Charlie Ashmore
Dear Arsene
A wiser man than me once said something to the effect of “it is easy to ignore the criticism of your enemies but beware the disappointment of a friend let down”. I am that friend and you have let me down.
I have been a passionate advocate in your favour, denouncing those who called for your demise, who sought to incite protest and a movement against you. I can do that no longer and with very heavy heart I urge you to recognise that the sands of your time at Arsenal have run out and to leave on your own terms, hopefully with a final history making flourish with a third consecutive FA Cup win and a personal record number of wins. In the event that happens (though goodness knows how difficult it is at the moment to see any prospect of your team being sufficiently galvanised to make it happen), please do not be deceived once more into believing it is a springboard for greater things. I hope that you will in that event find it within yourself to bow to the greater good and depart with a degree of dignity. And if it doesn’t happen, I am afraid I must ask you to still take your leave of us. Do that now in your way under your own steam and you will retain respect, even regain it from some who appeared to have lost it for ever.
Let me explain myself. Your critics have generally sought to characterise your tenure at Arsenal as being one of two distinct phases: the first half – the Winning Years; and the second half – the Failing years. I think that is wrong. I think there are three distinct phases, the first of which was indeed the glorious Winning Years. There is not an Arsenal fan alive who does not remain unfailingly grateful for those years – the opportunity to watch the purest football played by truly world class players delivering success and glory for the Club that we all love far more than is healthy for what is after all a mere institution. That will never be forgotten and on a personal level the pleasure that watching Bergkamp and Pires in particular gave me is immeasurable. That is not in any way to minimise any of the other players in those teams – Henry, Vieira, Petit and of course the English defence you inherited and allowed the freedom to play football – but walking down to Highbury it was the thought of those two in particular that put a spring in my step and a smile on my face.
Then came the second phase – the difficult one. I call this the Transitional Years. Any manager who spends more than three years at a club (though of course you are the only current example) goes through transitions on the field as one team morphs into the next. However the transition you guided Arsenal through was much more difficult and more fundamental than that. You reinvented the Club and made it fit for the future – self-sufficient, modern and ready for the new footballing world. You did all that while maintaining the Club’s place at the top footballing tables. I think many people underestimate how astonishing that achievement was in a football world that was changing around you. At the very time when the Club was tightening its belt to ensure that it came through the move unscathed financially, others were coming into untold wealth and simply blowing us out of the water. So I fully accept (though I recognise others reading this are not prepared to) that the mitigating circumstances through that period justified the failure genuinely to challenge for trophies.
However, that phase ended 3 years ago, leading into what should have been the Payback Years. Having survived the Transitional Years, even flourished to the maximum extent possible without winning a trophy, the platform was set. It is true that by now the fanbase was split and there were those who felt that the years without a trophy demanded your departure but my view then (and notwithstanding how I now feel and what I now know, I still believe it was the right view then) was that by guiding us to that position, you had earned yourself the right, if you wanted it, to be the first to try to benefit from the strong foundations the modern Arsenal had been rebuilt on.
It almost ended in tears but your team found the heart and commitment somehow to turn around a lost cause and retrieve the Cup Final of 2014. I think we all know, and I suspect in your heart of hearts that includes you, that defeat then would have been the end. But it wasn’t. Another Cup win last year and a marginal improvement in the League was progress of sorts.
Which brings us to this season. No manager could ever have wanted the stars to align in their favour in the way that they have this season. We entered the season on a wave of optimism. Relatively (by our standards at least) injury free, two Cup wins under our belt, no personnel losses, the recruitment of a world class goalkeeper to add to the two world class players signed in previous summers and a squad which appeared to have the minimum requirement of cover in every position.
Not only that but every one of our major rivals contrives to have a dismal season. The pre-season favourites are so bad they were talking about a relegation battle for goodness sake, at least until they sacked your favourite opponent. I am sure a smile will have passed your lips that day and I must confess that the possibility of you finally winning that 4th title in the very year Jose Mourinho imploded at Chelsea was a possibility that had me positively salivating. I cannot believe the thought may not have crossed your mind too.
Even better, like all the best long distance runners you had even been given a pacemaker in whose slipstream we could simply follow conserving energy until the final push when their inexperience would show and they would gracefully bow out letting us cruise past to glory.
