The Hampshire Gooner
I feel that a lot of people have overreacted to the poor start to the season that we have made. Sure, we got humiliated at United, beaten by a poor Blackburn side and lost out again at WHL, but are we really as bad as people are currently making out, and should we even be surprised by the total of points we have amassed so far this season?
This summer, we lost the man who was our best player by a country mile, and I personally feel we are now only just waking up to how good Cesc really was for us over the past five seasons or so. The guy held us up above many mediocre sides, and, when he wasn’t in the team, we struggled. After he left, we were simply always going to struggle to find anything like a replacement, and the job that players like Ramsey and Arteta have on their hands is quite simply mission impossible. Add to that the loss of Mr Moneybags Nasri, who did manage to score a bucket-load of goals at the beginning of last season, and you can see how and why we currently have only seven points from seven games.
The player turnover at our club during the close season was massive, and possibly too big to keep any sense of cohesion going amongst the players that remain. Players like Eboué, Clichy, Bendtner and co. were certainly no world beaters, but were they really any worse than what we have now brought in? For example, Eboué was hailed as a clown-type figure, but was he really any less solid at the back than Carl Jenkinson has looked so far? Was NB52 any worse than Chamakh? For me, the answer has to be a no.
The only worthwhile signings we have managed to muster so far in response to the mass exodus of the summer have been Mertesacker and Oxlade-Chamberlain, and one of them is only 18-years-old and totally unproven at the top end of the game. The criticism of Mertesacker has been embarrassing, as he is a proven international-class centre-half for one of the top teams in international football. Sure, he was always going to take a little time to adjust to the English, game but give him a chance before you write him off as another Pascal Cygan, for Ch***t’s sake.
To all the people currently talking up some kind of relegation battle, you should feel ashamed to call yourself Arsenal fans, as this will quite simply never happen. We will finish safely inside the top six; of that you can be sure. Let us be honest: you don’t have to that good to finish sixth in this league anyway. Are we really any worse than teams like Villa or Everton? I don’t think so, and don’t yet rule us out of the top four either, as Spurs and Liverpool are no world-beaters either. In my eyes, we were pretty unlucky to lose at WHL last week and, when we got done 2-0 at home to Liverpool, it was a very even contest before Frimpong managed to get himself sent off, so don’t give up on chasing them down too soon.
The most embarrassing aspect of the Spurs game for me as an Arsenal supporter was the shameful abuse that some of our away-contingent dished out to Adebayor and the Togo national side in general. I feel we should remember that, at the end of the day, it is simply a game that we are watching, and not life or death. When we as supporters start to use someone’s death as a song to goad someone we simply do not like, that is going way too far for me, and anyone getting a life ban should consider himself lucky to escape so lightly.
In times of need, we should try to take the positives out of any bad situation and there are some positives for sure from Arsenal performing badly. When Arsenal are doing well in the League, I then feel the need to watch other top teams play when they are being televised, in the hope that they will slip up and drop some points. This means you end up watching a lot more football on TV when Arsenal are doing well. The reverse of this is the current situation. We are nowhere near the top of the table right now, and - being realistic - we won’t be for the remainder of the season. This means we get more freedom from the footie on the TV, as who cares about Liverpool v Man United when you are 12 points behind after seven games? The other weekend, I was away in Hove and I strolled by a pub showing the Arsenal – Bolton game and, instead of dashing into the dark and smelly bar and being glued to some cruddy TV screen for the next 90 minutes, I simply walked past and went off and did something else instead. This gives you more of a life, I feel.
Also, when you are down towards the bottom half of the table, you are certainly going to be less inclined to go to games in person and pay the inflated ticket prices that our club likes to charge us for the honour of attending The Grove in person. This saves you a lot of dough over a full season. I would have normally gone to maybe 10 or so games each season, but now I doubt I will make the effort more than four times this current campaign. When I factor in travel expenses and food etc, this will save me around £600 per annum, plus I cancelled my Sky subscription last season saving another £600 a year. That is £1,200 this year alone that I will save, simply because Arsenal are playing sh**e.
I sit here now and think about what I am going to do with all that money I will save in the coming months. Who knows? Maybe next season, I will get my season-ticket back?
