Gareth Stringer
I didn’t wake up this morning with a plan to submit something to The Gooner, but felt compelled to do so having just read a quote from the manager.
I’m guessing that my feelings about the state of the Arsenal nation are similar to many of yours. It clearly isn’t good enough. I went as far as calling it appalling on Saturday in a Tweet, but I am unsure who or what is at the heart of the problem.
Would a change of manager actually make any difference? What if it’s the Board’s fault and Arsène’s hands are tied? Why are the players not performing to anywhere near their ability? Why can’t we defend, despite this being an obvious deficiency for so long? So many questions and so few definite answers…
We’ve all got our theories, but the truth of the matter is that none of us really knows, not definitively anyway.
One thing I do know though is that the manager’s post-match remarks are really beginning to grate, and it is this, as much as the results, which are putting him in danger of damaging his incredible legacy. He’s become a huge figure of fun, perhaps best illustrated by the superb ‘Wenger Knows Best’ Twitter parody.
The jaded/handbrake lines have been dusted down and presented almost on a match-by-match basis in the past couple of weeks – so much so that I am unsure whether the squad needs a weekend at a health spa or a once-over at Kwik Fit. I suspect the latter, and can almost image a mechanic taking a look at the likes of Diaby, pursing his lips and saying “That’s gonna cost you a few quid… I’ll have to order the parts.”
We must invest in January, of that there can be little doubt. Regardless of whose fault it is that the squad is so tired, you cannot simply keep running the same players into the ground week in and week out, especially when they are new to the Premier League like Santi, Podolski and Giroud, and expect them to keep performing.
Equally, we cannot persist with those who continually fail to deliver, Gervinho being the best case in point. The African Nations Cup is back on in January and, while some Premier League clubs will be dreading the thought of losing key players for a few weeks, I’ll happily run Gervinho to the airport now if he wants to make an early start.
As for Diaby, in whom the manager apparently placed so much faith at the start of the season, it has surely gone far enough now. Undoubtedly a talented player, we saw that at Anfield just a few weeks ago, he is now seemingly trapped in ‘Groundhog Three Weeks’. This is similar to ‘Groundhog Day’, but at the end of each three-week period, he is still three weeks away from returning to the squad.
It needs freshening up, that’s my belief. Wenger almost needs to go out and do what he hasn’t done before and get some players in for the sake of it, not because we don’t have the numbers. We do have the numbers, but when you clearly don’t trust some of them to feature (Chamakh, Arshavin etc) then get rid of them and get some players in who will.
I’m also not averse to him bringing in some more experienced players. The Lampard story is (probably) laughable, but he’s got an exemplary record, is allegedly fit and raring to go, has won medal after medal at Chelsea and has the kind of personality that our current, shaky team, really needs. I’m not saying that he’s necessarily the man, but you get the idea…
Anyway, what was it that inspired these few words? It was this quote from the club website: “You have to keep the focus, the desire and the ambition, and turn it on. That’s how it works in the season. You cannot always jump to definitive conclusions from one game.”
For me, this is the saddest thing – the hideous inevitability about it all. Come on, Arsène, no one is jumping to conclusions from one game, this has been coming, this is the result of a long period of mismanagement, stubbornness, non-investment, lack of ambition (delete according to your own preference - or add your own).
Man City losing at home and then the media crying “crisis!” would be people jumping to conclusions – not Arsenal being outplayed by Swansea and losing at The Emirates. That’s like saying that Lee Cattermole’s latest red card is the first blemish on his disciplinary record!
As I said, I don’t have all the answers, and I am sure that most of the supporters don’t either, but one thing we should all agree on is that it needs sorting out, and it needs sorting out fast.
We do want our Arsenal back – the one that actually competes and looks like it’s in with a shout of winning silverware, even though we know that’s not guaranteed, and always finishes above Tottenham, while playing good football. That one…
