How to describe the fortunes of Arsenal at the moment? Malaise? Torpor? Stuck in a rut? Simply not good enough? Last night has left me totally disheartened. No 4th place for us, I’d put money on it. This team doesn’t seem to have the wherewithal to fight for 4th place. Currently, we’re outside of the f*cking Europa League positions. Talk about dire.
Who can we blame? The manager, to an extent. No (proper) signings in January probably didn’t surprise many people, but it infuriated plenty. Having been a Wengerphile for so long I don’t know if I now deflect blame from him automatically without being objective enough. But look, we had the same players that we had when we went on that decent winning run that seems so long ago now. This horrendous run of form, then, can’t be down to a lack of signings. Can we blame injuries? There were plenty in January (this is Arsenal), and they played their part, but those were mainly in defence. I think the problems lie further forward; defence certainly wasn’t the issue last night. What else? Luck? Certainly, it’s played a part. On another night we would have been 3-0 up at half time. Having said that, Bolton missed a fair few chances of their own. Not luck then. Psychological issues? It’s well known that confidence takes a long time to build up, and not long to shatter. Maybe, but where was the broken confidence in the second half of the Aston Villa game in the FA Cup? Those were the same players. Is this a strictly league-bound problem?
Many question marks, as you can see, and very few answers. I suspect the answer is a bit from each pile. All the ingredients, combined, make one revolting pie of shit form, topped with a lumpy gravy of sliding league position and served with a salad garnish of fan disenchantment. For desert: Andrei Arshavin’s career.
What makes this even worse, for me, is that there are only three teams in the league who are definitively better than us. Chelsea are stumbling through the season like Boris Johnson stumbles into tackles. Liverpool and Newcastle are ahead of us not really on their own merit, but because of our failings. Don’t get me wrong, they deserve to be ahead of us, but only because their form has been marginally less awful than ours. In our last four games, had we taken the nine points we could reasonably have expected, instead of one, we’d be three points behind Tottenham. I know, it’s like saying if Owen Coyle had fewer teeth, he wouldn’t look so much like a dolphin- he doesn’t, so he does.
But don’t be mistaken that Spurs are a wonderful team and have been in such good form that they’re uncatchable. Had we taken the points we ‘should’ have over the last month, we’d be right behind them, and well clear of the dross of Liverpool and Newcastle. Fourth is up for the taking, but we’re not up for taking it.
I am not one of the fans calling for Wenger’s head. Not because of what he has done for the club, not because he is a wonderful manager going through a very tough season (all true), but because fans calling for the removal of a manager because of a poor run of form is the reserve of bottom-of-the-table dross, and clubs run by amoral Russian billionaires. I still possess, deep down, that glimmer of hope that this season will be just a blip, and that soon Arsenal will be back where they belong. I suppose that’s what keeps any fan sane.
At the moment, however, that blip is a needle hidden in a haystack. A tiny needle, and a huge haystack. I won’t even begin to consider Saturday’s game. I don’t want to give myself false hope, I truly no longer believe that we can or will finish fourth. The best I’m hoping for now is a run in either cup and some serious discussion among the leadership about how to turn this club around. Otherwise we could be looking at a couple of years in the wilderness, at least.
Pessimistically yours,
Joe
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