The comments of the last few weeks are understandable. I agree with some of them (Baptista and Aliadiere should go, Flamini sucks, Fabregas is either tired or has been found out, Arsenal cannot defend set pieces nor can it punish teams with corners, the wide midfielders Arsenal has are not true wingers, Lehman’s time may be up, Eboue needs to learn how to behave, Wenger should fess up more often and call out several of his men, Arsenal needs someone, anyone, to hold the players internally accountable.) I disagree with a bunch of others (Clichy is only half as good as Cole, Flamini has heart and should be retained, and most definitely, Wenger should go.)
Although understandable, however, these comments are simply not helpful. They are a mark of the desperation we are ALL experiencing as Arsenal is hemorrhaging and possibly (maybe even probably) losing 4th place in the Premiership. Nonetheless, there is nothing that Arsenal can do at this time other than to go out, play hard, and try to overcome some obvious short-comings. Berating and second-guessing Wenger now is unworthy of you. Call for Wenger’s head, if you must, in the off-season but let’s root hard for the team for the remaining games this year. There are not that many left and, as you all know, there will be plenty of time from mid-May through mid-August to go over, ponder, predict and prophesize the moves that should have been made and should not have been made.
So for now, i.e., the upcoming Bolton game at the Emirates and the remaining five games, I propose that we back the Arsenal and celebrate victories, real effort, and heart. We all know there are problems to be fixed but let’s NOT join the Myles Palmer bandwagon of bashing Arsenal and calling for Wenger’s head now that the season has turned to rot. That is not worthy of any of us.
I don’t know about you but I believe for any real Arsenal fan to visibly support the blatherings on Myles Palmer’s website (a website I note that primarily exists to support the sales of Palmer’s biography of Wenger) is tantamount to treason. Yes, you heard me right, Mazza. Palmer is a horse’s _ss, financially benefitting from his book celebrating Wenger’s genius at one moment and hailing Wenger’s vision after the double Liverpool victories and Tottenham comeback, and now posting articles which do everything but come right out and say Wenger should be fired. Whatever else Wenger has done, he is too successful, too innovative, too responible for elevating Arsenal into the top lot of world clubs to be held accountable by such a xenophobic, small-minded hack who would dare write the following after hailing Wenger and hawking a biography about Wenger:
What you have now, after ten years of Arsene Wenger, is a French club captained by a narcissistic ballerina, and a technical team where nobody shouts at each other, and a changing room with thirteen nationalities.
Stan Kroenke might look at the league table, and last season’s league table, and ask: Is this Arsene Wenger the only soccer coach in the world ?”
“Arsene Wenger is a suicidally stubborn, self-defeating science teacher who will never hand his players over to somebody who can teach them how to defend as you have to in English football.
He won’t share his team with anybody and he won’t share the glory with anybody and he refuses to have anybody around who will contradict him. He is a messiah who doesn’t listen and therefore he won’t have to share the blame with anybody.
It’s his training, his ideas, his philosophy, his pilates, his French osteopath, his hydro pools, his training pitches with undersoil heating, and his lunch menu served on crockery chosen by him. It’s a French club with a French dressing room where three players speak German, (Lehman, Rosicky and Hleb) and three whose first language is English - Hoyte, Walcott and Adebayor, who comes from the English-speaking part of Togo.
Unfortunately, he’s stayed too long. His ideas have taken Arsenal a long way forward but now he has shot his bolt. He can’t take Arsenal any further because he is obsessed with kids and surrounds himself with yes-men.”
Yes, we can all second-guess but how many would have succeeded in transforming this team into what it has achieved in the last 10 years. To call for Wenger’s head now, like Palmer does and others on this site do by insinuation, is weak, craven and a demonstration of ingratitude and short-sightedness. Shame on you all. Wenger is stubborn, is proud, is pig-headed, will not admit wrongdoing by his players to the outside world, will say things that are quite evidently false in order to protect his beloved team against the outside world, but he is our genius, our talisman, our man. If we continue posting like idiots, perhaps the team’s ownership (or possibly Stan Kroenke in the future) will begin taking this crap seriously and will let Wenger go in order to bring on the new flavor of the month. Arsenal does not have the resources, hubris, and moral ambiguity to be Real Madrid. Let’s remember who and what we are.
