Markymark
The Wenger saga continues with each game seemingly acting as a swinging pendulum. It appeared that West Ham swung the direction in favour of continuance with numerous papers quoting confidently that the two year deal was already done. Those who despair of Wenger are being told to suck it up, often in a crowing cocky manner, as if the argument had been lost and the old order was in place.
I decided to do something so I attempted to join a further action and attended the West Ham match, but a planned march did not happen for the first time in four home matches due to partly a lack of publicity / awareness and maybe a general apathy. Who knows how many of the 12,000 season ticket holders that boycotted the game entirely would have joined it? The pendulum swinging ever further back? I walked up to the ticket booth and ignored the sold out signs. I wondered if this sums up the present star of the club? Half truths and lies served up? Of course tickets were available and so I ended my self imposed anti Wenger exile. This was also the first match I've attended since my father’s death - he'd attended from boyhood from the 1940's. A feeling of greater things at work filled me. The urge to shout and bellow subsided but the need to watch and determine what the hell was going on was very strong. I thought about the near 100 years of support from my Grandfather to present day and decided I was not going to let this incumbent manager stop it in its tracks.
I was downbeat but also inquisitive. What I then determined from the match was that your average Arsenal supporter in attendance is dealing with the chaos like a nation that has gone through a major trauma. "Don't mention the disastrous war campaign, don't mention what side you were on, best keep your thoughts to yourself. Raising a voice might create a nasty and potentially violent scene". Some groups occasionally sang Paddy Vieira songs like a long lost homage but there was also complete silence when the West Ham supporters sang “Let's all do the Arsene Wenger” to the Hokey Cokey tune. The silence in reply was simply stunning. Wenger is our publicly painful embarrassment played out to the delights of rival fans.
I also realised that Arsenal and West Ham were mirror images of each other both severely lacking in grit, both sides will lose if they go one- nil down, and ultimately West Ham were undone by a goalkeeping error. West Ham simply went to sleep in the second half and our "miracle recovery" then took place.
So onto Palace and the dreadful blight returns, the papers turn volte face with stories of how some Arsenal committee will remove Wenger. A strange mix of swinging from apathy and inaction or political chicanery. Take your pick as again the pendulum swings back the other way.
I wondered as I left the West Ham match with a feeling that things were not done yet. The spontaneous eruption of away supporters at Palace suggests that a similar off the cuff event at a home match might cause a further tilt towards change. I would be pretty sure though that it will probably stem from a bad loss rather than an orchestrated event.
Expert tipster websites such as FootballPredictions.com can only give you the most likely scenarios, but in reality, it feels that chance is controlling events. Who knows which way the pendulum swings next?
