Giovanni Fontanella
Well, if you read my previous moderately optimistic article, you wouldn’t really expect me to write what you’re going to read now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it hurts; we got punched in the face eight times last Sunday. We all know that, and I won’t push the knife deeper in your wounds. I was being pretty optimistic about the season just ten days ago: then something happened. I’m not talking about our Old Trafford debacle, of course. Some strange statement started to come out on the press. I had never seen Sir Alex Ferguson defending Wenger before. And it was something that made me realise that we are no longer a real threat to Man Utd. A fierce rivalry like that between Ferguson and Wenger is not something that can end in a cordial relationship, let alone friendship. So, when something like that happens - headlines like “Lay off Wenger” being printed on the major newspapers - I seriously started to worry, and understood how foolish I had been and how the Champions League qualifying tie was just more in smoke in the eyes.
One month ago, our beloved manager stated that Fabregas and Nasri were not leaving and that Arsenal were “in a position to say no”. This was baffling. But Arsene went on to say: “imagine the worst situation — we lose Fabregas and Nasri. You cannot convince people you are ambitious after that. You can't then pretend you are a big club, because a big club holds on to its best players and gives a message out to all the other big clubs that they can't come in and take our players".
That’s when attacks, deservedly or not (I won’t question this, but my position is very clear), started to fall on Arsène. Certainly, this is the most critical part of his career and Alex Ferguson didn’t lose the opportunity to let us know he’s very happy about this, of course. In his subtle, indirect way, he said: "It's a crazy world we're in. It's a critical world and you only need to lose a couple of games to have critics howling down at you. He should carry on. He shouldn't listen to the critics. The one thing you need in this game is ear plugs."
Of course you don’t want him to listen to the critics! You’re just happy you have one enemy less to worry about! Ferguson repeated this at least three or four times, in press conferences or in the press, before our match at Old Trafford. That’s when I started worrying about Man Utd and the right hammering they would serve us on a plate a few days after. In life, when your enemy says bad things about you, you have to be happy and confident: he’s scared and he rates you, a lot. This is what happened before 2005 between Wenger and Ferguson, between Arsenal and Man Utd. This is not happening anymore.
I remember when we reached the CL semi-finals and had to play Man Utd. It was very unlikely that we would beat that side, and it pains me to say that, but, at the time, Sir Alex still felt he had to show respect to Arsenal, at least formally. He’s not seeing Wenger and Arsenal as enemies anymore. He’s mocking our manager, our team, us.
We’ve completely lost the respect of our enemy; we’re not rated. And this is very painful. We have no programme for future years, no plans to start the journey up the hill again. We bought a lot of new faces on the last two days of the transfer window, but this was just panic-buying. We went for Cahill and ended up with Mertesacker (maybe we’ve been lucky with this). We went for M’vila and Hazard and ended up with Mikel Arteta, whom I rate a lot but who has admitted that he’s past his best days. We bought a Korean striker just to sell more shirts in Asia…that’s enough. It is clear that Alex Ferguson doesn’t see our manager as a threat. And this worries me a lot, not for this season only (which has already gone to the dogs), but for the many years our club has ahead. Forward? Nah.
