may 3rd
Man is it raining here today. I’m hoping this is just the Gods being generous and filling the reservoirs before the 4 month drought kicks in and the sunshine arrives.
The only real Arsenal story around tis morning is the news that AW has a job for life at the Gunners, according to Double-D anyway. Our vice-Chairman says “He has got a job for life, simple as that. Other clubs would not only like Arsene but half of the team to go with him. He has transformed Arsenal Football Club.”
No arguing with that. And I think transformed might be underplaying it a bit. Revolutionised might be a better word. Under him we’ve been Champions three times (two doubles included), won the FA Cup, reached a European final and never once finished outside the top two, which shows incredible consistency. The only thing missing from all that is the Champions League, but I believe that will come in the next couple of seasons.
So this weekend saw the relegation places sorted out once and for all. Wolves and Leicester went down on Saturday after Man City beat Newcastle, and Leeds United’s 4-1 drubbing at the hands of the mighty…er…Bolton sends them down to the Nationwide (unless they can make up 35 goals in their next two games). It’s hard to believe that Leeds were contesting a Champions League semi-final just a couple of seasons ago. They were title contenders, and top of the league when they sacked David O’Leary. Since then though we’ve seen how badly mismanaged the club has been, both on a financial level, and on a football level. Ridsdale’s folly left them with enormous debts, and even after selling Robbie Keane, Rio Ferdinand, Jonathan Woodgate and others for big sums of money, the debts remained. They brought in Venables and sacked him. They brought in Peter Reid, and sacked him. They owe O’Leary, Venables and Reid something like £7m in pay off money.
The best example ever of how not to run a football club. This means that Leeds will play in the 1st division next season. They’ll lose the likes of Smith, Viduka, Robinson and others, they have the financial clout of a common Rochdale and making it back to the Premiership seems an almost impossible task. And quite honestly, it serves them right. It serves that fucking wanker who made me say ‘I love Leeds’ when I was a schoolboy in Yorkshire right too, the prick. I hope he cried yesterday, and I hope they caught it on the telly.
Goodbye Leeds. I won’t miss you one bit.
