John Evans
People can say what they want about the Spurs game but at the end of the day it was mission accomplished for Arsenal FC. The point gained from the derby means we will finish the season yet again in the top four come May 22nd and that is all that matters to the men in charge at our club. A late Spurs goal would have seen us sitting seven points ahead of our North London rivals who would have had a game in hand to reduce that advantage to just four points. A top four spot would not have been a certainty under those circumstances yet the draw we gained keeps us a full ten points clear with one more game played by us than Spurs. Game over on that front as far as I am concerned so in all honesty a point gained rather than two points lost.
Yes Chelsea have over taken us for second in the process of drawing the game but let’s face facts if you are not going to win the title who cares about finishing second or third? The only real difference is the London rivalry we have with Chelsea and a few extra quid in the bin of the directors for the slightly higher finishing spot. As a fan I am not really that bothered about that side of things and that is why the current ‘top four will do’ attitude of the club for me is so disappointing. We have managed to clamber into the Champions League for the past 15 seasons in a row, something to be proud of on certain levels but what aspirations do we as a club harbour of actually winning the damn thing?
In fifteen attempts at success we have won the trophy on zero occasions and have reached the final once. Not exactly the greatest of records and for me the whole group stage of the tournament has got so boring I wouldn’t be overly disappointed if we had a season out of the competition altogether. That way we could concentrate 100% that season on trying to win the Premier League. I for one do not get excited about the prospect of playing teams like Braga or Olympiakos every season. The competition only really gets going at the quarter final stages and by then most seasons we are on our bike anyway. So other than the money the directors of the club receive for taking part in the competition what is the big deal about being in it season after season? We as fans don’t see any of that money being re-invested in the playing squad anyway.
I guess come the end of the season we can laugh at Spurs fans if they fail to qualify and we make it but that really is about it for me. So I can’t accept finishing in the top four every season as a success. It merely indicates our club being at a certain level and not going forward from where they started off at. We finish every season in 3rd or 4th and we always seem to end up with a similar points tally as well. We are not improving at all and we haven’t moved on as club or improved our mentality as a squad of players for a long time now and those are the realities we need to address as a club if we want to improve.
I mentioned in a previous article that we wouldn’t reach 76 points this season as we are a team of bottlers. I have been proved right already on that score on more than one occasion. We currently have 64 points with five games to go. We will struggle to get more than 73 points and from where we were and the games we had left to play two months ago that is poor to say the least. Last season we ended the season with a points tally of 75 so someone please try and explain to me how and where we have improved? The reality is we haven’t. We have been flattered by the relative close proximity to teams like Chelsea and United as they are currently well below par. Chelsea won the title by one point last season with a final tally of 86 and the year before that United won it with 90 points where as we finished that season with a final tally of 72. Every season we finish with a figure in the low seventies and even with the top two teams in the country currently being poor by their own high standards that will never be enough to win the title. We have averaged 74.50 points over the past four completed seasons and we are on target to get around that same figure again this season, we will not better it so therefore we have not improved.
All these figures point to two conclusions in my eyes. We are not improving and we will not win the league unless we start to improve. It is that simple, we need to address the failings and move forward or keep sitting on our hands and pretend that this is good enough. Some people that support our club are happy enough with the current plight and some are not. This split exists simply because it is a game of opinion. If you take into account the money spent by our club compared to our main rivals then where we end up season after season can be deemed as a success. If you look at the bigger picture and judge us purely in terms of where we end up season after season compared to our main rivals who you would have to say currently are Chelsea and United, then you would come to the conclusion that we have failed miserably in recent times and are in need of change. I guess the real truth as always probably lies somewhere in the middle of these two arguments.
One vital thing to consider though if you are currently sat squarely in the happy brigade camp. We have managed to finish 15 seasons in a row in the Champions League and that is a record to be proud of but if as a club that is the limit of your ambitions you over time fail to hold on to the likes of Cesc Fabregas. If we had shown greater ambition over the past few seasons would our current captain be quite so eager to leave for pastures new? Surely all that really matters is the best for the club we all support. That for me must be to find a way forward that brings a greater chance of success than what we have got over the past six seasons, but also one that doesn’t put the longer term health of the club at genuine risk. We have in my opinion been far too cautious in this regard for the past three seasons and it is time to start shooting a few fifty pound notes around with a little more freedom than what we have done recently. I do not mean in a completely carefree attitude but surely we can do more than bring in the likes of Chamakh on a free transfer? We need higher ambition than that to keep the belief going and we also need better signings at the back than Squillaci when a few quid does get spent. The likes of those two signings from last summer mean you end another campaign empty handed. You simply have to show greater ambition than that in order to genuinely compete at the top level.
Cesc will be gone from our club by the middle of June and his words reported this week were those spoken by a man that feels he has been let down. He has put all his faith in Arsene Wenger’s philosophies over the past five or six seasons and has not won a single domestic trophy in that period of time because of it. He will go on to pastures new and he will be a better player for that move. I wish him every success in the future as he deserves better than the mediocrity he has been served up during his time at our club. He is a cut above a very average bunch of players in my opinion. I do not see him as a great, but I do see him as a very good player in a very ordinary side. AW goes on about the 15 years in the Champions League record with pride. He should thank the man leaving for pastures new this summer for this record as it has been Cesc that has kept AW in a job over the past few seasons. In my opinion without his talent AW would not have the 15 years in the Champions League record to use as protection against his doubters. Without him we would have been outside the top four on a number of occasions as we simply do not create enough chances when he isn’t playing.
This summer for me is a time that as a club we need to re-group and come back with a few new ideas. A bit of freshness in the approach is what is required. We need to clear out some dead wood, replace them with a sprinkling of class and then go again in August. We will be minus Cesc unfortunately but that has come about due to a very limited approach in terms of genuine ambition. We need to make sure that the next time we have a Cesc in our squad we do not lose them all over again due to a lack of ambition. We need to be a club where this calibre of player can fulfil their potential. We also need to be able to give them a platform to fill up their own trophy cabinet for us to be able to keep them happy in the future. We have failed Cesc in this regard this time round. Let us make sure we do not make the same mistakes again in the future.
