Mark Woodard
Almost New Labouresque in its opaque and spin-orientated self-delusion (to give him the benefit of the doubt as I would not wish to use more abusive terms), AW is reported to have just come out with these gems
“The fact that we have never been in this position is rather a credit to me in 16 years so I do not take that as blame. I take that as fantastic consistency, and that is the most difficult thing at the top level.”
So, after upping sticks and making the trip over to Ashburton in order to “remain competitive with the larger clubs”, we are now supposed to accept the current situation as a positive, and never mind the fact that we are in the lowest-ever position at this stage of a campaign (and with the more than likely scenario of not achieving CL football by the end of the season).
Rather than seeing it as further evidence of the ever-increasing rate of our decline, we should actually see it as triumphantly emphasising the consistency previously achieved by the man. All hail AW for the past! Don’t look to the future; it’s bleak, mate. We should emphasise the positives, even if they only relate to the past, but P.S. y’all, please keep paying the highest comparative prices in the world – after all, we’ve got a looming self-sustainability problem to address if you cease to come and TV decides to focus elsewhere.
Nothing to the effect that he is so very disappointed that, like a constellation that’s dying in the corner of the sky (apologies to Paul Simon), we are slowly moving out of contention for a Champions League place, and that this was the least the fans would have expected - given that the same larger clubs with whom we announced that we wished to remain competitive back in the earliest years of the century can also point to the same consistency… as well as a few trophies to boot
“I believe we played 15 years on the trot in the Champions League, and we play in ten days in the last 16 of the Champions League. We want to come back in the Champions League position in the league, we want to prepare properly for the next round of the FA Cup and I wish that in the next 16 years it will be exactly the same for the club and that the fans will be happy.
I am here to make all of the fans happy and when I do not manage to do it I am, of course, not happy. But what is most important is that we have our fans happy at the end of the season.”
Put simply, we won’t be, mate! We were not “happy” last May (when you asked us to judge you, annually now) and the mood of mutiny increases with each game that passes and now also with much of what you seem to utter these days.
Of course you and we both want to come back in the CL etc, etc. Thanks for telling us that in case we didn’t know (seriously). Personally, I want to stop paying taxes, a huge pay increase, experience 0% inflation, get the best health care, and all other Government-provided services. But it ain’t going to happen, and, more importantly, how realistic is it? Words are easy. Results and actions make the real statement of intent.
On the point of realistic, I note that he mentions nothing about the trophies won in the last 16 years, and wonder if that is because he actually is being realistic and so wouldn’t have been able to add “I wish that in the next 16 years it will be exactly the same for the club and that the fans will be happy” if he had also referred to the trophies. As with politicians, maybe it’s what AW didn’t say on this one that actually “says” it all.
“It depends what you call a crisis of results. We lost three games, and then the confidence drops a little bit. But overall, we have shown a great response against Aston Villa where we came back with a fantastic 3-2 win and I feel that on Wednesday night we deserved to win the game.”
A fantastic response?? We were 2–0 down at half-time with a lacklustre display of relatively yawn-inspiring insipidness that made me think ‘are some players actually trying to get him sacked?’
“Overall, I feel this team is strong mentally with a good spirit and attitude. We are ready for a fight and that is the most important thing.”
Mentally strong, mentally strong???? More than any other single piece of throw-away comment that escapes his thought process and converts itself into words that are then processed into print, this comment winds me up and has, after one too many utterances, finally “inspired” this piece. You can see this rubbish comment directly following way too many performances of similar description, and where the polar opposite is more than transparent. One has to ask ‘is the man blind or just refusing to see the obvious?’ Arseblog has commented on its use by him several times.
Does AW use it to mock us now, or is it the journos he mocks? Personally, I think it is his self-deluded retort to the pundits who, quite rightly, point out our brittleness and mental fragility - something that has always bubbled under the surface of AW teams, even the Invincibles. Look at the reaction at Selhurst Park after the 2-0 defeat at Old Trafford, and the following games.
Either way, he is just storing up anger and ill-feeling with his methods, his refusal to change, and his refusal to acknowledge that things are so way off from where they should be, and then just to make a real impact he pours metaphorical aviation fuel onto an incendiary bomb of a situation. Clearly, he feels immune from any action from the Board.
AW = a fantastic first-half reign. He is, however, unable to change or adapt as the game has done. Nor is he prepared, really, to do anything differently. I believe it is said that the definition or demonstration of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect a different outcome? I am not suggesting he is insane, rather that he is simply so stubborn or unaware that his actions are beginning to make him appear so.
There is no doubt whatsoever now in my mind that AW will not achieve anything further with the club during his remaining time (I mean positive achievements). Let’s hope the decline is just for the second half of what was his reign, and does not become a continuing decline over two-thirds of the eventual reign, as his legacy is still huge and to see it being dragged down is unseemly and not right.
