CanadaGooner
How I wish newspapers would re-issue previous editions and that Sky Sports would replace the silly screen that pundits stand next to showing replays with a replay of their analysis on some of their previous episodes and the comments made by their overpaid pundits in the first few weeks of the season.
What amazes me most is the fact that some of these pundits have been around since the Premiership started in 1992 and in those years we’ve seen several Liverpool managers come and go, each spending millions of pounds on players, none winning the Premiership and most not even getting them close. So, after last summer’s spending spree, Liverpool find themselves in 7th place (15 points behind the league leaders and it’s not even mid-season!) and I’m sure they will have piles of excuses at the end of the season.
The season has a long, long way to go and Arsenal has to step up to the plate when we play the teams that are ahead of us and those immediately below us. For those seeking to take credit for presumably forcing Wenger to buy players by continued negativity and turning their backs on the club when the going was rough at the beginning of the season, I would ask that you hold on till we find evidence that the players brought in have made a difference, because all I can see right now is the same old players Wenger had (RVP, Walcott, Verminator) and some of the supposedly rubbish ones he bought much earlier (Gervinho, Kos) who are doing the business right now.
Over the years, the inconsistency of what has been said is simply staggering and if ‘reprints’ were possible, it would make for very good reading indeed:
(1) Just as the recession started to bit hard across Europe, club owners were seeking to put a lid on crazy spending (right after the Ronaldo move from Man Utd) and every newspaper in the land plus TV Pundits were going on about how amoral football was becoming and starving kids in third world countries.
(2) A few months down the road, Man City began flexing their muscles and spent crazy amounts; with the old ‘big-spenders’ Man Utd having a moan about how clubs shouldn’t be allowed to spend such crazy amounts.
(3) A few more moons down the road, Liverpool spend £35million on a fellow who had been playing in the Championship and had only been in the Premiership a few weeks and the pundits spent weeks talking about how stupid Arsene Wenger is and how he should have done something similar by spending like a maniac.
(4) A few more weeks later, Arsenal had a horrific start to the season, got thumped at Man Utd, lost at home to Liverpool and the pundits were all about the superior LIVERPOOL approach to the season and how they have bought and will challenge for the title this year and will go all the way (somehow I just cant see that happening….)
(5) A few weeks later, Arsenal panic-buy and down came the pundits again about how stupid Wenger is and how the team can’t gel etc
14 games later, Wenger still has a lot to do. He should also start thinking about next season and how he needs to start off by thinking seriously about challenging for the title and not listening to Gazidis about his financial model and finishing 4th with a smile on our faces! Arsenal fans do not wish to look forward to 4th place; we want the club to invest shrewdly (the way we used to, some moons back with David Dein) and return to challenging for the league and other trophies
With the final Champions League group matches upon us, we can soon expect to see some clubs like Man City and perhaps Chelsea tell us that their main target for the season is the Premiership trophy and that the millions they have spent over the past few years is just work-in-progress. Again, it will be interesting to compare what was said by the pundits a few weeks back when the group stages were drawn and we were all asked to believe that Man City, Chelsea and Man Utd would make it through their respective groups with ease and that Arsenal will struggle and eventually fail to reach the last 16. And a lot of the comments on OnlineGooner would be worth re-printing as well…
Let’s not get into a debate about who’s wrong and who’s right, let’s see how the rest of the season pans out and if Arsenal can avoid the usual December/January collapse (used to be November, but the fixtures have been kind to us this November) and THEN, the ‘Wenger Must Go’ folks and the AKBs can re-evaluate and hopefully join the rest of us, the ‘Come on you Gooners’ group who simply want to see Arsenal do well and will support whoever’s in charge throughout the season and save our negativity for when it won’t hurt the team’s progress
