Bard
The recent death of Johann Cruyff has reminded fans with long memories of an era, long since lost, when football was relatively free from the machinations of Sky and big business. All that mattered were players and results. Cruyff was right up there with Pele, Maradona and Best, a select club of the truly greats. Apart from his wonderful contribution to Dutch football he was an influential architect of the current Barcelona project. The man had vision in spades on and off the field.
How we could do with someone with such a footballing vision at Arsenal. Arsenal lack any clear footballing vision or if they do it’s difficult to discern. What is it that Arsenal aspire to be? A Champions League winning club ? We are arguably miles from such a goal. Worryingly we seem to be going backwards rather than forwards. League Champions? Not for the last 12 years and counting. A sound business that lines the pockets of its owner or a club that is content with a top 4 finish ? That sounds closer.
We used to know but its all gone a bit Pete Tong lately. When we moved to the Emirates the club outlined its vision. In short, we had to suffer short term pain for longer term gain. We sold some of our best players and Wenger kept us relatively competitive. At the time it was a plausible vision and one we could get behind.
Once we got our debt under some sort of control it was left to Ivan to announce somewhat grandly that we would soon be able to compete with the really big clubs. By that he meant the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern.
And where are we now, two years down the road ? I would argue we have fallen even further behind the top clubs. The reality of the move to the Emirates is that it has had very little impact on our footballing achievements. We haven’t made any significant challenge for the title since the move and our performances in the Champions League have been average to poor, complete with the now too familiar debacle. This season looks like it could be even more embarrassing for us as its likely that Leicester and Tottenham will finish above us, clubs with minimal resources compared to us. Remember the reason given for our failure to compete was lack of resources.
But wait a minute, while we have been mired in footballing mediocrity on the field what a success we have been off the field since the move to the Emirates. We make huge amounts of money on matchday not least because we charge such high prices and we are now as Stan reminded us a valuable ‘brand’. On the way we have now become one of the richest clubs in the world.
Were we sold a pup when we moved from the old Highbury? Was and is financial gain the real Arsenal vision? Would Cruyff have accepted such a vision for a club? If Wenger is the man many think he is then he needs to make clear what we aspire to be as a club and put our considerable resources towards trying to achieve it. He needs to stop being an accountant and discover his inner Cruyff.
