@RyArsenal
71% possession. 16 corners. 28 attempts at goal. A shot that rattled off the crossbar. Despite all of the above Blackburn won the game with a scuffed attempt on goal. A fluke.
I understand most of the gripes about Saturday’s game, believe me I do. I am left empty after losing games that we dominated wholly such as the weekend’s. But what I don’t understand is why our players are exempt from criticism, while our manager Arsene Wenger appears to be such an easy target for our frustrations. Admittedly, Wenger has had better years with us and we are in a trophy drought but is that all Wenger’s fault? From what I make out the answer is simple. The answer is no.
Look at our squad in the invincible season. Passionate, driven to succeed and every single player, from Lauren to Cygan knew what playing for The Arsenal meant. Is our current squad cut from the same cloth? The simple answer is no, they are not. That’s not to say that we don’t have individuals that would die for the cause – most notably our future captain in midfield Jack ‘Liam Brady’ Wilshere. There are others too, but would any of them go as far as Wilshere in striving for every ball, tackle and result? I seriously doubt that. In my opinion, we need to educate imports from overseas and from other teams just how important playing for the club is. Lukas Podolski is the only player from overseas that has thrown himself into learning about the culture and history of AFC (from his Twitter tour of London).
I believe that the decline in our trophies is, in part, down to the philosophy of clubs such as Chelsea and Manchester City changing and simply put, we cant compete when we don’t spend money its as simple as that. We are building for the long haul to ensure top flight survival and that is obviously satisfying and necessary, but we need a trophy to silence critics but more importantly to instil some self belief in our squad. I truly believe that once one trophy comes, we will get more. On Thursday night, Christian Purslow the former Chief Executive at Liverpool spoke very highly of Arsenal’s business model. Everyone always does; but Purslow went on to talk about the sugar daddy clubs stating that ”no manager, or chief executive could have made Arsenal a serial winner of the EPL with that change in environment’. Don’t get me wrong, Wenger isn’t faultless. the fact that we have appear to have no plan B irks me greatly.
However, no-one can criticise Arsene’s team selection for the FA Cup tie. With the game against Bayern Munich coming up Tuesday might, it was always a given that key names may be rested. Jack Wilshere, Santi Cazorla, Lukas Podolski and Theo Walcott all named amongst subs, we had a strong bench to pick from. But the starting 11 were more than good enough to see the result return in our favour. Fresh from a good run in the AFCON with the Ivory Coast, Gervinho started as did Arteta, Vermaelen, Koscielny, Giroud, Rosicky and Oxlade-Chamberlain, yet the fault remains, or so it seems on twitter, at the door of Arsene Wenger. The fault should lay with the players who didn’t do enough during that 90 minutes of football. Arsene cannot stick the ball in the net himself. Gervinho should have stuck us ahead just before the first half but dragged wide and other highlights included Diaby’s 25 yard effort flash wide and Rosicky’s effort come smashing back off the crossbar.
Instead of screaming “Wenger Out” or taking to Twitter to get #Wengerout trending every time something goes wrong, we don’t get a result or you’re upset, relax. It could be worse, we could be Liverpool.
Or worse still, that mob from down the Lane.