6 Responses to “You Lot Would Have Surrendered After Dunkirk”
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April 10th, 2007 at 11:00 pm
Thanks Village, I’m not the sort to simply parrot views in an article, but much of what you’ve written here goes along with my own sentiments, so I’ll put in my other than eloquent 2 cents.
It’s been a difficult season yes, but right now what the club needs the most is for us to get behind it, through thick and thin, fair and foul weather right?
My personal approach during stretches like this is to stay off the message boards, live my life in the meantime, and go watch the games in the pub and cheer and curse for the Arsenal.
This is not a head in the sand kind of thing for me—I just try to choose my criticism carefully.
I’m in the US, Pacific Std. time, and trust me getting up at the crack of f-ing dawn to watch players that lack heart and play like crap kills me. I’m certain that those of you who attend the games must be truely gutted. A few players do lack heart I feel, but I really think that for the majority of players this is not the case. Either they aren’t good enough, or just haven’t gelled, or the team don’t practice corners, or Myles Palmer is really Alan Pardew in disguise I really can’t say.
What I will say is that the team does not have any wingers who can beat their man, the team has no width—this has been spoken of ad nauseum—this will have to be addressed in the summer.
By the way, Wenger cares about this team with all of his heart you can see it, more than I can say for that hack Palmer.
Yeah wenger has made some mistakes this season, but really, who could anticipate Baptista would be such a donkey, or Hleb would forget how to pass the football, or Gallas would be out injured for so long and fail to click with Toure, or we’d lose both our best strikers for half the season?
Give Wenger the summer to steady the ship, in the meantime I’ll say stand behind the club, will the team on, and some of you please cease your web-whining, or at least save it for the pub. I’m not speaking to anyone in particular at this site BTW, just getting out a point of view.
Thanks again for the words Village
April 11th, 2007 at 7:11 am
If Wenger has stayed too long, then what about Ferguson. More than twice as long as Wenger, and his team just won 7-1 in the Champions League quarter-final while sitting at the top of the Premiership.
What is the difference? Thinking about it, I notice that Ferguson has changed his number two on a number of occasions. McClaren, Kidd, Quieroz and others have all had a go. Rather than us (or someone who has lost the plot like Palmer) looking at Wenger’s position, maybe Wenger should be looking at the position of some of those around him (Pat Rice?) and wondering does he need to hear a new voice.
April 11th, 2007 at 7:40 am
U r so right VillageG. I got Myles Palmer’s book (of Wenger) as well. For someone who admired Wenger’s method (in his book) when we were winning all a sudden turned himself into one of the biggest doubters when we are going through a rough time take some doing.
Some criticism is justify like what happened ON THE PITCH. Cos everyone could see it with their own eyes. The thing pi*s me most is when we are losing, suddenly ppl seem to know what’s the set up behind the dressing room door, or on the training pitch, or into Wenger’s personality. I just wanna ask: WHERE are those information coming from? Do they really know the man so well? Were they there on the training pitch? In the half time dressing room? Or Wenger ever invited him home for tea?
April 11th, 2007 at 8:56 am
1. So we’ve disappointed this season. Thats a tragedy , almost equivalent to someone dying.
2. Since we have a divine right to win we have to win every season , compete on all 4 fronts and keep winning every game we play , else we’re **AYE CARUMBA**(censored).
3. Since we got knocked out of 3 cups we’re crap , the team is crap , the manager is crap , the board is soulless and must be firm with AW, the players are money grabbers and we should change our style to start playing like relegation teams with long balls.
