of Arsene? Surely they’re the ones to bring an element of stability and craft to proceedings, taking a bunch of raw talent and helping to mould it into a winning team? Not this time, sorry.

Our experience consisted of the likes of Chamakh, Arshavin and Benayoun – players who believe themselves to have the quality necessary to play for the first team. However, not one of them seems to be of the opinion that gaining this reward will require some level of commitment, effort or even ability.

I’ll start with Arshavin as he only came on as a substitute near the end. What is it with him? He is fairly universally liked and clearly has the talent to do well at the top level. But for 90% of the games he plays in, he looks like someone that’s never seen a football, let alone tried to kick one. If I had a tenth of a penny for every time Arshavin has tried to beat a player by dribbling directly into him from close range, I would have to take a pay cut to join Manchester City. The man is a footballing idiot. His crass stupidity was summed up last night by a corner he took in the dying seconds. Fabianski was given the all clear to go up for the corner and the penalty area was packed and ready. Andre failed to beat the first man. A professional footballer that cost £15 million to buy and untold amounts of money on a weekly basis cannot kick a stationary football from the corner quadrant into the penalty area. I could do that. Probably.

Why we bothered to get Yossi Benayoun on loan from Chelsea is totally beyond me – the man does nothing. Experience isn’t enough on it’s own – you have to be able to pass the ball to your team mates and Yossi really struggles with this aspect of the game. Combine this with a physical presence comparable to a wet paper bag and you have a player being paid a lot of money to play in place of a younger, hungrier, better one.

Which brings me to Marouane Chamakh. Where do you start with this guy? When he joined Arsenal at the start of last season, he was on fire. 10 goals in his first 17 starts was more than acceptable and his future at the club looked bright. In the 12 months since then, he has played 1487 minutes (around 16.5 games) and scored twice. One in an away defeat to Blackburn earlier this season and one at home to Leyton Orient in an FA Cup replay which we won 5-0. Let me just make that clear – 12 months, 17 games, 2 goals. He clearly doesn’t want to play for Arsenal any more so please let’s let him go. If he can’t be bothered, then nor can I. There are plenty of other players that would kill to be in his shoes and to be given the opportunities he’s been given so please, Marouane, either make some effort or stay at home.

It’s all well and good to try and mix a few youngsters with a few older heads but surely the older heads have to be able to contribute something on the pitch in terms of actual football? Some of the above clowns would struggle to get into a pub team, the way they played last night. We clearly have an abundance of talent at the club waiting for their chance – as it was pointed out to me last night, Nicklas Bendtner would have given us a lot more than Chamakh will ever do. The ones that do get an opportunity give it their all and sometimes succeed. We’re never going to succeed if we continue to flog the likes of Arshavin, Benayoun and Chamakh.

Signs Of Life

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It is customary, in this bizarre day and age, to base your opinion of any football team on the last 7 or 8 games (or less, in some cases) that they have played. And it’s not just the fans.

Feel free to listen to the “expert” opinions that are poured forth on the BBC’s Monday Night Club on Radio 5 or Match Of The Day – you will hear people who are paid extraordinary amounts of money saying things like “<Team That’s Top Of The League> are playing very well at the moment” and “<Team That’s Near The Bottom> are struggling”. It’s not rocket science.

As a result, these sages of our time have seen fit to place our beloved Arsenal firmly in the category of The Doomed on the basis of our dreadful start to the season.

Despite this we are very slowly but very surely coming back to life, dragged up from the depths of despair by some dogged performances and a certain Mister VP.

A few wins on the spin, split by a poor defeat down the road has seen us move to a loftier position in the table and this, along with other results going our way, means that we are now closer to 2nd top than 2nd bottom. Joy. Rapture. Everything’s alright again. Isn’t it? Well that rather depends.

Those whose opinions are shaped by the ex-players who rely on our income tax for their salary will inevitably come to that conclusion. As I stressed before, the formula is simple. Read the last few results. Easy. We’re brilliant. It is, of course, more complicated than that.

The last two home games – against Sunderland and Stoke City – have shown me enough to assure me that I have absolutely no idea whether we’re any good or not. Yes, we won them both but we could well have lost them both, given a little more bad luck and a little less Dutch and Polish magic and what would Steve Claridge be saying then eh?

