Where I feel Arsene broke the bond with the fans. by KM
Hello Arsenal fans once more. What a turn of the tides has happened since 2010. If back then you said a bad word about Arsene you would be banned as absurd and ridiculous. Back in that season we were close or maybe even top after a 3:0 win at Birmingham on January first? My memory may be wrong, but we were in a good spot and we blew it.
The similarities between this season and back then are quite a few. We had a really nice squad back then, just like now, but the way we finished that season losing the league cup final and missing on the title I felt that a change of manager was needed. Not a lot of people believed me, but a series of events broke the bond between me and the manager.
First and foremost it was the way we let Fabregas and Nasri leave. I mean they were obviously my favourite players at the time and seeing them leave made me put serious question marks as to why? For a moment I tried to buy the lies that we don’t have the money, but as seasons passed by I realise this is not the case. We do have money, in fact we’ve had them all the time, we just refused to use them. What was worse was the way we let Van Persie leave. We should’ve let his contract run down to the final year, instead we had 3 seasons with Giroud as our only striker.
This was the killing blow for me. He was the last player that managed 20+ goals in the league and we should’ve added enough quality to let him win the title with us, instead we cashed in. This is a fundamental problem at Arsenal, we always cash in! The club cashes in on players and fans and it will cash in again if we fail to make the top 4.
But this is not the only problem at all! We threw away the 2007/8 title because we were outsmarted in the big games and it took until that 2:0 win at City for us to actually approach a big game in a new way. Which is far too long, but worse are the excuses. Arsene never once admitted he wasn’t good enough. How do we expect to move forward if we cannot see the flaws that are stopping us?
Another major breaking point with Arsene was the fact the guy hasn’t learned a god damn thing. Each year we repeat mistakes and Arsene continues to fall into the same pitfall every year! You kinda wonder if you have to laugh or cry?
Another big issue for me was the fact we abandoned style. The teams of 2007/08 as well as the 2009/10 season played with some style! We never managed to outplay the big teams, but even against them, we really played some slick football, which in the past 3 years is gone. I was all up for abandoning beauty for success, but having neither is worse.
The transfer window is another major pain for me. We just sleep through the window, and at the end we try to make one transfer and then it’s all good. Our transfer policy has been scandalous at times. Simply unacceptable! And not because we don’t spend money, but the way we approach the window without any idea of what to do is terrible.
For me this all comes down to the fact Arsene has complete power. What’s the difference between having Steve Bould or Pat Rice next to Arsene? Can I have that spot, maybe I can also earn some free money from Arsenal for doing nothing. Nobody ever questions Arsene, the board or the staff don’t for sure.
Problem is the growing disconnection between manager and fans is reaching the worse point. Words like “Arsene knows best” were the law 10 years ago, now they are a deadly sin. Arsene and the Board pretend like everything is OK, but the players are affected for sure.
If you look at the polls about Arsene, every one suggests he should leave, even the one put here on JustArsenal! Leave the fans and pundits aside, quite a few players will not miss Arsene too much if he leaves. Ozil, Sanchez and Cech do not owe him anything and will easily find a big club again, unlike Ramsey, Giroud and Walcott though! You can bet Joel Campbell, who has been one of the few better players since the turn of the year, would also be happy to welcome a manager that would judge him on performances rather than personal dislike.
And of course a point I keep hammering about – the desire. Look at the way Klopp engaged the Liverpool fans. He immediately recognised the apathy around the club and taunted the fans, and they responded! This triggered a chain reaction and the vibe around the club is different! Simeone at Atletico is another perfect example.
But before we jump on the topic on who should come in, we need to let Arsene know his services are no longer required. And there is no other way than doing it on the games, where he will be! He has to be given a red card from the fans. There is no way he’d abandon the only thing left in his life! You cannot blame your misfortunes on others though.
Arsene is losing his supporters day by day, but be sure he doesn’t care too much about that. Look, Allardyce did an ok job at West Ham, but he was eventually sacked, because it wasn’t the west ham way and look at them now! Leicester sacked Pierson even though he made the great escape and now they are fighting for the title! Even Stoke sacked Pulis and now they actually try to play football!
