Saturday 17 September 2011

Now I'm angry - the name of Arsenal has been sullied once too often

Blackburn 4 Arsenal 3
Forget Old Trafford, THIS was a truly disgraceful performance. Arsene Wenger’s first match as Arsenal manager was at Ewood Park – after today, so should his last.

I normally write these entries at least a day after a match to reflect on what I’ve seen, consider opinions of players, media and supporters and then give my own.

Not this time – this time I can’t bottle it up.

I like to think I’m a forgiving soul. I appreciate when we have injuries and suspensions to cope with, or when we’ve been victims of a freak goal or performance, or of refereeing injustices or when we have nothing to play for and can’t motivate ourselves to match another team’s desire, or when it has just been one of those days.

Today there can be no forgiveness. What we saw on that pitch in the second half was shameful.

It was the culmination of years of arrogance, of sanctimonious bollocks from our manager who pompously refuses to listen to anyone else’s views and maintains that our ‘superior’ style of football inherently deserves to win football matches. Deserves to win more than teams who are less attractive on the eye but refuse to give in. It is the culmination of years of ignoring fundamentals about hard work and actually earning victories. Years of embarrassingly pathetic defending.

Today has exposed the truth once too often. I won’t list the number of times we’ve given up leads and thrown games away against teams we should beat but the name of Arsenal has been sullied for too long and it cannot be allowed to continue.

We are one of the richest clubs in the world. We are one of the best-known clubs in the world. We cannot match some clubs fuelled by billionaire benefactors but we are wealthy enough to remain one of the biggest spenders in Europe. The performances over the past few years have not matched that position and in the past six months they have fallen far, far below it. To a disgraceful level, in fact.

There is one man to blame – Wenger. Anyone who points the finger at the board, or Kroenke or anyone else for this mess is deluded.

Wenger runs this club. He decides the transfer policy. He decides how much people should be paid. He decides to keep the same coaching staff for 15 years. He decides how the team should play. He decides to ignore our flaws. He decides to highlight how grateful we should be that he has turned down offers to manage other clubs. He decides to criticise supporters for daring to question his approach. He decides to let players show so little discipline that getting sent off is just seen as an occupational hazard. He decides to give team-talks that continually fail to inspire his players to do their jobs properly.

Nothing is going to change while Wenger is in charge. Even if we’d somehow managed to come back from 4-2 down to win today, the same pitiful defending was going to crop up again.

Fuck it – I’m so fed up with it I can’t be bothered to type anymore. Except two more words: Wenger out.

2 comments:

  1. I know it what you think but you really should have took your time, yes football matches are decided by number of goals scored and in that department Blackburn won,If you think they were the superior team in any shape or form you should watch the match again,we totally dominated in every facet except the score line and fickle "he must go" rants are not what is needed, belief is!!!!

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  2. Regardless of whether wenger should ultimately go,I think such a significant decision should be based on more than just 2 games with 5 new signings and wilshere out with an injury. I agree though that a club with as much prestige as arsenal should have a settled squad at this point of the season. That this team has been thrown together so haphazardly and so late is an embarassment for the club's manager, board and owner. All are to blame. But this team is still in its infancy, so it is reasonable to expect improvement.

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