It’s such a fine line and we have been treading it for the whole of the season up until now. A goal scored causes a surge of confidence that is a joy to watch – until a silly mistake causes a goal conceded and it all falls apart. Who knows where we will end up by the end? No-one knows and that – right there – is why this season is putting the “go on” back into being a gooner (sorry).

These last few games (bar Sp*rs) have shown us some things that we never knew and now, for your entertainment and information (and because Alan Hansen can’t be bothered to tell you) I will pass my own judgement on them.

Let’s begin right at the very back – the area that contains possibly the most surprising element of all is that of the goalkeeper. This time last year, if someone had told me that the only part of the team that would be settled and make Arsenal fans constantly happy in twelve months time would the man between the sticks, I’d have told them that they were talking about another Arsenal. From the farce of Almunia to the farce of Fabianski via the, errr, farce of bringing back Jens Lehmann we have found stability between the sticks. Where we would be now without Szczesny is not worth thinking about. The man was in the right place at the right time and has already proved his value to the team. Sorted.

The defence that stands in front of him is, for me, as terrifying as a bag of Revels. As someone with an allergy to nuts but who loves Maltesers and Minstrels (bear with me), the humble Revel has the potential to delight and destroy in equal measure. When delving through the Revel bag of the Arsenal team, for every sure-footed, dependable stopper there is a wobbly, nervous idiot waiting to let the ball bounce on the edge of the box and create chances for the opposition, whether they like it or not. This season, Arsenal have taken this theory to new heights with, at times, these two diametrically opposite character traits being displayed by the same player – sometimes even in the same game.

Johann Djourou, Andre Santos and Carl Jenkinson have all done sterling jobs and been found wanting this season and we’re only nine games in! It’s therefore hard to be so sure of their ability as to proclaim them wonderkids or wastes of space. Who knows? Of the three, I think Santos has the best chance as he looks strong and determined – characteristics which have been lacking in recent times.

In my humble opinion, Per Mertesacker looks like a disaster waiting to happen. I was glad when we bought him as I thought he was exactly what we needed. Maybe I should watch more German football because I was clearly wrong. He is as slow as anyone I have seen in an Arsenal shirt and his decision making and ball control skills fall squarely into the sparsely occupied category of Cygan-esque. He may be one of those players who’s struggling to get up to the speed of the English game but he’d better start revving up soon or he is going to get left behind. Vermaelen clearly fits into the dependable mould and is almost fit again and Koscielny has been outstanding for a while now.

Midfield is where the doom and gloom merchants may get their way. Arteta is no replacement for Fabregas, Song is a rich blend of brilliant and awful and Walcott and Arshavin are as anonymous as it’s possible to be when standing on a large patch of grass in front of 60,000 people. However, as with the rest of the team, there are positives. Ramsey looks assured and is growing in confidence and old man Rosicky has been busy and enjoyable to watch this season. At last. But the main reason for optimism here is Gervinho. Yesterday’s Man Of The Match is everything Theo is not at the moment – dynamic, pacey, direct and confident – he is a joy to watch and is yet another superb Wenger purchase.

We all know how good RVP is and there’s no need to jump on the BBC band wagon and gush over him any more. The real problem we’re going to have is keeping him fit and holding the predatory owners of the richer clubs at bay when the time comes. To this end, we need someone else to step in and challenge Robin’s place at the head of the team. Chamakh was given that chance yesterday and he blew it. For some reason, despite not having a run in the team for ages, he seemed unwilling (or unable) to play for his place in the 65 minutes he was given and his withdrawal only served to give credence to the media’s opinion that we are a one man team. Buck up or ship out, Marouane. There are plenty of players at the club who would dearly love to be given an opportunity such as you received yesterday. If you can’t be bothered to take it, leave it for the younger ones to have a go.

Then there is the fact that we still have Wilshere and Sagna on the physio’s table, waiting to come back. Two players who would get into almost any Premier League side.

It’s all very confusing.

So now it’s up to you. Are we great, good, mediocre or terrible? As you can see from the above, I have absolutely no clue what to think. But it’s going to be quite amusing finding out.

Why Bother?

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Just 46,000.

That’s all.

On Tuesday night, Arsenal Football Club only managed to entice a mere 46,000 people into their stadium to watch their reserve team play against a team from 3 divisions below them. Despite lowering their prices, it seems football’s appeal is dying and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. You can’t force people to like football.

Or can you?

You’d be forgiven for thinking that, given such a tiny crowd, those that were there must have been the real hard core fans, unable to let their team play without their vocal and passionate support. Not so.

