Ian Henry
Palace away was my first live Arsenal game since Palace at home on New Year’s Day. If Arsene Wenger signs on for another year or two, the only Arsenal game I suspect I’ll go to next season will be Palace away. Sitting in the upper tier of the Holmesdale Road end, above the hard-core, drum-thumping, all-singing hard core Eagles’ fans below, could not have been a bigger, starker contrast to the soul-less and now apparently toxic atmosphere at our stadium.
Whether it’s singing the refrain to Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” (Don’t worry about a thing, everything’s gonna be alright” incessantly through the second half or a mildly amusing chant of “Arsene Wenger, we want you to stay” when the third goal went in, the Palace fans didn’t let up and the upper tier was, by the end, rocking. Mind you, they are a pessimistic lot, those Palace fans. My friend, who’s watched Palace since the late 60s, was convinced they’d lose, even when Palace took the lead; no amount of my assuring him that this Arsenal team couldn’t hold a lead, let alone a one goal deficit to a team battling relegation, assuaged his fears of an Arsenal comeback. Some of the Palace fans around me almost believed they’d get a draw when the penalty went in.
Arsenal, a team with pretensions to be amongst Europe’s elite, lost to a team which themselves had recently lost 4-0 at home to Sunderland, a team unequalled in their ineptitude on and off the pitch. Apart from an Elneny shot early on, I struggle to think of a proper save which the Palace keeper had to make. It was all sideways passing, very ponderous and quite frankly boring. Actually, it was shambolic. The most fun Arsenal fans had in the second half was when the away fans kept the ball and wouldn’t give it back for a throw-in, a throw-in for Arsenal in fact. Apparently young Hector, he with the ponytail affectation, was upset by this. Man up Hector because it’ll only get worse. Play like you did on Monday night at the Lane or at home to Man Utd and you’ll be on the plane to Barcelona faster than you can say “adios” to Mustafi (you clearly didn’t say “hola” to him on Monday night).
This was, I was proudly told by my Palace supporting friend, the first time that Palace had beaten Arsenal at home since 1979. That’s another record for Wenger’s trophy-laden mantelpiece, along with his trophies for the record defeat at Old Trafford, the record aggregate defeat against Bayern, the 6-0 defeat at Chelsea, and numerous other humiliations. How many more humiliation trophies will he collect before finally gives up the ghost? Or before Ivan Gazidis grows a set of cojones and withdraws the offer of a new contract or better still shows him the door? But Gazidis won’t do that of course because Silent Stan is sitting there, with his toupee looking like the hanging judge’s black cap, looking lovingly at a spreadsheet showing his capital gains. So long as the Club Level season ticket holders renew, Stan’s happy.
I used to care about Arsenal, I really did. I have followed them over land and sea (and Leicester – yes, I once went to Filbert Street). Not anymore, not this Arsene-al; things have changed. To borrow a few words from the Poet Laureate: Arsene Wenger must be a worried man, with a worried mind, standing on the gallows, with his head in a noose. He has done great things for our football club, but whatever he is doing now, it’s not working and if he thinks he is the man to put things right, he is mistaken. Palace, Leicester and Hull recognised they had to change their managers became whatever their previous managers had done well, it wasn’t working this season; and similarly, Chelsea and Man City changed their managers because merely being in the top four (or not being in the top four for a season in Chelsea’s case) wasn’t enough. But at Arsene-al, not being in the top four could earn Wenger another £10m a year, two-year deal. Well, not in my name, nor with my money he won’t. I gave up my (shared) season ticket a couple of years ago, so now my only financial involvement with Arsenal is my red membership. But again, not for much longer, because by the time this is on the web, I will have cancelled the direct debit.
Sitting in the away end at Palace brought it home to me why I used to enjoy watching Arsenal – when there was something to get excited about, when the team was challenging for honours, or even simply defending properly, it was exciting to go, home and away. Not anymore. Maybe it will be exciting again one day, but not under Arsene Wenger.
I first went to Arsenal on September 23, 1970 when Arsenal beat Lazio in the Inter-City Fairs Cup (younger readers that is what is now the bloated Europa League). My late father, who stood on the North Bank before WW2, took me; he has a memorial stone on the North Bank Terrace. But like me, he would be saddened, if not appalled, by what Arsenal Football Club has become; slowly, corrosively, the ownership and management model has rapidly destroyed what was once so admired. It’s time for a change, but do those at the top understand that?
One other thing, which sums up the difference between Palace and Arsenal. I bought a round of drinks in the stadium before kick-off; my friend was asked top his season ticket on a Oyster-card style reader to get a few loyalty points. A small gesture I know, but compare that to the hard sell to Club Level members to renew earlier than ever before, with no loyalty discount, just a 3% increase. Mind you, that won’t be the only hard sell the club will have to do; they couldn’t sell out the allocation of tickets for the semi-final to session ticket holders! Last time we were at Wembley, Ivan Gazidis was having to defend the allocation method for Wembley tickets – now he has to get out there and sell them. Things really have changed, very quickly. The much-vaunted self-sustaining model? I once called it the self-deluding model. And that’s what the Wenger vanity project is, a self-delusional, narcissistic, hubristic, conceited, arrogant ego-trip for an emperor who is now standing there naked for all the world to see.
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