Were we saying all this in the first part of the season? Were we saying this during the unbeaten run? Did we say this when we beat Man United?
Obviously this will be countered with something like…”You’re suffering from a delusion…You’re a Wenger Yes Man..” and loads of more crap that I dont care to write here.
The only thing that has happened is that the kids took the Carling Cup loss badly and since a lot of them also play in the first team we got knocked out of the other 2 cups before we knew it. All of a sudden the morale was down and the season was over. Now it’s hard to motivate themselves.
Yes they are professionals…they are also human beings who play football for a living. Tell me .. Havent the Anti-AFC brigade ever done things halfheartedly? Have you always given 100% throughout your life in everything you touch do or feel? Can you honestly say that? Have you always had perfect lives which turned out exactly as you’d planned? Havent you wished you could buy everything you wanted and hope that all your wishes came true? When you realised that wasn’t ever going to happen didnt you console yourself and try and make do with the best that you could get or muster up?
It seems right now that we have no heart and cant score 1 single goal and are going to play in the Intertoto cup. But thats not true…no team which can muster up the heart to not give up and come back so many times from hopeless positions can be without heart. It is just a combined lack of a tangible goal , a ridiculous amount of injuries and a lack of confidence that has destroyed us in the latter part of the season.
Yes it hurts to see 3 English teams qualify and ManU beat Roma 7-1 but there isn’t much you can do about it except reminisce about us being there. This gets us nowhere and leads to the release of a load of negative emotions which stop us from thinking clearly.
The past cannot be changed … the future is your control. Whingeing that AW has lost it and must be sacked serves no purpose. Do you know how much money he actually has? Do you know what he tells the players? Are you on the board? Do you know how much money actually goes in repaying the debt? Would you be willing to risk buying Ronaldinho and find out he’s a dud in the EPL? Dont tell me it wont happen. Look at how many goals Sheva has scored so far!!!! …Didnt you cry for Michael Owen last year? Would you say the same now after he missed the season for Newcastle?
Its so easy isnt it.. sit here and whine for players to be bought and to slam everyone. Yes they are professionals and must put in the effort to overcome their weaknesses. Moaning and slamming them does not help..specially when you do not know the entire story.If you really cant bear them that much , and cant stand it when we’re down I suggest you not watch instead.
I know all of us love The Arsenal and it hurts when we lose , but talking about thngs which we cant help and more importantly which we cannot possibly give a decisive judgement on withotu all the FACTS is useless IMO.
Here’s wishing we beat Bolton on Saturday.
April 11th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
I’m so glad that reasonable voices are standing up to be counted. Myles Palmer, is just another voice in the forest, just like bears s******g in the woods.
April 13th, 2007 at 9:47 am
Fans stay with the team, those who use others to better themselves are charletans. Palmer falls into the latter category [and, as a dear Irish woman constantly described others, is rather a horse's hangdown rather than its *ss].
For the team, anyone who thought that Arsenal was going to “rebound” from 05-06 was fooling him/herself. Too many key personnel changes, lack of leadership overall in the team and a thinness in finishing quality on the bench have left the team where it is now. With Gallas showing signs of boredom with his inconsistent play since returning, Cesc’s “sophomore slump” and the loss of 35-40 goals min from RVP & Titi, the length of the season is wearing on the team. Not spending money this year on veterans has left the team short of experience.
Other leading teams have been down in recent years. The measure of the team’s and Arsene’s success will be played out next year rather than this one. Will Titi return to peak form, will RVP pick up where he left off, will the defnese stabilize, will the midfield control the game as it did when Arsenal was at its best are some of the key questions facing the future.
I, for one person, a fan since the early 70s, will not waiver in my support of the team, its current leadership or the approach to play. I get as frustrated as everyone else has and will still get, but will always remain a gunner.
Now, the issue of future ownership of the team [which I will post immediately after finishing this] may make for more restlessness among we fans…