I absolutely love the Carling Cup – since Arsene Wenger began playing the youngsters a few years ago, there has been a spring in the step of the team on these nights and some scintillating performances have resulted. I’d much rather watch the Carling Cup than the early rounds of the Champions League. But from my point of view, most people who go to these games have hardly ever been to a football match before and, it seems to me, aren’t really that interested in it anyway.

There is nothing wrong with trying to attract new fans but if people don’t like football then why do they pay money to go and watch it? The last 10 years has seen all sorts of odd behaviour creep into the way that fans watch football matches and I can’t help but think it is ruining the game that I love.

BOO

Let’s start with booing. I don’t mind admitting that I have booed people before. I hate Spurs, I hate most players that have ever played for them and there are a few others (referees mainly) who have caused me to voice my displeasure in this way in the past. But what is the justification for the fact that, when the Shrewsbury team came out of their dressing room and walked down to our end for the second half on Tuesday, a large proportion of the Arsenal fans in our corner booed them? We have only played them three times in history – beating them in an FA Cup replay in 1968 and again in 1991 -so there’s no past to get angry about. They’d nearly outplayed us in the first half but that’s hardly a reason to be so negative. It’s simply the case that the new breed of football fan – the type that’s only interested in the game because the telly told them to be – labours under the misconception that everyone hates any team that isn’t their own.

WHO?

Why would anyone go to football without knowing who the players are? Astonishing though it may be, there are “Arsenal fans” that are more than willing to pay to go and see Arsenal play without having the faintest clue who plays for them. Now whilst I realise that the team we put out on Tuesday are not exactly household names, the presence of a few youngsters in the Carling Cup is not exactly a new concept at Highbury. In this day and age, obtaining information about players, however young, who play for Arsenal is not very difficult. Five minutes of anyone’s time could have prevented the chorus of “I’ve never heard of him” that I heard when Chuks Aneke came on as a substitute. This surprise and confusion also occurs at Premier League games when fans shout “Who?” when the opposition make a change – not directed at a world class superstar as a joke but as a genuine request for further information on the identity of the new player.

SMILE

Now, photographs (he asked him knowingly). I can understand that a lot of people don’t get to go to many matches at a stadium like ours. I’m lucky. So when you do go, it’s understandable that you might want to take some photos. On Tuesday night, the man sitting next to me asked me to snap him DURING THE MATCH! He’d sat there for the whole of the half time break without saying a word and then felt the uncontrollable urge to have his photo taken 5 minutes into the second half. Inevitably, my heart wasn’t really in the task and I evidently performed badly as he asked me to take several more before I was allowed to continue watching the game that I’d paid to see. This sort of thing seems to happen quite regularly but I think the crowning moment came back at Highbury when I turned around to the people sat behind me whilst celebrating a goal to find that they were taking photographs of me jumping around.

OFF

Finally, as if to sum up this bizarre concept of paying to go to something you aren’t really that interested in, we come to the most staggering of all – voluntarily missing the football. On Tuesday, I witnessed 3 people arrive with 7 minutes left to play in the first half – not necessarily that bad given the state of public transport in this country I suppose – we’ve all done it. But if anyone knows the father and son sat in front of me that left the match with 21 minutes left to play, please ask them why they bothered to go in the first place as I’m genuinely interested.

If anyone thinks that a crowd of 46,000 people for a Carling Cup match against a League Two side is some sort of portent of doom for our club, fear not. It seems there are quite a lot of people who can be “convinced” to do something they don’t really want to do and pay money for the privilege.

Time For Some Perspective

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Being a football fan is really difficult.

Those that follow the most successful teams are rarely satisfied as their team must win every game and every trophy in order for them to achieve satisfaction. Then again, the fans that cheer on the others just want their team to be as successful as those above. No-one is happy.

This seems to be especially true of Arsenal supporters at the moment and I for one am struggling to understand why.

I haven’t written anything on this site for a while though, so let me begin by trying to sum up last season. In a word, I think I’d plump for “anticlimax”. I’m sure there are many who would have me hung, drawn and quartered for the failure to use a more emotive word such as “DISASTER” or “CATASTROPHE” (the capital letters being a key aspect of the delivery of the sentiment) but I’m afraid that “anticlimax” (lower case) is the furthest I’m going to go.

