*Please note: This missive was sent by Pony Express before the 2-0 win over Chelsea, but was held up by a carriage transporting compressed tinned meat.
—
Well, well, well. What a week we have had. As a repressed Englishman with typically limited emotional range (what is known as the ‘stiff upper lip’) and the traditional inability to deal with problems, I turn to a British idiom drummed into me by sadistic masters at public school. And yet… even these words of comfort seem to be unable to restrain the sense of dejection and melancholia induced by the ongoing support of Arsenal Football Club, or should I say Kroenke Sports Enterprises (North London Campus).
“Least said, soonest mended” is the idiom in question. It has seen me through all manner of trauma. DO NOT MENTION IT AND IT WILL GO AWAY. Well, no. This one is fundamentally flawed when it comes to Arsenal. Most said, never mended would be more apposite. One thing that Arsenal do win on a weekly basis is the Ballon D’Bore, the unofficial trophy awarded to the most hysterical online reaction to a loss.
Millions of tweets followed the unutterable humiliation of a defeat to Ironworks. And as for anything being ‘mended’, we would have to know what is broken first. Is everything broken? It certainly looked like it was. What has happened? Have Tottenham spiked the chaps with mind-altering drugs in revenge for the lasagne?
If it wasn’t enough that that crook-pated canker blossom Samir Nasri laid one off for Declan Rice’s goal, or that this was West Ham’s first home PL win against us for twelve years, or that Bournemouth, Wolves, Spurs and Watford have all won there this season, or that we have taken just two points from our past five away Premier League games, or that we are one of just three Premier League teams yet to lead at half-time in an away Premier League match this season (the others are Burnley (15th) and Cardiff City (17th), or that we failed to score in the league for the first time since the opening day of the season.
It was more the raspberry-blowing mundanity of the performance. FC Chelsea 2003 beckon on the morrow. We will go nine points behind them if we lose. So much for the early season optimism. The idiom I shall be reaching for after a loss will be my own: Out of the frying pan and down the shitter.
On a sadder note, does that infernal racket ‘Sweet Caroline’ set your teeth on edge at the stadium as it does mine? There is a solution. I have rewritten it for us. Do we think this could ring out across the stadium?
His name is Stan, his company’s holding,
His bank account is growing strong Now hear us sing
‘Bout why he is such a bummer
Who’d have believed we’d play along? Fans… touching fans
Reaching out, from block one to one three four…
Stan, we’re not fine,
Our team move like lumps of wood, We were inclined
To believe they were quite good But now we…
Look at the team and it seems like only One of them knows just what to do
It makes us hurt
To hear we’re only loaning
Why’s that when we’re worth a billion or two?
Cloth, touching cloth
Poking out, bit of wee, bit of poo Bleeding us dry,
Would you kindly please fuck off? K. S. E. swines,
Would you quickly say goodbye?