And yet. AND YET! How on earth has it come to this? There we were in December neatly poised. We go to Southampton and are played off the park in a performance that now seems all too familiar but at that point in time came out of left field. Spineless and overrun, we caved in. Then we go to Liverpool and, yes, we fight hard to not only claw back a deficit but pull ourselves ahead. And then, in classic modern Arsenal style, we buckle and give them a last minute equaliser. That was the kick in the teeth – surely to goodness a team fighting for the title can manage to hold on to a lead they have fought so hard for against what is at best an average Liverpool side. But no. And so the odd bad result becomes, as it has done year after year after year, a bad run. Yet still, we go to Old Trafford last Sunday, at the start of a huge week for our title challenge which is still firmly on despite our best efforts. Playing a United team who are (performance wise at least) in the doldrums. When the teams were announced you could almost hear the collective sharp intake of breath among the home crowd and the collective anxiety was tangible. This was it. This was the day we had to bury the years of Old Trafford hurt and put out a statement of intent.
Your job was to motivate them and prepare them. If the performance we saw was the result of your powers of motivation and preparation then I am sorry but that alone would have justified a good long look in a mirror. The performance was astonishing in its timidity, its ineffectiveness, its sheer bloody ordinariness. Ricky Ponting, former Australian cricket captain, had a wonderful way of making it clear he disapproved of someone’s behaviour or performance. It involved simply describing it as “ordinary” but delivered in a manner which brooked no misunderstanding. He would have had no hesitation in applying it to that performance.
And then… to come out in front of the cameras and to have the effrontery to suggest to the fans who had just witnessed a feeble capitulation of astonishing (given the context) proportions that the team had shown unquestionable commitment and desire… well, I am sorry, but you might as well have walked on to the Old Trafford pitch, strolled down to the away end and stood there and blown raspberries at us or given us the finger. The performance was an insult. Your response to it rubbed salt into an already open sore.
And yet, talk about the stars aligning for you, everyone still gives you another chance. Leicester drop points, City lose badly and Spurs lose, meaning a win at home to Swansea puts us right back in it. Surely to goodness the team is going to come out not only with a fire in their belly but a raging vindaloo burning in their chests. Swansea are going to pay and pay badly for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Aren’t they? You will of course have got the team fully motivated and prepared. Won’t you? The result and let’s be honest the performance speak for themselves.
I cannot quite bring myself to boo the team at the final whistle but for the first time I understood the people that were.
I write this before the Tottenham game. For the first time in my life, I dread it not for the usual threatening and intimidating environment we face their as visitors especially after the game, but for what is going to happen on the pitch. Not a single Arsenal fan I have spoken to can bring themselves to believe in anything other than an impending defeat. You have killed the hope. We will I am sure do our best to back the team this lunchtime, because it is what we fans do. We keep going, week after week, year after year. Maybe the biggest indictment is that so many appear to have given up.
Arsene, this is your team. They are your players. You have no more excuses. The warchest is full. You have had the chance to strengthen as much as you felt necessary. The mitigation has gone. You now stand exposed by the psychological inadequacy of the team you have put together and, crucially, your inability to change that and somehow make winners of them. You give every impression now of a man who is managing by numbers, unable to find a way to effect change or instil dynamism. That individually they are good players (mostly) is beyond doubt. One or two of them are better than that. As a collective it is impossible to conclude that they are anything other than psychologically flawed and simply incapable through fear or a simple lack of killer instinct of grasping the moment. The fault for that can only and must rest at your door. You have failed those of us who believed in you. And all that is left is for you to acknowledge that sad fact and take your leave of us.
I hope that you can find it within yourself to leave with the dignity and respect that you deserve and, given that this team has shown itself psychologically incapable of the mental strength required to win a 38 game league even in a season which has appeared to be designed by the footballing gods with the sole purpose of letting it happen, the best we can all hope for is that you leave with a final Wembley win in May and a little bit of history. But whatever the outcome in May, it is time to leave with our thanks for all you have done and let someone else take the legacy you leave behind and try to ensure it reaps the harvest it warrants.
Rest assured, in years to come the good will always outweigh the bad and the scales will ensure your years at Arsenal are regarded positively. You will always have a place here. But that place is no longer the manager’s seat.
Yours, disappointedly
