Joe Fitzpatrick 
Whilst reading a brilliant article in the Gooner, containing the marvellously humorous question "Are Arsenal Barcelona-lite or are they really just Blackpool heavy?” I was reminded of a story that I heard from an old travelling storyteller as a child that completely mirrors the current problems in the relationship between Arsenal FC and its millions of fans.
Most of you will not have heard of this story as it comes from the oral Celtic tradition of storytelling dating back thousands of years. Different stories, from ancient oral traditions, were chosen to be published as official children's stories by the royal families of medieval Europe. Many such stories or variations are still being used by our own so-called democratically controlled political governments of Europe today as the basis for all of our government approved school curriculum, brainwashing, diet of children's entertainment, especially the work of huge production companies such as Disney/Dreamworks/Pixar/Marvel etc. Only certain fairytales and heroes, it seems, are fit for consumption by the great unclean vermin-like masses of the working class - at least that's what it feels like.
Strangely enough, fellow Gooners, it turns out that certain individuals in positions of great power over you don't want you or your children to hear a story about the great masses of ordinary folk being seduced, spellbound, hypnotised and charmed into blissful ignorance and slavery by parasitical malevolent entities or individuals. Really funny that - can't quite work out why that could possibly be? Why would anyone ever want to lie to absolutely everybody else? What on earth could they hope gain from it? Apart from the obvious stacks of cash and mountains of treasure, of course.
Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away all around the warm glowing light of campfires across the length and breadth of these British Isles a story was passed down from generation to generation, as weary fathers laid their children down to sleep by the gentle light of the fire... Once upon a time, in an ancient city in a location that is hidden from the modern memory under the ever rapidly flowing sands of time, there lurked a great malevolent demonic spirit named Leviathan who managed to possess and control the hearts and minds of men after being summoned into this dimension by an ancient Celtic king during a Druidic ceremony not dissimilar to those that might have been practised and performed at ancient sites such as Stonehenge. At the request and magical behest of the Sorcerer King the evil spirit Leviathan spoke through the King’s mouth and brought great deception to the mass of the ordinary people by virtue of wickedly clever lies and magical enchantment - something akin to mass hypnosis. Leviathan convinced the population of the lost city to sleepwalk their way throughout their dreary lives and blindly follow the charismatic king never questioning as to why they should only be entitled to even a tiny fraction of all their hard earned wealth, crops and livestock or at least some worldly compensation for handing over most of everything they had to the evil, greedy, money grabbing, sorcerer shareholders. Did I just write shareholders? Sorry, I meant to write King. The delete button is way too far away to correct that Freudian slip now. Sorry folks.
Mass mind manipulation and political style New Labour/Conservative spin mind control predates Jesus Christ himself and were most famously written about by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato in "The Republic". They are by no means modern phenomena and have in fact only been honed and refined by the various powers that be throughout the centuries and now these concepts have even crept into our much beloved, world of quasi-religious football escapism. The evil sorcerer shareholders of Arsenal FC and their chosen king Arsene joined forces to weave a giant web of deception that fell softly and silently over the eyes of a great many of the Gooner population. Their great deception, their great lie to all of us was of course their infamous story that Arsenal FC are in fact the British version of Barcelona rather than simply a pumped-up Blackpool on steroids. I would be interested to see just how many of you still subscribe to this crackpot theory of Arsenal being anything remotely like the current European Champions after the evidence of the season we’ve just had. In fact, I defy you to.
I do not mind that Barcelona are held up as the ideal role models of the modern game as something to aspire to but please, oh please, do not try and sell me on the fact that we are ANYWHERE near to Barcelona in footballing terms on anything like a consistent basis. Please do not insult or underestimate my very limited intelligence.
Arsenal fans are expected to continue to pay sky high prices for season tickets and merchandise while being forced to watch (via the ruthless use of emotional blackmail) as increasingly lazy, uncommitted, unmotivated players insult the memory of Arsenal legends by daring to pull on the famous red and white shirt and step out on the pitch in front of the Arsenal faithful. Meanwhile the mind-boggling way in which King Arsene and some of his mediocre players have the front to constantly talk about their own potential greatness and how they often compare their style of play to that of the Catalan giants, truly does leave me scratching my head at times. Have they ever even really studied the way that Barcelona play their football? Of course they have, they are plainly either lying or are delusional when they say that we are as good as the Catalans or anywhere even close to being a British Barcelona.
