Kevin Whitcher
It was too much to hope for. Two results we could live with and the faint hope that the club, with new signings on board, might just build up a bit of momentum by working hard to post some points on the board and start climbing the table. Three of the deadline day signings started at Ewood Park, but it wasn’t enough to reverse the malaise. I recently compared the situation at Arsenal as being akin to waiting for a terminally ill patient to meet their maker. You know what’s in store, and a bit of you just wants it to end. A sense of sadness dominates the atmosphere, and more than anything, you are waiting to move on.
Most worrying of all, a bit of me has stopped caring. I can’t get worked up about the team anymore. I can’t invest emotionally because I have seen too many games like this. Brilliant at moments but ultimately letting you down. I really do believe that a lot of the players are not really playing for the manager anymore. They are turning out for their wages, but ultimately marking time. Robin van Persie is probably thinking ahead to next summer already, and his chance of liberty. Can you really see him wanting to stay?
In isolation, it was a freak game. The chances stats indicated that Arsenal did indeed dominate, but somehow conspired to concede four. They should have wrapped up the game in the first half, but even if they’d scored four instead of two before the interval, who is to say we would not have seen another 4-4?
Let me get the text messages out of the way…
Pete Mountford – That clown Wenger has to go
Ian Tanner – They had one goalscorer. We had five. Go to work.
Doktor Schneide – For Christ’s sake, how much longer must we be subjected to this? How can anyone say with any credibility that Wenger is irreplaceable?
TFG – Too good to go down? Really? Bottom placed opponents have 2 shots and score 4. We fell apart when Djourou came on and were only clinical in our own penalty area.
Peter Mountford (post game) – Did I hear Wenger correctly? Did he really say he doesn’t know what he can do?
And while I am at it, some of the shorter emails…
Ian Henry (at 2.13) – How many by full time? I predict 8
Ian Henry (post game) – Unacceptable. But actually entirely predictable.
Elliot Segal - Enough is enough now. Wenger has to go. I don't care what the AKB's say. Let them cut me down. 3 defeats from 5 games and 14 goals conceded says it all. Absolutely, completely and totally unacceptable. Carry on like this and we won't finish in the top 10 never mind top 4.
Arsenal have won 16 points from the last 16 league matches. This from the best squad Wenger has ever worked with. Is there any point in discussing the defending? Four were conceded today with Mertesacker and Andre Santos in the team. The bottom line is that the heart seems to have been ripped out of the club. The players say all the right things about commitment but don’t seem to carry their words through on a consistent basis. Djourou’s attempt to clear the ball in the build up to the fourth goal kind of said it all. These players do not mean business. And we have seen it too often in recent seasons. The magic has gone, and I, for one, simply cannot see it returning under Wenger.
Sure there was bad luck. Two own goals (although do not forget that own goals are often created by pressure) and an offside goal. To say nothing of the blatant penalty denied Walcott at the death. If this were a game in isolation, I could live with it. One of those days. But the problem is that, too often, the team laspe into performing like a bunch of disparate individuals rather than a unit. Despite the number of supposed leaders, it resembles a rudderless ship. Sky Sports’ guest Dwight Yorke highlighted that the shape of the side seemed to go completely during the second half, which suggests a lack of discipline.
It’s going to be a long tortuous season. As far as the league goes, it’s already over. Yes, only five matches have been played, but it’s what the team have demonstrated in those fixtures that suggests nothing is going to change dramatically. Even after beating Swansea and getting out of Dortmund with a point, it was always going to be a slow recovery if the corner could be turned. What Blackburn away shows is that any sort of revival is going to be a lot tougher than some might like to hope. Because the team – with their lack of collective defensive ability – find it very difficult to tough out results.
We are watching the death throes of Arsene Wenger’s time at Arsenal, but it could yet drag on for a long, long while. Perhaps the key time that will decide if he remains will be December. A new manager would then have some funds to spend in January and the board will be cognisant of the difficulty in getting renewals for the expensive middle tier seats in February and March. It is interesting that there is no indication of a date for the annual shareholders’ Q&A event with the manager, despite the policy of stage managing it. Originally, it was held in May, but ‘Judge me in May’ took care of that after the 2009 event, so it was moved to September last year. I suspect it won’t happen again. I also wonder if the manager will attend the club’s AGM in October. There is no compulsion for him to do so. Let’s just hope the team turn up next weekend v Bolton.
The current issue of the Gooner will be on sale at the next three home matches and can be bought online here
Kevin Whitcher’s newly updated version of the book co-written with Alex Fynn, ‘Arsènal: The Making of a Modern Superclub’ is available in paperback from publishers Vision Sports for a reduced price of £6.99 including postage if you use the promo code ‘Gooner’ on the page that appears after you click ‘buy now’. Click here to order.