Humans have infeasibly short memory spans. The fact that regular polls of the “Best Song Ever Made” type always include a few of the current top 10 seems to back this up and the way people seem to feel about their football club seems to be almost entirely down to whatever has happened most recently. In order to study this further, we shall have a look at two examples from last season – Liverpool and Arsenal.

Liverpool’s season began in the most embarrassing fashion possible. For months, they were in genuine, serious danger of being relegated. Losses to Blackpool and Wolves (amongst many others) in the League and a home defeat to Northampton caused fury amongst the Liverpool fans and cost Roy Hodgson his job. By the time the season had ended however, the fans were wearing smiles as wide as the River Mersey and talking excitedly of the next season under the guiding hand of King Kenny.

Arsenal managed to put themselves in contention for all four trophies at one stage but an end-of-season collapse left them with nothing. The complete opposite to Liverpool’s season. Not quite.

Liverpool’s supporters have probably enjoyed their summer, basking in the glory of finishing 6th against all the odds and looking forward to their Messiah’s first full season at the helm. Arsenal’s have been left with the sour taste of another trophyless season, some awful defeats away to Bolton and Stoke and an embarrassment at home to Villa. Add to that the imminent departure of our best player and it feels like the world is about to end.

And yet overall, our season was much more successful than theirs. We didn’t lose to anyone from a lower division. We didn’t lose to Wolves or Blackpool. We reached the quarter-final of one domestic cup and the final of the other. We only lost to the Best Team In The World by a single goal over two legs and defeated them at home. We finished 4th and qualified for the Champions League.

You might argue that every team has different expectations but I would suggest that this time last year, the fans of both of these clubs would have had similar hopes. The only difference is that they enjoyed the end of their season whereas we only enjoyed the beginning and the middle.

Since then, the prevailing feeling of us Arsenal fans seems to be restricted to one unified view. We must buy as many players as we can get our hands on, they must all be at or near the peak of their careers and they must be paid whatever it takes to make them play for us. Then, and only then, will we achieve our aims. Not only that, but if we do manage to do that then we will definitely win every single football match we play and the world shall feel our fiery wrath. Or something like that.

Of course, the trouble with these sentiments is that not only is it totally impractical and insane but every single other team in the known universe feels exactly the same way! Even the fans of Manchester United are probably worrying about why they’ve spent so much on Ashley Young when Barcelona (the only team that were better than them in Europe last season) have Messi and Iniesta. As I said, no-one is happy.

Apart from me. Well, OK, I wouldn’t say I’m happy about losing the Carling Cup final in such embarrassing fashion. I’m certainly not over the moon about throwing away any chance of winning the league despite beating both Chelsea and United. And I’m not whooping for joy at the thought of Nasri and Fabregas leaving the club. But it’s July. There are still 6 weeks to go before the season starts and even then, every team in the league will have 0 points with 38 games to play. By that time, some teams will have spent more money than we’ll all see in our lifetimes on players who turn out to be useless and some will have done some shrewd deals. By that time, we might have done either.

We’re all in the same boat and, whilst we probably won’t win the league you never know. Fabregas leaving (assuming it happens) will be a blow because he’s such a great player but does anyone remember someone called Henry who used to play for us? A lot of people made a lot of fuss about the decision to let him go but you know what, we survived and for my money, were a better team the year after he left than we were during his final season at the club. Life moves on, we always knew Cesc was going to leave so let’s just see what happens.

It is hardly likely that the club are going to let it all go to rot and not at least try and replace him as well as strengthening the squad. So what is the problem with us fans waiting to see what happens, enjoying the (rather sporadic) sunshine and all trying to calm the hell down? It’s not long before we all have to start fretting every week about our football team for a whole 9 months so let’s just relax and enjoy life while we still can.

The End Of An Era?

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He may be my father but that doesn’t mean I have to agree with all of his views on our beloved football club.

After Saturday’s disappointing performance at home to Blackburn, the old man has clearly had enough of our most successful manager ever.

Arsene Wenger arrived at Arsenal in 1996 and by 2005 the club had won 3 championships including becoming the only team this century to remain unbeaten during a complete season in the top flight, 4 FA Cups and 2 league and cup doubles. However as we all know the club have not won anything since 2005 and having spent a terribly depressing evening watching Arsenal labour to yet another 0-0 draw I felt the need to evaluate the Wenger era and try to ascertain why it has taken such a turn for the worse.

