Sorry sir, your season didn't make it the full 9 months...
So there we have it. The 5 year plan is up. Arsene Wenger’s team of expensively assembled children flunked out of their 4th trophy of the year. Project Youth was left crying into a muddy puddle of failure somewhere on the outskirts of Bolton. Arsenal went into the game with a season on life support, they finished it flatlining… the theme tune to casualty playing them out down the tunnel.
Arsenal managed to display the same lack of mental strength and belief that has dogged their season in a highly important game against a team that was beaten by Stoke 5-0 last week in a cup semi final. Cesc threw in the white towel when he spoke to Don Balon last week, the team followed suit today. If your leader doesn’t want to lead anymore, why act surprised when you see an uninspired performance on the pitch?
Arsenal went one down after Alex Song forgot to track his runner from a corner. Clichy had to lose Sturridge to challenge, Cahill’s header crossed the line, the ball was hooked out and Sturridge was quickest to the second to make sure goal line technology wasn’t the hot topic this morning.
Arsenal were second best when it came to attitude and they were second best when it came to creating chances. Bolton wanted that win and they were out fighting us all over the pitch.
Cesc managed to clip the post, but other than that, we rarely troubled Jussi in the Bolton goal.
The second half started off pretty badly, Sturridge dived over JD and won a penalty. Chezzer managed to keep out Kevin Davies tame effort and something of a resurgence was on the cards. We went up the other end and after Cesc and Robin interchanged neatly, the Dutchman levelled us up.
We went on to dominate possession to the tune of 75%, we threw on Andrey and Chamakh, but to no avail. We couldn’t take our chances… in fact, we could barely register a shot on target in the second half. As the game drew to a close, you felt we might nick it. Bolton won a corner, once again we didn’t track the runners and Cohen nipped in front of Chamkh after it looked like Jack missed timed his header and scored what would be the winner. Shambolic marking all round, what was Samir Nasri doing on the near post?
A terrible result but befitting of the second half of the season.
Our team of young upstarts may have an average age of 23, but in the world of reality, that doesn’t count as a trophy.
Conclusion…
I can’t keep mulling over the same old problems. They were there at the start of the season and they’re still there now. The most worrying element going forward is that Arsene Wenger now appears to be our biggest problem. He doesn’t think we need to make changes, he believes that youth is 100% the way forward and by the sound of it… the board totally agree that Wenger is right and the stupid fans are wrong.
What can you do about a legendary manager who is blinded by arrogance?
We can’t keep saying he knows the problems because that’s what we’ve said for the past 3 years. Sure he’s said it’s his fault but he wasn’t saying that yesterday.
Our season didn’t have to be like this. We could have made the relevant purchases to add solid foundations to some of our sublime materials, but we didn’t and here we are… potless after 6 years.
Like Cesc said, the club need to work out what they want to be going forward. A club that indulges a manager who used to be dynamic, or a club that values winning trophies.
We’ll never be the biggest brand name in world football without trophies. The longer we go without, the less appealing we become. How bad do things have to get before someone pulls Wenger to one side to have a word about the way he’s operating? Who is qualified on the board to talk football with Arsene Wenger? How can you encourage a man as controlling as Arsene to seek advice from those who might just know better? Trouble is you’re asking your granddad to sign up to Facebook and embrace being liberal, you’re trying to convince a Nun to join you at Glastonbury and take some magic mushrooms… you’re asking a dictator to become a democrat.
Something has to budge at Arsenal because the fans who pay week in week out will not tolerate another summer of inaction. Wenger’s ridiculous comments and press conferences are only serving to drive a further wedge between the club and the fans… his goals are not aligned to those of the supporters, he’s out of touch and it almost comes across like he’s had enough of the people who have given him 6 years of freedom to pursue his ambition of winning it on the cheap.
I don’t want him to leave the club. However, I can’t tolerate having an invincible manager at the club, regardless of how many water bottles he kicks or tantrums he throws on the touchline.
There has to be accountability for possibly achieving the lowest points total in his Arsenal career to date…at the moment, we’re not seeing any.
Wenger can blame the players all he likes but he put them there (he alluded to this yesterday). He is responsible for who starts and the attitude they take onto the pitch. He is responsible for whether they’re drilled in defence, whether they play the same way regardless of the score and what position they take up. He is responsible for the numbers and how they’re trained.
You can’t be a dictator then look to collective blame when it all goes wrong.
Judge me in May? Well that’s 5 days away but I can already tell you that it’s a big fat ‘not good enough’ from Le Grove.
Everyone who wrote you off at the start of the season was right…again. Only one person can sort this out now and that’s Stan Kroenke. My advice to him?
Shake up the board…
Shake up the team…
Shake up the backroom staff…
… and shake up the manager, remind him of what he’s here to do and make him fight for trophies like his job depended on it.
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When humans are cut, blood flows.
When Arsenal players are cut, mental strength and fantastic attitude gushes out. FACT!!!
so we need to win 2 games out of 4 to stop spuds getting 4th and us getting 5th.
we will definately lose to man u.
its going to be very tight!
especially with those gutless wankers in the team
Spuds have a tough run in, and it looks like Essien will be back for Chelski, when they play them. I think we should manage 4th. Maybe even 3rd. I would be happy with 4th at this point. Esoecially if Spuds finish in 5th, the wankers.
God, it just hit me – things are bad when we are measuring ourselves against those losers from up the road. Where did it all go wrong?