CanadaGooner
It’s been a while folks, and although I have been back home in London for almost five years now, I’ve decided to keep the ‘CanadaGooner’ handle to remind me of the years I worked in Canada. Anyway, to the matter in hand; when it gets to a point where we are grateful to have only lost a game 2 – 0, you know something is seriously wrong! And that, my fellow Gooners, is indeed where we are today.
The only two takeaways from Sunday’s match at White Hart Lane are:
1. It has taken Tottenham 22 years to finally finish above Arsenal in the league and it is doubtful that will be enough to win the title.
2. Wenger is determined to sully his record before he is forced to leave Arsenal at some point in the future.
The way pundits are reporting the supposed shift in power across north London, you would have thought 2017 marks the 22nd year in a row that Tottenham have finished ahead of Arsenal in the league. But unfortunately, that is the state of today’s society; everything must be made sensational or it won’t catch on.
The only real analogy I could think of, is the case of a poor man who has spent most of his life criticizing the rich and speaking out against the excesses of the rich and how they wear expensive clothes and send their kids to expensive schools etc, only for him to then win the lottery, and the first thing he does is buy a bigger house, a better car, and begin to look at what rich people have that he also must now go and buy. Soon, he will be a mirror image of those he spent most of his life criticizing. I am yet to meet a poor man who would, upon making some money, decide to go and buy a smaller house than he currently has, or worse clothing in order to continue to fit in with being poor. That in a nutshell is the story of Tottenham; a poor man’s version of Arsenal - always wanting to be like us.
North London rivalry? What north London rivalry? - unless you are in your 30s and older, it is very difficult to relate to the north London rivalry, as most under 30 supporters would have been less than 10 years old the last time Tottenham finished ahead of Arsenal in the league, so, for their sake, let’s hope this year reawakens this supposed rivalry as quite frankly, for some of us who are older than 30, it has become so one-sidedly boring!
Someone asked me after the game, if I was angry and I explained that my current state of mind remains exactly as it has been since 2008, when it was quite clear to anyone who cared to review where Arsenal are heading under a stubborn, deluded manager, that it would take a great deal of luck and others stagnating, for Arsenal to win the league anytime soon. But even I, at the time, could not have seen what was coming: we are now like many UK golf courses where holding wedding ceremonies and events is the main business, with golf being just a sideshow. Arsenal is now definitely just a business and football is the sideshow. The owners will keep Wenger for as long as he continues to make them money, and he knows that. The grumbling of a growing number of fans is just a minor inconvenience, and if some refuse to attend games, the tickets will be sold to tourists, as we are in London after all!
If any of you care to go and watch some of the clips of Thierry Henry scoring goals and the passionate display of aggression that the likes of Henry, Sol Campbell, Martin Keown, Tony Adams and those players showed in rousing the crowd and being really determined to win (and I mean, to win football matches, not just to win 4th place position for the Champions League money) it is quite clear to anyone watching that our current team, under the affection of our manager, are not that interested in winning football matches. They do not feel any pain of losing match after match, be it to our supposed north London rivals or any other team for that matter. On the odd occasion, over the last 10 years, where we have somehow hired a player who wants to win e.g. Arshavin or Sanchez, they quickly become a threat to a manager who is only interested in surrounding himself with the Theo Walcotts of this world, who will do as he tells them, and are content with a career high of 4th place in the league plus the odd FA Cup to go with it.
Any serious footballer looking to excel at football cannot seriously think Arsenal is their destination right now. But any footballer struggling to make an impact in their current high-flying teams (e.g. Real Madrid or Barcelona) and looking for a place to bed-in and make a steady income, earn praise for finishing 4th (which could now even be a tall order), play for a manager who is very content with his past record and doesn’t care less what anyone says to him about his recent 12 years of below-par results e.g. 19 consecutive years in the Champions League but only a single final? With Liverpool and Chelsea showing up fewer times and winning the Champions League during that period.
There is no saving grace for us. Arsenal will not sack Wenger, and like a true third-world dictator, Wenger will never volunteer to leave. So, where does that leave us? We will continue to be reminded of the good times under Wenger and that we must be careful what we wish for, and that 6th place in the league is not as bad as it sounds (10th place is worse…), and that we will never find another Wenger, so no point in taking the same gamble we did in 1996, when we brought in an unproven Frenchman coaching in Japan…
We’ll see where this all ends.
