I’ll admit this morning that at no stage this season did I ever believe Arsenal would win the league or the Champions League.
Even when we’d clawed back the points having been so far behind at the end of January I thought it was too much to expect. Similarly when we saw the side of the draw we were in for the Champions League. If we’d managed to beat Barcelona it would have been Inter Milan in the next round. Perhaps, with all our players fit and healthy and at the top of their games, we might have given it a good go but even still I think we’d have fallen short.
Of course the idea that we might have all our best players fit and healthy is one which would be almost unbelievable fiction. The injuries suffered by van Persie, Cesc, Arshavin, Gallas, Walcott, Clichy, Bendtner and Nasri, all of whom missed significant chunks of the season, have certainly had an impact. I’m not blaming them or making excuses but that’s the reality.
Anyway, my point is that my expectation level wasn’t so high as to view not landing a trophy as a failure. I was looking for progress and until the Wigan game I was relatively assured that it had been achieved. More or less nailed on for third in the league, with second still to fight for and the outside chance of first if all the stars lined up in the right way, I couldn’t really complain.
We’d shown great character at times this season. I go back to the game against Standard Liege away and how we were 2-0 down very early on. It had been so long since I’d seen an Arsenal team win a game from that position and I remember saying at the time it’d be a brilliant thing for this team to do. It would instill in them a belief that they could do it in subsequent games, that they could move on from the mindset which told them that even going one down was more or less game over. The comeback that night was fantastic and I’m quite sure it laid the foundation for some of the results this season, the late winners and so on.
I saw a team go to Fulham, the rookie keeper have the game of his life and a moment of quality from Robin van Persie in the game for us. We spanked 6 past Blackburn to add to the 6 we stuck past Everton on the opening day of the season. A north London derby triumph. A backs to wall win against Liverpool away. Cesc’s remarkable cameo against Villa. And while the United and Chelsea games hurt, because the two best teams in the country exposed our weaknesses mercilessly, that we got ourselves back into things was a credit to the players and the manager.
Individuals who had been on the periphery had, it appeared, matured somewhat and responded to the manager’s continued belief in them. Diaby had a spell when he looked like the energetic, dynamic powerhouse we all hoped he might be. Denilson has his critics but 6 goals from midfield was no bad return at all. Clichy looked to be finding some form again. Alex Song’s emergence as an important first team player continued. Cesc had the best season of his Arsenal career so far, not just because he’s a great player and the new formation suited him, but because he had decent support from his midfield partners who allowed him to play so well. Nicklas Bendtner scored 3 goals when playing in the wide right position. When he returned from injury and took up the central striking position he got 9 goals in 12 games. I know he doesn’t convince everyone but he’s the only player in our team who could have scored the goal against Stoke away, the Hull goal, the Wolves goal, scrappy, poachers goals. Strikers goals.
As for the flaws they’ve been apparent all season but not difficult to fix. As I pointed out many of the goals we concede come from individual errors. Improve concentration and defensive discipline and they don’t happen. Invest in a decent goalkeeper and they don’t happen. While some of us would have liked to see him go out and spend money in January to find a new number 1 I think the majority realised that summer is the best time for that and we’d muddle on until then.
Despite that though the season felt better, more positive, the atmosphere around the ground and even online, for what it’s worth, was better. It reached a low point last season with players openly barracked from the stands as fans frustration with the manager was projected onto players who weren’t performing, for one reason or another. They were the easy targets. This season was different. Had Nicklas Bendtner’s incredible sequence of misses against Burnley happened last season he would not have been applauded off the pitch. The fans would not have acknowledged the fact that the player had worked hard, got in all the right positions and just had one of those days (and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a striker have a game like before, I don’t expect to again). The applause helped and in the next game Bendtner scored a hat-trick in the Champions League.
And this is because fans could see the progress and take the positives. Now though it’s like the feel-good factor is well and truly gone. The Wigan game was as poor a defeat as any Arsene Wenger Arsenal team has suffered. I fully understand why people are so upset about it because it’s like the last eight months has been pissed away by a bunch of carefree slackers. Where was the fight against Wigan? Where was the energy, commitment and will to win? Why did an Arsenal team who still had a chance, albeit very small, of winning the title play like that and capitulate like that?
