may 5th
08.56 – I still hate football, I’m avoiding all newspapers, football websites and TV channels until Wednesday at least, but I love Arsenal.
There’s been plenty of reaction from Arsenal fans on the various forums the web serves up. Some of it knee-jerk, some of it immanently sensibile. It’s normal.
Yes, losing the league hurts a lot. Losing it when it was ours for the taking hurts a lot. Losing it to Man Utd hurts, but then who else were we going to lose it to?
In the wake of the disappointment, let’s not forget the good stuff, the fucking brilliant stuff the lads have served up for us this season. Some of the most fantastic football any Arsenal fan has been privileged to see. Leeds away, PSV away, Roma away…countless performances when we played with such tempo and skill.
We’ve scored fantastic goals, passed the ball beautifully and played some of the most wonderful, inventive, attacking football for 90% of the season. However, we’ve struggled defensively this season and we just don’t have the strength in depth to cope with the injuries and suspensions we’ve picked-up along the way.
Remember too what an achievement it is for our club and players to have been this competitive for so long when financially we’re light years behind our biggest rivals. Ferguson can go out and spend £30m on a defender, AW has to scrape together £2m for our purchase.
Given the financial restrictions he suffers in the transfer market, do not underestimate the impact Arsene Wenger has on the side and how they play football. If he’d had a transfer kitty half the size of Man Utd’s, I think we’d have won the league. He didn’t – we didn’t properly replace experienced players like Dixon and most importantly Tony Adams (but then how do you replace Tony Adams?) – he had to sell Richard Wright for £4.5m and then spend a total of £6.5m on Gilberto and Cygan. £2m spending money to retain a title, not a lot. And he nearly did it.
Some people will criticise the decision to sell Matthew Upson, I was amongst them, but AW has earned the right to make those decisions. He’s won the double twice and we’ve haven’t finished outside the top 2 in 6 seasons. He’s a legend, long may he reign.
Let’s also not forget that Man Utd’s form has been outstanding. They haven’t lost a game since Dec 26th, they’ve taken teams apart lately and Ruud van Nistelrooy – much as you might dislike him – has been scoring for fun. If Arsenal had gone on an unbeaten run like that, the way we did last year and in 1998, we’d have been shouting from the rooftops how good we were. They’ve been fucking brilliant, we haven’t been at our best in recent weeks, they deserve the title. The table doesn’t lie. Any talk of us handing them the title or them getting special treatment from the FA or them winning by default is shite and does Arsenal fans no credit. We’ll have it back next year though Mancs.
And before we got too down-hearted and gloomy, there’s still the FA Cup to play for this season. It may not be as prestigious and important as the title, but I want to win it more than ever now. The players deserve something this season, let’s get behind them until the end of the season, bring home some silverware and we can take it from there.
Come oooooooooon you goooooooooooooooooners.
