Graham Perry
A bad result and the knives are out. A good result and the wavelengths go quiet. Some are so anti-Wenger they actually want bad news. They want him out. Better he fails and we get change. Off with his head! Now! Let’s lose against Leicester and we can write him off. That is where this nonsense gets you. The animosity of some is so deep – any success gets in the way of the preferred exit option. You end up hoping for failure. You want the team to lose to vindicate your belief that we need a new man at the helm. You want it to get worse.
And then you get the wild comments – like Alam who says, “if a player falls short – fire him”. Who are you to say when a player falls short? What are your credentials? What do you know about football? When have you managed a team, made decisions on tactics and squads and transfers? The answer is never so why should anyone listen to you on the question of players in and out or on tactics. In my comments I never talk about these matters because I know my limitations. I know what I don’t know. Do you? And this is not just Alam but quite a few of the contributors. Where is your modesty? Where are your football CV’s that justify you sounding off at such length?
I write as a supporter who comments as a supporter who is a supporter. That is not blind loyalty or anything like it. I have frequently made known my reservations about Wenger but they never relate to matters on which I know nothing and I know nothing about tactics and strengths and weaknesses of players and formations. I do have views but I don’t express them except in a very restrained way because I have never taken a coaching course or played football at any level of any significance. Doesn’t that go for most of us? Aren’t we all amateurs – well-intentioned amateurs, followers of Arsenal, lovers of Arsenal, but not coaches or tacticians or anything like it.
And if you doubt what I am saying just look at the plight of Gary Neville. One of the very best pundits. Really incisive views about matches and players and tactics. Put him in charge of a team and it all goes wrong. How successful was Hoddle or Shearer or Lawrenson or Souness? And yet they speak with conviction and self-righteousness that beggars belief. And of course there are those who have never managed like Lineker or Savage or Murphy. So so easy for them from the comfort of the studio sofa to pronounce on areas for which they have never been blessed with a moment’s responsibility. So so different when you have to make the decisions. Something about “The Buck Stops Here”.
Poor Gary Neville may have made a big mistake. Instead of being touted as a shoe-in for Hodgson for England or for LVG at Old Trafford he now has big question marks against his name. How close were Ferguson and Kendall to the sack? So please when you think you know it all and you know the tactics inside and out and you know the good players from the bad ones just remember your own CV.
Does that make us mute? Silent? Without opinions? Not at all. Football is a game of opinion after all – we do make judgments about people and matches but I say again be cautious about the importance that you attach to your own judgments and certainly scale down the invective and the animosity and yes that word again – hatred.
I have always said that this season there would be no excuses for failing to win the title. Unlike many of the onlinegooner correspondents I have given Wenger credit for keeping us in Europe and even on occasions challenging for the title when we were forced to be a selling club. Our best players were sold. The incoming players were not top notch and to his credit we never flirted with relegation or mid-table stagnation. It was one of the most remarkable achievements to keep us at or close to the top. But things have changed. We now have the money and we have had the option to sign the best and if after all that things fall away then it is the responsibility of Wenger. But today we are still in with a shout. We did well against the Cherries – helped though we were by their poor finishing. But no nerves on our part. Great commitment and grit and determination. We played at a high tempo and scored two good goals. We still have the best of Sanchez to come and whilst Giroud provided a key assist for Ozil’s goal we still are due some goals from him. Leicester is a six pointer – not to say twelve.
I am sorry if I annoy some people. But sometimes things have to be said and I am prepared to say them. Football does things to people. Look around you at a match and see how quite restrained and modest people become full of passion and intensity. That is fine, but when it tips into hatred then you have lost the plot. Then you are using football as a cover for other more personal issues in your lives and is better to be aware of it than to pretend that a football manager who you do not care for is the devil incarnate.
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