Bard
The title of this piece is a quote from the legendary NFL coach Vince Lombardi gets to heart of the current debates about Wenger and the direction of the club. Despite comments on this website and elsewhere the arguments aren't really about whether we can win anything, it’s all about whether we really want to win.
When we moved ground the club rightly said we had to tread water for a bit while we got our finances in order so we could compete more effectively in the future. I, and I suspect most of us, went along with it. After all if you buy an expensive car maybe you can't go on holiday in the summer. It made sense. We even swallowed having our best players picked off one by one. Wenger to his credit managed that period with success. He kept us there or thereabouts.
But last season and now this season the situation has changed. We are told we have our finances in reasonable shape and we can and are going to try to win. It is accepted that we aren't going to spend Real Madrid sums but we have enough capital to build a squad that can go toe to toe with the big hitters. It’s my view that the source of the frustration and anger (at least where I sit in the E******s) is that it’s not clear that’s what we are doing. And if we aren't then does that mean we are still in truth just treading water?
We spent last season "competing' with one striker and when we led the PL going into the January transfer window we did nothing in that window except bizarrely take a player on loan who was injured. That was a statement of non intent if ever there was one; we weren't going to give it a go but would be happy to battle for the 4th spot. On top of that we had to endure being thrashed badly by the big hitters, that cut deeply and spoke of a club not wanting to compete.
This summer window we have been more active, mainly because we have had to be. We had to replace players who have left. We have added Sanchez who will make a real difference and Chambers who looks a terrific prospect. We let Vermaelen go and didn’t buy a back up CB even though it’s common knowledge that Kos has a dodgy achilles that needs managing. Is this evidence of a club treading water or a club wanting to win? We then had another bizarre turn of events when Wenger tried disingenuously to convince us that with Giroud injured, Sanogo was more than capable of filling his boots and we had plenty of top class strikers on our books anyway. This was clearly codswallop even by Wenger's standards, as the mad last minute dash for Danny Welbeck showed.
Now the window has closed are we now equipped and ready to give it a real go? The Man City and Chelsea games will answer that question to some extent. It’s my view that if we don't start showing some real intent to try to win something then the atmosphere in the ground will turn again and Wenger will once again be under cosh.