The waters at Arsenal have been stale for far too long. And stale water doesn’t taste so good. We need to break the wall and let the Arsenal river flow! Whether there is an ocean of success or a waterfall is something we will never know while we are stuck with Arsene, but one thing is certain, the Arsene pond is drying up!
Wishing you a better week than Arsenes!
Repost. I’ll lay the scenario down for next season…
Managers that will have the biggest of impacts on the league are Pep, Conte, Klopp & Jose (if he joins).
Pep – Builds teams that like to murder their opposition on the field. And with the resources that City have, he is going to make them an absolute beast.
Conte – An empirical tactician and a disciplinarian. Doesn’t like to take any bs on or off the field. He will use the existing squad at Chelsea with a max change or two and grill the team mentally.
Klopp – Even with average players they look like brutes on the field under him. Imagine what he can do if he gets his own players in. Won’t be surprised if he can lure the likes of Reus & Mkhitaryan.
Jose – Loves to win at any cost. His personal agenda is enough to breathe fire into Man Utd with his fall off earlier in the season. He will be licking his lips at the prospect of getting another huge project like Utd to dominate the league.
We all have measured the aptitude of managers like Ranieri, Pochettino, Koeman and Bilic this season. So, they will all be geared up to take flight next season.
Also, I think that Stoke and Everton are going to strengthen their ranks as there is immense potential in their squad. The promoted teams will be motivated, inspired by Leicester’s success, to play with desire and freedom.
And then there’s Wenger. A stubborn egoistic pensioner who would try to school all fans about how Leicester did it on a shoe string budget. So, he would probably try to sign a couple of bargains from Amazon for about a 100 pounds and justify his gluttony.
The point I’m making here is, that there will probably be a massive fight to even stay in the Top Half of PL next season. And with around 10 odd teams strengthening themselves don’t be too surprised if you see Arsenal languishing in 13th or 14th by the end of the year.
Funnier things have happened in the Premier League as we all have witnessed the champions of PL 2015-2016.
I see no other solution but for the fans to pull together and buy the club, it is the only thing that makes sense for now and the future. That comes with its own set of issues too but I doubt that we will have an issue with desire and ambition, at the current rate, we are really going no where slowly.
If Kroenke won’t sell to a billionaire like Usmanov why would he sell to the fans? He is on easy street with Arsenal, no outlay and plenty of income.
I doubt whether the fans could raise the £700 million or so anyway (even if Piers Morgan chipped in).
Hahaha ?
I can’t believe that you are still crying over RVP!
He wanted to go and further more he was advising other player’s at the club to do the same.
You suggested that you would have preferred to have kept an unhappy player at the club and let him leave for free!! ?
Arsenal made over £20 million with the sale of RVP and anyone with any logic would know that it was the right thing to do!
@Fat boy, De gea was extremely unhappy when Man U decided to keep him, because they know they need him, and he went ahead to be in the EPL XI. So we should have kept an unhappy RVP than a happy Giroud.
Another example: Lewandowski left for free while he would have cost more than what RVP did a year b4.
So what did you do with the #20 million from the sale? When you consider the fact that a little addition to the squad with RVP around would have made us a real title contender that year, then you would realize how foolish it was to have sold him to the eventual title winner?
The summer is coming and as usual the shameful press briefings by wenger abt tranfers is abt to roll… As we’ve learnt everything abt arsenal is repetitive and predictable,if u thought the season was a grt dissappointment then the worse of all is abt to happen…the SUMMER TRANSFER WINDOW…as always there are no players out there who can improve us,that we shd 1st keep what we have(sanchez and ozil new deals), that everyone is now back from injury(wilshere,gazorla and walcott) that academy talent are like new signings(iwobi and akpom),that he is busy 24hrs and that if anyone of us knows someone to call him e.t.c i think the biggest signing shd be a new coach,full stop!!!
Great now bullet point those yearly sentences so that a banner can be made to shame him when he makes them to the press for the 13th year.
Just how long should we wait to see progress or ambition in arsenal. it’s been so so so long.
every idiot knows there is a problem in this club what we might not agree is who or what is the problem. it does not make sense that we can commit the same mistake every year and claim progress. Am not a manager, i don’t even play football am actually so far from anything that is football related besides watching but i think you would all agree with me that you cannot compare Henry (who helped Arsenal to win) to Giroud. My concern is, our managed who presumably should know everything that is related to football actually doesn’t see this among-st other problems. i am so disgusted.
admin why have my comments been deleted?
