I guess everyone is still hurting about yesterday’s shambles at Stoke. I wondered, in the cold light of day, how I was going to feel writing this blog. Angry? Frustrated? Bitter?
I have to say the resounding emotion this morning is just one of sadness. I am sad.
Sad that an Arsenal team put in such a spineless and craven performance when they should have been pumped up and ready to make up for the Sp*rs game. Sad that we’ve dropped more points against a team we should, with all due respect, beat quite comfortably. Sad that the weaknesses we all saw in our squad have come back to haunt us and sad that we find ourselves in a position where we’re so rightly critical of our players. I am sad that I look at this team and think ‘We’re just not very good’.
Mostly though I’m sad about Arsene. Ultimately what happens on the pitch is down to him and at the moment he’s paying the price for making crazy decisions, both in the summer and recently.
I’m sad that Arsene thinks a midfield of Diaby (left), Song, Cesc, Denilson (right) is in any way acceptable or good enough to win a Premier League game away from home. When you have Nasri and Walcott on the bench to play Diaby and Denilson as your wide midfielders is just madness. I think every Arsenal fan looked at that midfield yesterday and went ‘Oh-oh’. And you can be quite sure Stoke looked at it and said ‘Thank you very much’.
I’m sad that nobody on his coaching staff had the balls to tell him ‘That’s rubbish. Don’t do that’. Maybe they did and maybe he just didn’t listen but I don’t think anyone said a word to him.
I’m sad that he thinks some of these players are the best he has ever worked with when quite clearly they’re not. I’m sad that some of these players, who DO have potential, might never reach it because too much is being asked of them too soon. I’m sad that he can’t see that some of them might have all the potential in the world on the training ground but out in the real world they’re simply not good enough, either right now or ever.
I’m sad that he looks at his squad and genuinely thinks it’s good enough to win trophies. Without going over and over old ground we have serious problems in defence, something he acknowledged but did nothing about other than bring in a Manchester United reject at centre-half. We have no central midfield to speak of other than Cesc. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – Song and Denilson should not be starting games in a side that has ambitions to win titles. They might grow up well playing alongside experienced players but at the moment they are not good enough and not ready for the Premier League week in, week out.
I’m sad that Arsene can’t see how this is affecting Cesc, probably the only top class player we have in our squad. We saw how brilliant and effective he was last season when he had a good partner in Flamini. If Flamini wants to leave, fine, but replace Flamini properly. Not with the bargain basement option. Yes, Cesc’s form is poor at the moment but if your Aston Martin needs a paint job you don’t go to Homebase to pick up a tin of cheap Magnolia and do it yourself.
I’m sad that all this terrible stuff is happening on the pitch and almost to a man/woman every Arsenal fan I know could see it coming. If we could see it why couldn’t Arsene? Or if he could see why didn’t he do something about it? I love Arsene. I think what he has done for our club has been nothing short of remarkable. He has transformed us from ‘Boring, boring, Arsenal’ and brought about some of the best years we’ll ever have.
However, it seems to me that he is blinded by his own stubbornness and hubris, this insistence on making his youth project work might well be the undoing of him. Potential is great. Over time the tiny sapling will become a mighty oak. If the sapling is surrounded by other mature trees then it gets some protection and grows without suffering too much damage. At the moment this Arsenal side is a sapling alone in the middle of a field with a hurricane blowing all around it. We’re being damaged.
I’m sad that so many Arsenal fans are now thinking it is the end of the Wenger era. I would love nothing more than for him to lead us to another league trophy and the holy grail of the the Champions League. I would love to be proved wrong by him and for his team to become great. Honestly, if there was humble pie to be eaten I’d quite happily scoff the whole lot. But I don’t think I’ll be eating any pie, not with this team at least.
There are those who say ‘You’re not a football manager, you don’t know better than Arsene Wenger’, and that is fair and valid. Put me on a training ground and I certainly don’t have the tactical nous of Arsene or any idea how to manage a club as big as Arsenal. However, you don’t need to be a football manager to know there’s something wrong with your team. Football fans aren’t clueless, we watch games, have watched games, all the time. We don’t know everything but we don’t know nothing either.
I can look at this Arsenal squad and when I think back to the pools of players Wenger has had at his disposal over the years it is, unquestionably, the poorest squad he has ever had. It lacks quality, leadership and experience. Put the squads side by side on paper and weep. I find it incredibly sad that Arsene can look at the players he’s got and think they’re anything like any of the squads he’s had before. People talk about how he got rid of all the high earners at the club for financial reasons but our wage bill is higher than ever and it’s hard to justify how we’re spending all that money on players who, it seems, have done little to deserve it.
I’m sad because there’s only so long you can direct your ire towards the players on the pitch. If they don’t work hard and put in the effort then they are, rightly, open to criticism. Some of the performances yesterday were beyond abject and those players need to look hard at themselves because they’ve let the club, the fans and the manager down. However, the buck stops with the manager and a team selection like the one yesterday was frankly ludicrous. He needs to stop thinking his players are so versatile that they can play anywhere. Denilson is not a right midfielder, Diaby is not a left midfielder, and who knows what Alex Song is? We have Jacks of all trades and masters of none.
Arsene’s decision to allow three top quality central midfielders to leave the club without purchasing a replacement was wrong. His decision not the strengthen the centre of our defence was wrong. His decision to try and muddle through with players who might be outstanding in five a side at the end of training was wrong, wrong, wrong. Ultimately it comes down to the manager and he has to take the responsibility for losses against Fulham, Hull and Stoke. Read them and weep. Fulham, Hull and Stoke.
There is no question that this team needs surgery. It needs an injection of experience and quality. January cannot come soon enough and Arsene needs to be told ‘This is not working. Get the cheque book out and make it right’. If he doesn’t then serious questions need to be asked about his position at the club. Let me make it clear, I am not calling for his head but if he doesn’t address the problems that we have for the sake what might be called a vanity project then he is failing the club.
You worry as well that signings might be his Kiwomya – Hartson – Helder, but I’d like to think he can bring in the right players and get us back on track again. This is undoubtedly the most turbulent time of Arsene’s reign as Arsenal manager. Fans are losing patience, the players aren’t performing despite the faith he puts in them, and nobody is interested in hearing about our potential anymore. What’s important is NOW.
We’re heading into November which now looks as terrifying a month of football as I can ever remember. Man United, Chelsea, Villa and Man City in the league. The way this team is playing it’s hard to be confident at all. It might well get worse before it gets better.
As for yesterday well it was just awful. We’ve done the team selection and that was obviously an issue but we got undone by two long throws, just as we feared. It’s a dangerous weapon Stoke have in Delap but, at the end of the day, it was Stoke and we hardly had a shot in anger. We’ve got injuries to Adebayor and Walcott and will miss van Persie for three games for an act of crass stupidity. Yes, the goalkeeper made a meal of it but van Persie simply shouldn’t have done what he did. By all means force the keeper to pick up the ball but what good does hitting him with your shoulder do? Unless you don’t give a shit about the consequences and just want to release a bit of frustration. He let the team down very badly and should be fined.
Where we go from here is anybody’s guess. We don’t have too much time to feel sorry for ourselves though. There’s Champions League midweek against Fenerbache then we play United at home on Saturday morning.
I suspect more sadness is on the way.