When Wenger arrived he inherited the best defensive unit Arsenal have ever had and behind them one of the finest goalkeepers in the club’s history not to mention the services of Dennis Bergkamp. He was astute enough to use the defence as the basic foundation of his first team and brought in Patrick Vieira, Emmanuel Petit and Marc Overmars. He then produced a team playing a style of football that had not been seen in the English league in my experience which goes back to the 1950′s. As the defensive unit gradually grew older he recruited the likes of Sol Campbell and brought Ashley Cole through and although Lehman was a little eccentric at times he was nevertheless an experienced international keeper. Added to this were the likes of Ljungberg, Pires and the incomparable Henry but perhaps his most important signing was that of Gilberto Silva who was the archetypal midfield holding player and protector of the defence.

For some reason, after 2005, Wenger decided that he wanted to build a team made up of youngsters and bargain buys which would be coached to play “the Arsenal way”. I realise that the move to the Emirates was a factor here when it came to transfer fees and wages but the accounts each year suggest that a reasonable transfer kitty was available if necessary.

Since 2006 we all know we have needed a top class keeper, at least one top class central defender, a proper midfield holding player, a natural winger and a natural striker and most importantly one or two players who are capable of inspiring the team on the pitch with their leadership qualities. Again Wenger has not addressed any of these issues, preferring to make do and mend with players, several of whom are not up to top class Premiership football. This may be due to his obstinacy and ego and a desire to prove he can build a team without star players who will play the “beautiful game” in his image.

I also think it is necessary to look at the undoubted fact that ever since Wenger decided that the best way forward was to employ a 4-5-1 system both at home and away it has made it a lot easier for teams to plan their strategy against us, especially at the Emirates. If things are not going well at home there is never any attempt made to alter the system to present a different problem for our opponents and in fact substitutions rarely make a difference as it remains just different players within the same system.

Bearing in mind that we have always qualified for the Champions League during this trophyless period and that, on occasions, the football we have played has been a joy to watch, I did not wish to even consider that Wenger’s position was under threat. However over the last 2 seasons I have become more and more frustrated with his refusal to comprehend what is happening in front of his eyes but merely to look at the league table in a self satisfied way. Quite clearly the only reason we are 2nd in the table at present is the failure of some of the teams below us to be consistent rather than the quality of our play and next season we will struggle to finish in the top 6 let alone the top 4 unless Wenger has a complete change of heart as far as his policies are concerned.

I believe that Almunia, Fabianski, Eboue, Squillaci, Diaby, Denilson, Rosicky, Bendtner and Chamakh should be allowed to leave in the summer. Obviously this will not happen but it does show how many players we have who are not really up to the standard required for top Premier League football.

My conclusion is that as nothing has really changed during the last 5 years it is time for Wenger to have a close look at himself and if he is not prepared to change then perhaps he should leave the club and someone should be appointed to bring fresh ideas into the club both in coaching and tactical terms.

Arsenal (repeat)

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If you logged on to this website in order to read something original about Arsenal, then I’m afraid you’re going to be sadly disappointed.

In fact, in my opinion, if you log on to any blog about Arsenal today, you will struggle to find anything that hasn’t been written before.

Even if the words themselves are in a slightly different order, it’s reached the point where us Arsenal bloggers have thought every thought and offered every opinion available on the current side and there’s virtually nothing left to say.

If I was to ignore what’s gone on over the last 5 or 6 years and talk about today’s performance at home to Blackburn then I would probably have to emphasise that we played too slowly from start to finish, seemed to lack a leader on the pitch and there was not enough desire to win a game which was vital in order to keep us in the title race.

But if I did say all that (and then spend several paragraphs expanding on the points made) then you would inevitably find yourself leafing back through past posts on my site, frantically trying to convince yourself that you’re not going mad and that you really have ‘read this one before’.

That’s right – today was a repeat. A repeat of almost every home game, bar about 5 or 6 notable exceptions, of the last few seasons.

When we moved to our lovely comfortable new stadium, little did we realise that we’d be so relieved that the seats were comfortable enough to sit in, without getting up for any reason, for a full 90 minutes. Arsene Wenger, for his part, assured us that the new stadium would have a significant positive impact on our style as we would have the extra space required to play our expansive game. It hasn’t.

We have now managed a paltry single goal in our last 3 home games at a crucial stage of the season against Stoke, Sunderland and Blackburn.

This team is not going to win the league this season. Or next season if we continue to play like we did today. Or indeed any season.