Because your uninformed opinions are annoying me….
I want sensible discussion not slanderous accusations
::::THE MESH::::
“We have come to the Cross-roads
And I must either leave or come with you.
I lingered over the Choice
But in the darkness of my doubts
You lifted the lamp of love
And I saw in your face
The road that i should take.”
.Kwesi Brew….
Stale, tired, apathetic
that also applies to many
fans who have also given
up on winning titles.
The wellspring of trophies has been dry for 12 years
yet many fans still revere “The Professor”
and lose themselves in nostalgia.
Owner Kroenke is in it for the money not the trophies
while the quislings on the board pander to Arsene’s every whim.
So we just wait and we wait and we wait…
“Remember that game back in 02 when Adams scored late on against Ipswich
Yeah and remember when Henri scored against Bradford in the league in 2000″…..
Them were the days 🙂
Konstantin, I agree with most of what you wrote. As the saying goes, time will tell. And time is really telling. Empires have come and have gone. Wenger should realize his time at the club is up because as he himself puts it, if he can no longer move the club forward. If he has any love for the club remaining, he will step aside. He either does that or change will do it. I can see it coming from the horizon because of the growing pressure from the fans.
My main reason, aside others like not investing in more quality players and players that fill the correct positions to complete a team, is HE HAS LOST IT TACTICALLY.
He still thinks that our tika taka style is going to win us the EPL – even though we dont have players like MSN in our squad.Teams read us too easily. Yes it is pleasing to the eye to watch Arsenal at their best, but it would be more efficient if this style would get us the EPL title.
A good example is the West Brom game which we dominated and looked good whole game . Note : Our 2 goals didn’t exactly come from the “walk the ball into the net” style but rather from 2 instances of individual brilliance by AS.
He refuses to change tactics. Wenger doesn’t believe in having true out and out wingers, instead we rely heavily on our fullbacks to get forward and do the crossing – this is how we often get caught on the break and leave the CB’s with all the defending to do.
Point being: Even if AW buys the best CF, another 2 good midfielders and 2 solid CBs we wont win the EPL with his tactics.
Arsenal’s play isn’t even pleasing to the eye anymore. It became as dull as Wenger himself.
Once more I agree with Konstantin in almost every point, now I need to admit that slowly but surely I’ve became a rabid AOB so to some extent I am biased, now I would like to see from other well known ARSENE fans to acknowledge that the arguments KM brings are valid and true, that our Club is in crisis, and that we all need to let know the decision makers that we are not satisfied with the direction the club has taken.
As a Fan I know that a fraction of the money I spend as a supporter goes to buy players, unfortunately it seems a very small fraction, so I will continue with my own little contribution, as I know the owner will rather see us in the relegation battle than dig into his pockets to reinforce the squad, but also would like to see a gesture from WENGER, whom we all know is going nowhere, as a Man of principles that he claims to be and that he will HONOR his Contract till the end, as the ARSENAL lover he claims to be cut your wages give back some of that money that you did not earn and contribute to the future glory of the Team, like each one of us Fans do when we spend our well and hard earned money, do this buy players. get rid of those draining our finances win again as you once did and you will be remembered as you once deserved.
I agree completely with this article. Arsenal is no longer a club with ambition (and hasn’t been for quite a while). If the manager and board’s desire is simply to turn a profit and nothing else, why should we care? It is like they are holding our beloved club hostage.
You can use all the different turning points you like, the ONLY one that stands out for me was Suarez.
A talent only surpassed by Messi, IMHO. His all round game is breathtaking. Its not like we didn’t know this, or that he would of been a progression player. He was the finished article who this season has scored more goals than the interior arsenal team.
Not only did it cost us the title that season but also this. All for the sake of a pisstake offer £1 over……..
In any other walk of life heads would of rolled for such an unbelievable balls up!!!
