So our league campaign has once again crumbled before our eyes, as it has for the last five seasons at about this time.
Defeat to Liverpool on Wednesday night and we will dragged into a fourth place dogfight with teams who are playing better than us at the moment, so tomorrow is now a very important game. Eight point gap over an improving Liverpool will help us maintain third spot, but if the gap is reduced to two, then we will look like easy pray for the chasing pack. Hard to believe just three weeks ago that we were top.
There are so many reasons why this has happened again. The squad’s too small (literally), not enough experience (that won’t wash with me though), injuries (Man Utd have coped), no money for signings (although the club insists there is) etc etc... We have heard it all too many times now, and I for one am sick of hearing it.
It’s time for change.
Arsene Wenger has done wonders for the club since he joined and we have all savoured the football played under him. We have some wonderful memories to cherish. But at the moment that’s all we do have. Memories.
We have no divine right to win it every season. We have no right to win anything, but the fact we are not realistically challenging Chelsea and Manchester United is starting to become too painful to bear. And add to that the fact that our manager has no real intention of trying to win the domestic cups on offer is really starting to grate with me too. We may as well ask to be excluded every season!
Time to admit it, Arsene Wenger can progress the club no further where it matters - winning silverware. I can see it, many other Gooners can too, and even the most rose tinted Wenger supporters must be seeing that his type of “Total Football” management, whilst being a dream to watch, will no longer bring home the bacon.
But I have no doubt, he will still be place come August, and we will once again fall short of glory in 2011.