We’ve all seen Arsenal suffer defeat in the past, we’ve seen Arsenal lose to teams they shouldn’t, lose games they shouldn’t, but I’ve been racking my brains to try and remember the last time a title chasing Arsenal side threw away a 2-0 lead with 10 minutes to go against a relegation zone team and ended up losing the game. I can’t remember it ever happening before and it has damaged our season in a big, big way.
Those of us who looked at this campaign and saw more positives than negatives are having to think again. I’m not saying it has undone everything that came before it. I spent some time yesterday watching goal clips from earlier games and the excitement and the enjoyment is palpable. Yet the Wigan game has opened up old wounds, if you will. Doubts about certain players in terms of attitude and ability have come to the fore. It’s all well and good performing and winning when things are going well but when it comes to the crunch do you have what it takes? It reminds me a bit of William Gallas’s captaincy. I said at the time it’s a fairly easy job to captain a side which is playing well, winning games and is top of the league. But you earn your stripes is when things go wrong, when your team needs leadership, when things aren’t easy – and when that happened Gallas was found wanting.
The same goes – in the big games this season too many of these players didn’t perform. And you can say what you want about Chelsea or Man United or even Barcelona, but Wigan away was a big game. Not because the opposition was glamorous and played beautiful football but because of what was at stake. My conclusion is that the manager needs to get ruthless, accept that there’s a problem within his team, weed out the flat track bullies, and put things right for next season. Perhaps others came to that conclusion long before I did, good for them, but I prefer to look at what’s in front of me before I make my mind up.
However, for all the concerns we might have about the team and the way they let us down when push came to shove, we’ve got three games left to go this season. On Saturday Man City visit the Grove. I don’t know about you but the contempt I hold for what Man City have become far outweighs the issues I have with our own team. The extent to which I want Adebayor to suffer makes the fact that I want to grab Diaby and slap his face and say ‘What the fuck is wrong with you? You have the chance of a lifetime at this club and you can’t be arsed, you lazy twat’, irrelevant. I want his every touch to be met with a chorus of Arsenal boos and if Paddy gets on I want to cheer and make Adebayor realise that for all the goals he scored he’s viewed as nothing more than a greedy, troublemaking mercenary.
I want this team to go to Blackburn and stand up to the physical onslaught the Walrus’s team will inflict on us. I want a repeat of that game when we were 4-0 up at half time there. I want us to go through the second half looking at a broken Blackburn side and a puce Walrus whose veins throb on his neck as every ‘Olé’ rings out from the away end. And on the final day of the season I want this Arsenal side to win against Fulham to finish off the season.
My point is that while the fans have a role to play it is entirely down to the players and the manager to put things right. They’ve let us down this week. A defeat to Sp*rs and a defeat in those circumstances to Wigan is about as trying as it gets. It’s down to them to restore the feel-good factor. It’s down to them to work harder than the opposition, it’s down to them to want to win more than they do, it’s down to them to make amends.
I’ll be over for the City game and, depending how many kids are around me, I’ll call Adebayor a cunt at the top of my voice. But I want it to be a gloaty, ‘look at the score you cunt!’, cunt. Not the ‘Why did nobody mark that cunt?’, cunt. Three games to go, nine points up for grabs, achieving that won’t make everything rosy in the garden again, but it’d be a decent start.
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A couple of little bits to finish off with. There are some pictures going around which are supposedly of next season’s new kit. They are not. Firstly, it’s Sylvester in the ‘new’ kit and he won’t be around to wear it. Secondly, a smidgeon of research would show you that the pictures came from this.
And finally, Arseblog is up for some EPL Talk awards. You can click and vote for Arseblog in Best Blogger, Best Club Blog, Best Club Podcast and Best EPL Twitterer (I’m up against all manner of fuckers there). Have a vote if you like, it’s about the only Arsenal related silverware we’re gonna see (there’d better be silverware).
And that’s about that. Till tomorrow.