If a team wants to stop Manchester United or Chelsea from beating them, they have to try and tactically outsmart the opposition AND play out of their skins for 90 minutes. Even then, they may well find themselves completely outplayed and beaten anyway, wondering what happened.

Every man and his deaf and blind dog knows how to stop Arsenal. Yes it is quite hard to actually do, and that is why we’re near the top of the league. But if you are well organised and committed then you’re more than half way there.

Watching games like today is getting so predictable and boring that it is no wonder that us Arsenal fans have such a bad reputation for being so quiet. It’s hard to get excited when you can’t shake that feeling of deja-vu as we pass sideways for 87 minutes, bring on a couple of extra strikers, play them on the wing and pretty much fail to create a proper chance in the entire 90 minutes.

Teams that come to defend like Blackburn did today quite often tire eventually and make a mistake. However, preventing our attacks on days like today doesn’t take much effort at all and I think Nelsen, Samba and the rest must have so much energy left they probably feel they could play another game immediately and get rid of some fixture congestion so they can have a week off.

At this point I realise that, despite having nothing to say, I have said quite a lot. All of it fairly negative and all of it very depressing. Today was depressing but we’ve seen it all before. Nothing ever changes. We’re not bad, we’re just not good enough to win the league. Again.

Why Must We Have What Ifs And Buts

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Would we have qualified for the 1/4 finals of the Champions League last night had the referee not shown Robin Van Persie a red card for kicking the ball at the goal?

What a shame that no-one will ever know.

Whilst pretty much everyone agrees that we were beaten by a better team last night, the fact remains that at the time RVP was sent off we were leading the tie and were beginning to threaten Barcelona in midfield. If the crime deserved the punishment, you wouldn’t find many Arsenal fans indulging in any abuse of the referee this morning, but every blog and news article I’ve read is saying the same thing – the referee ruined the game.

There’s really no need to argue about whether the decision was right or wrong. Of course it was wrong. The way in which Van Persie protested lent a huge amount of credibility to his argument that he didn’t hear the whistle which would seem to be the most likely explanation. Even if he had heard the whistle and deliberately blazed his shot wide of the goal, this is hardly the sort of thing that is met with yellow cards in any other match so why this one?

The rule that exists in order to prevent players from petulantly kicking or throwing the ball away essentially comes under the heading of “unsporting behaviour”. Everyone knows what it looks like when players break this rule. There are two categories. One is where a player has been penalised for an offence which he believes he is not guilty of and either kicks a (usually fairly stationary) ball a long distance in anger or throws the ball into ground in disgust – the other is when a decision is given whilst a player whose team is in a winning position in the game is in possession, at which point he plays the ball deliberately away from the location of the incident in order to waste some time. There were 35 minutes to go – was Robin Van Persie really wasting time?

The role of the referee in any sport is not simply to enforce the rules as set out in that sport’s official rule book – it is to manage the game in an appropriate way. In football it is quite common to see challenges go unpunished which, during fractious periods of play, would receive a yellow card. The referee is supposed to use his judgement and discretion and use the rules to control the way in which the game is played. Most of the time, this happens in the manner intended. But every so often we see a referee who gets it all wrong and this last week or two has seen several such incidents.

In my last post, I referred to Mark Clattenburg’s ridiculous award of a penalty for a challenge in the penalty by Blackburn’s Grant Hanley – the challenge, seen in isolation, was a foul. But to give penalties for such things is clearly incorrect, unless they are happening repeatedly. Assuming the referee didn’t believe Van Persie’s defence that he couldn’t hear the whistle, his decision to book him seems to me to be totally out of line with how the game was going and as such, was unnecessary. Had it been 5 minutes from time, it may well have been justified. This is what is meant by managing the game.

As a result, the whole of the football world (and most of the non-football world, judging by the numbers of people in the pub last night!) is forced to resort to pointless speculation as to whether we would have qualified had our only striker not been sent off. Seeing as we had, until that point (and beyond) not had a single shot on target, it would seem sensible to come to the conclusion that we would have lost anyway. But the point is that without the referee’s intervention, who knows what would have happened? We’ve all seen games that completely change their nature at some point.

For what it’s worth, I think that we were lulled into playing too slowly for our own good last night by a very cagey start from the home side. They passed at a snails pace and we were happy to let them for the most part, as we were already ahead in the tie. When we eventually got the ball, not only was our passing too slow and inaccurate, they snapped into the tackle and made space tight for us, meaning that we rarely kept possession for more than 2 or 3 passes.