If David Dein was still at the club, Suarez would’ve been playing for us. Gazidis is simply Kroenke’s mouthpiece in negotiation
At the time if the bid Suarez had a bad disciplinary record at ajax and liverpool, two bans for biting of seven weeks and ten weeks, one eight week ban for racial abuse plus bans for obscene gestures snd fighting with a team mate.
At the time of our bid he was still serving the second ban for biting. Given this record there was a big risk that he could recieve another lengthy ban for some future misdemeanor. He was also reported as saying he was fed up with england and UK media. Given the risks, I felt at the time that the £40m we offered was a good offer. Hindsight may suggest we should have offerred more but at the time it seemed more than fair and it should hav triggered the release clause but Liverpool manoeuvered around that.
Arsenal will not change with Kroenke in charge of the club, because his ‘business model’ relies on having no opposition, hence no one with football knowledge on the board, and hence no opposition to his yearly raid on Arsenal funds and fans pockets. So it also requires to have a dictator like Wenger in charge of all footballing matters. Kroenke does not care about the club as long as he can make his yearly raid, it is very important to realise this.
He does however care about fan opinion and negative publicity, after he raised season ticket prices to pay for his previous raid, and the outcry it caused, he froze prices for the subsequent year. Therefore, if the stadium resonates to the well known anti Kroenke chant and banners are flown on televised match days, I believe it will have an effect on him, either to sell, or to change his attitude and help the club to more success.
If Wenger goes, Kroenke’s business model either needs a radical rethink or replacement with someone similar, which is why he has stayed, and why Arsenal football club cannot move forward. If we drop into the Championship, there may be a radical rethink, like Lerner at Aston Villa, but I doubt anything would change until that point, and fans are not united against the real villain.
Absolutely right, Kroenke has no love for, or affiliation with, the club. To him it is just a business venture which he will dump if it becomes unprofitable. That means we will have to fail to succeed in getting rid of him. A real catch22 situation.
The major source of income for arsenal are
1. ticket and merchandise sales directly related to purchases by fans.
2. there is advertising/sponsorship which depends on the size of the fan base and sucess of the club.
3. Income from FA, this is greater for PL clubs and the higher they finish in PL the more they receive
4. Income from cup competitions, this is ticket sales and payments for sucess. Again the more fans going to games and the more the sucess the more money
This is rocket science, the more sucessful and the more fans a club has then the greater its income. Kroenke is a businessman, he is balancing expenditure on transfer fees and wages against income. If he senses a widespread dissatisfaction amongst the fans, he will fear a loss of income and hopefully will act in time to avoid a dramatic fall in performance and a downward spiral.
Having forwarded on this article ( plus the comments ) I also agree that I felt this way for many years and have been vilified for being a ” traitor “.
It is great to see that the vast majority now seeing the fraud for what he is and want a change.
Now the hard part…..
Wenger is not an honourable man who will leave of his own accord because it is the best thing for the club. He is stubborn, arrogant, obstinate , smarmy and condescending. The club will need to sack him or be persuaded to not renew his contract.
Kroenke is an out and out businessman , who knows nothing about British football , wants to make money and must be delighted at how easily he has made money compared to most other major clubs.
How do we get over our anger, frustration and frankly total disbelief that this is reality and not a nightmare ?
I deeply believe the following facts :
– Arsenal could do better even with our current squad , with a different ( not even great ) manager because Wenger is past it.
– Wenger will not do the honorable thing and quit. He will hang on in till he is pushed.
– Wenger will not be released by the club ( I use the word club because there is more than Kroenke involved ) until they feel that they no longer have any choice.
– the only way the club will make a move is when the owner changes his mind about the relative advantages and disadvantages of having Wenger in charge.
– the only way the owner will change his mind is when it hits his bottom line.
-most of Arsenal’s revenue is not from ticket sales but from sponsorship and TV/ advertising.
What’s my point ?
There are hundreds of thousands of Arsenal fans around the world. We cannot boycott games , we cannot walk out , we cannot carry banners , but we all can do one thing…..
We can all boycott , write letters of protest, encourage negative publicity about any company that sponsors a club with a total anti- supporter dictatorship.
– Kroenke will quickly dump Wenger when he realises ( is made to realise ) that the total contempt the Arsenal fans hold for his Manager is costing him money.