Arsenal are Wembley bound but key club issues need to be addressed
So, Arsenal as expected managed to beat Lincoln City and move on to the FA Cup semi-finals. Kudos to the visitors for the fight and resolve they put on display in the first half. Unfortunately for them and fortunately enough for us, they soon tired in the 2nd half and the goal floodgates were opened. There were some brilliant goals namely from Alexis and Giroud, and some that were courtesy of calamitous defending but hey, that’s what you can expect when you play against a team that’s 3 divisions below you.
The victory means that we are within touching distance of some much needed silverware this season but this should not in any way make mask the deep lying issues we are currently facing within the club. On one hand, you can’t help but be happy for your club and the fact that it stands a chance to win a “major” trophy but you also have to question if we realistically stand a chance of actually going on to win the F.A Cup. Chelsea and Mourinho seem to have mastered the art of giving us headache, spurs seem to be picking up steam and so do Manchester City. All these teams except Sp*rs have given us a beating to forget in the near past. Then there is the issue of the current status of the team. Wenger is still holding the club hostage, Alexis and Ozil seem ready to move on, and the fan revolt is just gaining more ground with each and every defeat.
You can say all you like about the banners and the manner in which the protests are carried out but you can’t ignore the fact that all these are genuine attempts to find a solution to the issues currently plaguing the team. Wenger, for some reason other than consistency and good financial performance has a 2 year deal waiting for him to be signed. This baffles the minds of many and puts into question the desire and the ambition of the club and board to win trophies.
Arsenal is a football club that should be challenging for trophies rather than chasing profits. This is all the fans ask for. If the manager can’t lead his team to do this, then why not kindly ask him to step aside rather than give him a new contract? Then comes the consistent capitulation in the league and champions league. Not only is getting past this stage a sort of mental block for the players but it is also one wall Wenger has failed to get over for the past 7 years in a row. Arsene Wenger in his defense when asked about possibly being replaced by a new manager next season went on to say that him leaving Arsenal isn’t a guarantee that the next coach would win every game and he is right but you just can’t keep losing at the same stage, in the same manner and to the same teams every time and expect people to stomach that for 7 years on the bounce.
I am happy for the progress the team has made in the FA Cup and long may this joy last but until the real issues in the club are addressed, this is nothing but a joyous glitch in the consistently frustrating Arsenal matrix.
There are no issues plaguing the team.
What Arsenal fans refuse to accept is, Arsenal are the fourth best side in the league. The Gunners are staying competetive because of their manager, not in spite of him. This will become apparent when he goes; whether it is this summer, the next, or the one after that (clearly the owner’s preference).
The Premier League is a league of tiers. At the top are, in spite ofthe current table; Manchester United, Chelsea, and Manchester City. Manchester United’s global brand and virtually unlimited revenue stream gives them the ability to sign any player they deem worthy of signing (hence £83 million for Pogbust). Manchester city have a gusher of cash available at any moment thanks to owner Sheikh Mansoor’s oil wealth and his bid to build a global brand to rival Man U’s. Chelsea have sugar daddy Roman Abramovic to fund pretty much anything they need. This is not sour grapes or any other lame cliché Arsenal detractors or the Wenger Out Mob are inclined to hurl at those not blinded by stupidity. It is a simple fact.
At one time the top tier was Man U, Liverpool, and Arsenal. They were the big three, but the age of the oligarch has pushed both the Red Londoners and the Red Merseysiders down a level.
The second tier is Arsenal, Liverpool, and Tottenham. Liverpudlians, like the Gooners, cling to the distant past, but the truth is in the results. Livrpool haven’t managed successive Champions League campaigns in ages and have not won the league in the Premier League age. Their sole “major” trophy (The FA Cup is excluded as it does not seem to count for Arsene Wenger and the author put it in quotes to diminish any success by Arsene Wenger in this competition) is the Champions League, won by Benitez, who was, promptly fired for not helping the Reds to “kick on”. Again, Liverpool fans are living the same delusion as the Wenger Out Mob. The goalposts have moved and the only ones who can’t see it are these two collections of idiots and the pundits who play them like fiddles for their own enrichment.
Behind them, deperate to join but never having the cash or thetalent to do so, is Everton. Like Tottenham, Liverpool, etc. they have not won the league in the Premier League era and won’t, absent a Leicester City miracle. Joining the Toffees in Tier three are West Ham and Southampton, at least in recent years. Newcastle are generally in this mix, but a disastrous ownership situation and a fickle fan base has sent the toon reeling to the Championship. Again. Aston Villa was also, over most of the last decade, part of this group, but have the same issues as Newcastle, only worse.
The rest of the clubs are up and down and up and down, fighting for riches, secure in the knowledge that in their world, eighth place is a trophy. The fans of these clubs occassionally get delusional as well, like the Hammers did last year after Bilic’s first (and terrific) season.
When Arsene Wenger goes, they will not soar, as is suggested, under Allegri, Koemann, Benitez, Howe, Tuschel, or Simeone. They will drop into the 6-8 hinterlands Liverpool and Tottenham are well acquinted with and Manchester united has been visiting while they wait for their financial might to bring them back to ther proper place. Arsenal will become like everyone else. They will hire someone, fire him, hire someone, fire him, hire some, fire him… Until, finally, maybe in six or eight or ten years, they win the title again. That manager will be lauded and laureled and praises will be sung. Until the next year, when they don’t stay in the top four and he’s fired.
One of the reasons Arsenal are so unique, so interesting, and so polarizing is precisely because they buck the trend. Mourinho has long resented Arsene Wenger’s job security. Wenger has managed a level of cnsistency that no other manager inthe Premier League era, exacept Sir Alex Ferguson, managed. And he’s chastized for it! Utter bollocks.
Soon enough the reality will strike and it will be ugly. Painful, and unlike Manchester United, Arsenal do not have the money to just buy their way back into the top 4. They have to play their way in. They have to maanage their way in, and they have to make every penny and every transfer count. How many managers will be fired after Arsene Wenger leaves until Arsenal win the title?
Five is a good bet, but make it six. That’s the number of FA Cups Arsene Wenger’s won.