Somehow (don't ask me how) the evil sorcerer shareholders and their chosen King have also managed to cast their spell of Leviathan over the wider Football community and therefore deceived some sections of the great British media into somehow believing that Arsenal deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Barcelona. It might have been true to say that Arsenal were somewhere close to Barcelona in footballing terms back in the days of Bergkamp, Henry, Pires, Petit, Overmars, Anelka, Vieira and Ljungberg but sadly no longer. Yes, we managed to finally beat them on that most magical of nights at the Grove last season but let's not kid ourselves here; West Brom and Newcastle beat us at home but no one, other than the most stubbornly deluded Baggie or Magpie fan, is suggesting for a single second that either of them are better football teams than Arsenal.
Barcelona are the champions of both Spain and Europe while Arsenal are the fourth best team in England; those are the facts of the matter and the odd wonder strike from Van Persie, sublime pass from Cesc, mazy dribble from Nasri or increasingly rare goal or intelligent assist from the infuriating Arshavin should not be allowed to detract from the fact that Arsenal are a million miles away from the total football of Barcelona. Barcelona are a side built in the very image and likeness of the footballing God known as Johan Cruyff and therefore vicariously in the image and likeness of his very own footballing mentor Rinus Michels and have therefore become the greatest modern proponents of the system of total football, possibly even surpassing the levels of excellence achieved by Michels’ and Cruyff's very own legendary Ajax Amsterdam sides.
The system of total football relies on technically gifted players that are drilled and schooled in every single component of the beautiful game both defensively and offensively (note to Arsene; they do not tolerate sh*te goalkeepers for too long either) resulting in a constantly mobile blur of passing destruction and clever movement that will successfully bring opponents to their knees 99 times out of 100. Barcelona are rightly praised for their free flowing attacking football but not nearly enough is made in the worldwide media of their harrying, swarming, hardworking defensive tactics and the clever movement of their players when they eventually lose the ball.
The system requires each and every player to run his socks off and to be intelligent enough to constantly adapt positionally to the ebb and flow of the modern game whilst retaining both a high tempo and work rate.
It was due to his uncanny ability whilst at the very peak of his freakish, superhuman footballing powers to play in almost any position on the entire football pitch that earned Johann Cruyff the moniker of the "total footballer" while Barcelona also have a few potential all time greats of their own in the likes of Xavi, Iniesta and Messi.
It would appear to me that in order to truly play total football you need either a total footballer or maybe at least three of the very best players on the entire planet in order to be successful. Arsenal have some very good players but they need at least 4 world class players to join their squad if they want to win the Premier league next season, let alone the European cup, or maybe we would only need three players if we could somehow manage to retain the services of our motorsport enthusiast and 100% dedicated captain, the disgraceful Cesc Fabregas and somehow keep Vermaelen, Van Persie, Wilshere, Ramsey and Nasri fully fit all season. I won't go into transfer gossip here as I don't have any super top-secret insider knowledge of the inner transfer workings of Arsenal FC and never will I pretend to have any. (This article was carefully prepared in a transfer gossip free environment but may contain traces of who I'd like Arsenal to buy, who I'd like to leave or who I'd like to manage Arsenal.) After all, isn't it Arsene Wenger’s job to find the right players to bring in the silverware? Or is he not paid in excess of £6,000,000 a year to win trophies?
If he is instead being paid in order to merely finish in the top 4 without ever really competing for trophies at the business end of the season then shame on us for not speaking out about it. We have a great platform from which to push on from and we loyal fans deserve to finally see some marquee names come in to restore us once again to our former glory, as Kings of London and the entire bloody country. Maybe we could set up a secret poll online for season ticket holders only detailing who we would most like to buy or the club could just ask to see The Gooner's end of season survey results if they want to save some time. All it would take to win trophies is a little investment in the playing squad and shake up of the 15 year+, stale, out of date, defensively naive coaching triumvirate of Wenger, Rice and Primorac. The replacement of goalkeeping coach Gary Peyton and an investigation into the role played in Arsenal's never ending injury crisis of Colin Lewin and his physio department. That's ALL it would take but even if we start moving now it will take us at least two years to get to the level that we all wish us to be playing at.
If Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal truly want to emulate either Cruyff's Ajax or his beloved Barcelona then why do they not stop trying to constantly delude themselves and all of us Gooners that we are on track to reach the promised land of total football and instead actually attempt to recruit the living legend that is good old "Nummer 14" himself as technical director or advisor to Arsene Wenger while we are still fortunate enough to have him with us on this planet of ours? Surely, even Arsene Wenger would have to listen to what Johann Cruyff had to say about his technically blessed but oh so crucially tragically fatally flawed football team. He surely cannot be that stubborn or arrogant. Barcelona do not misplace silly backheeled passes on the edge of their own penalty area or fail to close down the opposition and Barcelona do not accept anything less than 100% effort and excellence from each and every single one of their players.
Comments from players such as Denilson recently tend to suggest that Arsenal players are living in a bubble of ignorance about just what level they are playing at because when someone like Denilson gets his hands on a Barca shirt that he hasn't bought from sportsdirect.com or another high street retailer, Hell will freeze over once and for all. Javier Mascherano cannot force his way into a regular starting place at Barcelona and many are questioning as to whether Cesc Fabregas would currently be able to do any better than he is doing, such is the level of excellence and telepathic understanding achieved by Xavi, Busquets, Iniesta, Messi, Villa and Pedro et al. As long as we have players like Denilson, Eboue, Bendtner, Diaby, Squillaci and Almunia in our squad Rinus Michels vision of total football will elude us because those players do not possess the heart, desire, commitment or even the technical quality to play this particular brand of football.
Our better players such as Van Persie, Fabregas and Nasri (soon to be followed by Wilshere and Ramsey) are growing increasingly frustrated at the level of footballing ability and intelligence around them resulting in their increasing desire to play their favoured brand of football elsewhere. If Van Persie was always fit Barcelona would probably be chasing him as well as Cesc Fabregas this summer. We have become a mere feeder club for Barcelona rather than contenders for their much coveted crown of European champions We have already sold them Petit, Overmars, van Bronckhorst, Hleb, Sylvinho, Henry and will most likely be selling them Cesc Fabregas very shortly too. Could we please stop selling them our best players or will Jack Wilshere be the target of another transfer swoop in 2014?
There is no way in this world that allowing mediocre players to consistently don Arsenal shirts brings us any closer to winning trophies or achieving the consistent excellence of the current European champions. It is only by bringing in or producing more players of the quality of Fabregas, Van Persie, Wilshere, Vermaelen, Nasri or Ramsey that we will ever be able to dare to even dream of winning that elusive Champions League trophy. Football is a game that can greatly be affected by the loss of even just one player's efforts, When we allow players like Almunia, Squillaci, Eboue, Diaby, Bendtner and Denilson to have a place in our starting XI we are putting ourselves at a distinct disadvantage because it can be like playing with only 9 men on the pitch at times while the loss of just one single player can be the difference between a point or certain victory, (just take a look at the before and after effect of Abou Diaby’s red card at Newcastle if you don't believe me) imagine if we had a Wesley Sneijder, Iniesta or Sebastian Schweinsteiger in our squad to push the likes of Fabregas, Nasri and van Persie on to further levels of greatness instead of allowing them to sometimes get complacent due to lack of competition of places in the squad.
Alex Song is a decent enough player for his age, but he has failed to develop further under Wenger due to the fact that he has no one breathing down his neck for his place in the side. Denilson or Diaby are never going to displace Song from the Arsenal starting XI and that is not a good thing for either Alex Song or Arsenal. The sad fact remains that a player of the quality of Alex Song has been allowed to become indispensable to Arsenal. This isn't intended to be a slight on the abilities of the young lad but, let's be honest, he is by no means a Patrick Vieira yet,
Barcelona are ruthless and full of intelligent movement in the final third of the pitch while Arsenal, barring the excellent van Persie, of course, are much more merciful and woefully wasteful. Barcelona are dynamic, creative and inventive in possession while Arsenal without Nasri or Fabregas look desperately bereft of ideas or intelligent forward passing.