Nicklas Bendtner should have done better when he had the chance late on but if you look at all the chances that were missed by much more respected players at the other end, it is hard to put all the blame on him. Jack Wilshere and Johann Djourou aside, I think the team let Barcelona dictate the game from start to finish and that was never going to reap rewards for us.

On a final note, I must give credit to Manuel Almunia for an outstanding display. When Szczesny saved Alves’ free kick, injuring his finger and Manuel was shown ready to come on, the outpouring of grief and disappointment in the pub I was in was louder and more disappointed than it would have been had Wenger decided to put himself between the sticks – but he did very well, made the right decisions and kept us in it.

It’s going to take a lot to get the team up for the challenges ahead this season now, especially if we fail to get anything at Old Trafford on Saturday. Being knocked out of 3 out of 4 competitions in 2 weeks is not something I am confident that we have the mental strength for but I guess we’ll find out in West Bromwich on 19th March.

Diaby And Decisions

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What a frustrating weekend. What a brilliant weekend. What a disappointing weekend. What were those refs doing at the weekend?!

The self-proclaimed Best League In The World certainly provided some half-decent entertainment this weekend but it was not all positive – certain referees didn’t exactly cover themselves in glory.

First of all, Mark Clattenburg. Hard to defend this bumbling idiot, isn’t it? I’m not going to bother trying.

I don’t think anyone can blame him for responding in the affirmative to his employer’s question of “did you get that decision right, Mark?” after the Rooney elbow last week. Which of us can honestly say that we wouldn’t do the same if our boss asked whether the obviously crass mistake we made was something they should consider a sackable offence?

“Simon, do you think you made the right decision when you punched that important customer in the face?”

“Yes.”

“Fair enough.”

Great psychology there from the FA.

Now, what’s the best thing to do when you make a mistake? Get right back into the game and, errrr, make another one. His decision to give a penalty to Fulham for a fairly standard, pre-corner wrestling match wouldn’t have been so bad had he not failed to give them a penalty in the very attack that led to the set piece in the first place. You’d be hard pressed to find a more blatant admission of a previous mistake than that one. At least give it a few minutes before you try and redress the balance, Mark!

Then there was Anthony Taylor. “Anthony who?”, I hear you say. That’s what we said before the game. By the end of the game, we all knew who he was. He insisted that we look at him and talk about him.

I don’t think you can really blame him for the goal that was given offside. It wasn’t his decision and even then, it was pretty close. The penalty one was wrong however, and just serves to demonstrate the unwritten rule that says you have to go down if you want a penalty. However, the reason many in the ground were screaming at the referee was not because of a difficult offside call and a missed penalty shout. For the entire second half, Taylor seemed desperate to get on TV, making poor decision after poor decision – ironic really because these antics didn’t make it into the Match Of The Day edit so his mission failed. Sort of.

Of course, the sad truth is that, despite the wrong decisions, we didn’t deserve to win the game anyway. Sunderland would have been understandably disappointed not to take anything out of the game if we’d won it – they played just like Birmingham did at Wembley, closing us down but also carrying a threat at the other end – and without Fabregas we didn’t have any idea how to beat them.

Strange really, you’d have thought that the cunning and wily ability of Denilson and Diaby would have been enough to undo a tight defence. When Denilson’s not slipping over just as he receives the ball, he’s passing it back towards his own goal, even in positions of real threat and Abou Diaby is the only man who could ever be booked for time-wasting whilst taking a penalty – the man has to think for such a long time when he gets the ball that only a new FA rule which says that all other players have to stand still for 10 seconds whenever he touches it can save him.

For the first 70 minutes the team was clueless and lethargic. Once the two spare parts in the middle went off, we began to come to life but 20 minutes of effort was not quite enough and we have now managed only 2 goals in our last 3 games (Leyton Orient aside).

Of course, the talk on the way out of the ground was that whenever United mess up, as they did at Chelsea in the week, we always fail to capitalise – so it was hard to believe that United did even worse on Sunday and lost to Liverpool. Bizarre.

So after all that, we’re still in it, Mark Clattenburg is still a Premier League referee and Abou Diaby is still an Arsenal midfielder. Not only that, but he’s going to play tonight in Barcelona as Song is injured. Forgive me but I can’t find the words to describe how this makes me feel.

No, hang on, I’ve got one … nervous. Goodbye.