Thursday, November 6, 2008
Where Next Arsene?
Now is not a happy time for Arsenal fans. After two straight defeats, sorry but losing two goals in the last moments to Tottenham feels like a loss to me, the storm clouds are hanging over Arsenal and Arsene Wenger. Message boards and blogs are full of fans wondering whether our French manager has lost all touch with reality.
And it’s easy to see why. Fans have long memories. It’s not just Fulham, Stoke and Hull this season. It’s Tottenham, Liverpool and Manchester United in the cups last season. It’s Chelsea in the Carling Cup Final. It’s failing to hold leads in crunch games. It’s an inability to defend the high ball. There’s a pattern there and everyone sees it. Everyone but Wenger.
Our last trophy was a somewhat flukey FA Cup back in 2005. Since then we’ve had plenty of promise, plenty of promises but little glory. Our old guard of Pires, Henry, Vieria and Bergkamp have all moved on and they have not been replaced. This is what truly bemuses Arsenal fans and has done over the last trophy free seasons.
Where once we had Ian Wright followed by Nicolas Anelka and then Thierry Henry we now have Emmanuel Adebayor. I mean I’m sorry but there is no comparison. It was telling that when the Togo striker, ok last season he netted 30 times but at a crucial stage of the season he went missing, was injured at Stoke on Saturday no team mate hurried to check if he was all right. Perhaps he is as popular on the pitch as he is in the stands.
Tony Adams and the rest of the famous back five must be looking at our defence and shaking their heads in disbelief. Arsene Wenger inherited the best defence in the country and never replaced it and for me, and others, that is a crime. Signing aging has beens like Gallas and Silvestre has added nothing to the squad and indeed since Gallas arrived Kolo Toure has been a shadow of the player he once was.
Ah Gallas. Like those anonymous fans on the internet he talks a good game. He rarely plays one. The goals he scores don’t even out the errors he makes at the back that have seen us concede. He brings no leadership on to the pitch at all, rather like Henry’s unhappy spell with the arm band, and the team suffers.
The team. Wenger likes to talk up this team. Like he did last season. Many was the time last season when he bigged up the squad saying they were the best group of players’ he’d ever had at Arsenal. So good in fact he let Hleb, Flamini, Senderos, Lehmann and Gilberto leave. He’s doing again this season. He feels this team are young and still learning but they are very exciting and …spare me Arsene.
Compare the players from our Premier League winning seasons. Overmars, Bergkamp, Wright, Adams, Seaman, Pires, Henry, Bergkamp, Edu, Parlour. Look what we have now. Adebayor, Eboue, Gallas, Silvestre, Song. Only Fabregas and possibly Walcott in the future deserve to be honoured in the same way fans honour those heroes of an earlier age who actually won things.
When we left Highbury we, the fans, were promised the extra revenue generated from the increased capacity would allow us to compete with the big boys. Consider. Manchester United signed Berbatov, Chelsea signed Deco. Liverpool last year signed Torres. We got Silvestre and some Portuguese guy who is always injured. And yet the club like to boast their wage bill is as high as United’s.
Arsenal fans are by nature a patient bunch. Many of us remember the dark days of the mid 1970’s and 1980’s. There is, at the moment, no call to replace Wenger. But he is living now perhaps on the goodwill he has accumulated over the glory days. What is frustrating is that the flaws of the last few seasons have not been fixed. He has not replaced quality with players of a similar stature. And perhaps most worryingly no team wholly built by Wenger has won a trophy
Much now hinges on how quickly Eduardo and Rosicky can recover and whether Arsene gets serious in the January window.
And it’s easy to see why. Fans have long memories. It’s not just Fulham, Stoke and Hull this season. It’s Tottenham, Liverpool and Manchester United in the cups last season. It’s Chelsea in the Carling Cup Final. It’s failing to hold leads in crunch games. It’s an inability to defend the high ball. There’s a pattern there and everyone sees it. Everyone but Wenger.
Our last trophy was a somewhat flukey FA Cup back in 2005. Since then we’ve had plenty of promise, plenty of promises but little glory. Our old guard of Pires, Henry, Vieria and Bergkamp have all moved on and they have not been replaced. This is what truly bemuses Arsenal fans and has done over the last trophy free seasons.
Where once we had Ian Wright followed by Nicolas Anelka and then Thierry Henry we now have Emmanuel Adebayor. I mean I’m sorry but there is no comparison. It was telling that when the Togo striker, ok last season he netted 30 times but at a crucial stage of the season he went missing, was injured at Stoke on Saturday no team mate hurried to check if he was all right. Perhaps he is as popular on the pitch as he is in the stands.
Tony Adams and the rest of the famous back five must be looking at our defence and shaking their heads in disbelief. Arsene Wenger inherited the best defence in the country and never replaced it and for me, and others, that is a crime. Signing aging has beens like Gallas and Silvestre has added nothing to the squad and indeed since Gallas arrived Kolo Toure has been a shadow of the player he once was.
Ah Gallas. Like those anonymous fans on the internet he talks a good game. He rarely plays one. The goals he scores don’t even out the errors he makes at the back that have seen us concede. He brings no leadership on to the pitch at all, rather like Henry’s unhappy spell with the arm band, and the team suffers.
The team. Wenger likes to talk up this team. Like he did last season. Many was the time last season when he bigged up the squad saying they were the best group of players’ he’d ever had at Arsenal. So good in fact he let Hleb, Flamini, Senderos, Lehmann and Gilberto leave. He’s doing again this season. He feels this team are young and still learning but they are very exciting and …spare me Arsene.
Compare the players from our Premier League winning seasons. Overmars, Bergkamp, Wright, Adams, Seaman, Pires, Henry, Bergkamp, Edu, Parlour. Look what we have now. Adebayor, Eboue, Gallas, Silvestre, Song. Only Fabregas and possibly Walcott in the future deserve to be honoured in the same way fans honour those heroes of an earlier age who actually won things.
When we left Highbury we, the fans, were promised the extra revenue generated from the increased capacity would allow us to compete with the big boys. Consider. Manchester United signed Berbatov, Chelsea signed Deco. Liverpool last year signed Torres. We got Silvestre and some Portuguese guy who is always injured. And yet the club like to boast their wage bill is as high as United’s.
Arsenal fans are by nature a patient bunch. Many of us remember the dark days of the mid 1970’s and 1980’s. There is, at the moment, no call to replace Wenger. But he is living now perhaps on the goodwill he has accumulated over the glory days. What is frustrating is that the flaws of the last few seasons have not been fixed. He has not replaced quality with players of a similar stature. And perhaps most worryingly no team wholly built by Wenger has won a trophy
Much now hinges on how quickly Eduardo and Rosicky can recover and whether Arsene gets serious in the January window.
# posted by Me @ 4:46 PM 
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