Tfgwrites
So to the end of another season, bringing with it another lap of appreciation, which should really be a lap of apology. It would fair to say that, for all but the über optimistic, next season conjures a range of emotion between dread and indifference.
Chelsea will, no doubt spend big, as will Manchester City. Yes, Leicester City fulfilled Wenger’s dream of winning the league without spending obscene sums, but they enjoyed the benefit of consistent effort and tactical acumen. Fair play to them. Liverpool are improving rapidly, Spurs are better than us and Manchester United cannot accept another season of mediocrity. Arsenal can and will accept it – so long as it is profitable.
Unlike Arsenal, Aston Villa have won the European Cup. A big club, with American owners; whose calamitous mismanagement has resulted in the unthinkable. For several years, they have flirted with relegation and following capitulation at Wembley, they dropped without trace to join Birmingham, Leeds United and various other clubs whose mantra is: “We’ll be back”. So we keep hearing. It couldn’t happen at Arsenal. Could it?
No team wants relegation. Of the twenty teams in the Premier League next season, nineteen will harbour ambitions inspired by Claudio Ranieri’s incredible feat. Arsenal will make the right noises, but the chief concern is profit. So it follows that Kroenke would not allow that to be endangered? Arsenal hold the proud record of the longest tenure in the top flight; but this season has shown that nothing is impossible.
Few would begrudge Mesut Ozil or Alexis Sanchez the opportunity to join winning clubs. I am not suggesting that they will leave, but neither are they obliged to settle for more of the same. Either leaving would signal a clear lack of intent, although that is not to say that there are others who have not contributed.
Even if both departed, Arsenal will not be relegated next season. Equally, there is widespread dissatisfaction and a feeling of imminent civil war, if it is not already entrenched. I cannot imagine that in these circumstances, Arsenal represents an attractive proposition to the best players currently, even if the will existed to court them.
What concerns me is that we are simply too blasé. Once in decline, the effort and resource required to avoid freefall become exaggerated, draining. At this time of year, teams who suffer bemoan the lie of decisions and luck evening out over the course of a season. Mistakes become inevitably costly and every knock is more keenly felt. Clichés without doubt, borne of eternal truth and also, extremely indicative of periods in this season when you felt that we couldn’t buy a win.
With the exception of teams who have just been promoted and find the change of pace difficult to manage, Premier League teams rarely drop a division without a series of signpost events preceding their eventual demise. Continual lowering of expectations leads to ridiculous gratitude, at reaching ever–reducing, previously unacceptable milestones. So it is with Arsenal.
I am old enough to remember previous campaigns during which “the R word” became unmentionable. It “could never happen” to Nottingham Forest (twice European Cup winners), but it did and that without a transfer window limiting the opportunity to introduce fresh impetus at a vital time.
The danger remains – when a football club no longer prioritises sporting success, then it cannot complain when it is sucked into a vortex of under achievement. Quite simply, complacency breeds failure. The question: what constitutes failure at Arsenal nowadays?
Twitter@tfgwrites
