Where is Arsenal’s passion and desire to win?

Arsenal Change by Sean Gallagher

It could be suggested that these two signings merely disguised the teams reoccurring mental deficiencies. The overall playing quality of Arsenal was never really an overriding issue with the team capable of beating the most formidable of opponents, consistently labelled the best passing team in the country. In 2008 Arsenal were favourites by many to be crowned Premier League champions, but then their challenge became quickly derailed with the injury of Eduardo. Not merely due to the fact that Arsenal lost a key player, but the mentality of the team faded and lower opposition exploited this weakness.

Even in the current season Arsenal defeated Bayern Munich 2-0 at Home in the Champions League after an extremely convincing performance of team strength. However, the euphoria and aspiration inspired by such a result has long been diminished. Having been beaten by a noticeably weakened and underwhelming Manchester United team, and being humbled by Swansea, it cannot be ignored that Arsenal have an alarming track record of underperforming when it matters most. In a season as unpredictable as ever, the only familiarity is Arsenal having a great opportunity to gain the initiative which is then thwarted by their own reckless negligence.

Surely fundamental change is needed to eradicate this naivety and soft mentality which compromises any faltering hopes of success. What excuse does Wenger now have? Arsenal is being vastly out performed by Leicester and Tottenham Hotspur who have both displayed remarkable consistency in the face of adversity. A top club with such a strong international fan base and rich financial resources at their disposable would surely demand success. Although unethical and at times too extreme, Chelsea’s pursuit of success has worked. It is clear that silverware is the number one priority. It is not to suggest that Arsenal mimic Chelsea’s ruthless strategy, but there must be an acknowledgment that a top club needs to demand trophies, anything else is simply not good enough. That is the mentality of any top team and any top athlete. In sporting terms what glory is there for Arsenal to celebrate in achieving a top four position and continuing to reach the last 16 of the champion’s league?

When will they want more? When will they evolve to fulfil all the potential that they have? At the moment it seems that they have squandered the chance to do so yet again. Not because they’re not good enough but because the very mentality of the club is poisoned. Sport fundamentally is about competitiveness, passion and desire, no matter what level. Arsenal, an elite club at the elite level simple don’t embody these vital components of success. Of course it can be proposed that Arsenal enjoy more success than most clubs. That is undeniable but the deadly sin is that they don’t push to be more, which is what football is all about. Football makes us dream and can provide sheer ecstasy. It is a theatre which offers drama, pain and euphoria. Leicester have scrambled to the top of the league through unbelievable passion and desire. Yes they have quality, but realistically this is small in comparison to the big forces in England. PASSION, BELIEF AND HUNGER is what any team needs to execute to even be considered to challenge.

With this distinctly absent from the Arsenal team success will continue to be something fans can only dream of.
This is about more than disgruntled fans and vast cumulative underspending. This is about a club which continually disappoints over-paying fans with a hollow promise that next season will be different. Has any year really been different in the past eight seasons?

Sean

Tags desire passion Wenger

24 Comments

  1. Not gonna win anything under Wenger , Gazidis and Kroenke.
    A winner never hands out contracts like confetti.
    Imagine them talking about giving contracts extensions to already overpaid and average perpetual crocks /geriatrics.

    1. I never rated that win against Bayern Munich . They came to our home ground and bossed us around for 90 min,as if they own the place . The only difference was that they did not put any of the numerous open chances they created by carving us apart , into the net .
      Even a team of Denilson, Djorou , Flappyanski , Bendthner never got bossed around like that . They were not good , but they were glorious in defeat .
      Right now , we cannot attack , defend or even control the a midfield .

      1. That’s what happens when you lose Cazorla and refuse to find a QUALITY midfielder during the SUMMER

  2. Key players like giroud Sanchez Walcott and Ramsey all lost form at the same time. Wenger must get his tactics and player management decisions right if we are to win the league. Ozil Campbell and welbeck are only players who are doing good offensively and so Wenger may try to build his attack around them.
    Ps. I am still clueless about how we can become so poor overnight with just few injuries(injury list became bigger only recently) and the title in sight.

    1. Sanchez did not and has not loss form . The player around him are just shit .
      Sanchez excel from being fed with through ball. But today , most of the passes he is getting are panic passes from teammates too afraid or brainless to hold the ball . They pass him the ball with his back to goal , under serious pressure from the opposition , even when there are better positioned players to give the ball. He usually ends up losing the ball because Giroud comes running and choking into the spaces Sanchez needs by bring all the opposition defenders with him. That silly predictable one – two the one trick pony of a striker only knows how to do . That is , apart from the tap-ins

    2. For me giroud and Walcott were never key players …
      Sanchez, Cazorla, Ozil, Kos, Monreal, Bellerin, and Cech those are really our key players …
      Injuries are just part of the game and should never made an excuse …

  3. What you talking about sir? I keep telling you, Arsenal will never win the league under Wenger. Now the problem seems much bigger, with recent comments made by Kroenke it is obvious now this club is being run like an american corporation. Time to kick out Gazidis/wenger/Kroenke out of the club by not going to any of the home games, when the media picks this up watch how quickly the club starts buying all the right players.

    Aside from sanchez/ozil and Cech the rest are bang on avg. Giving contracts like 140k/week to a player like Walcott is criminal and contract extensions to arteta/flamini/rosicky is honestly blasphemous since they’re just wasting fans money.

    I didn’t watch the watford game and i won’t watch the Barcelona game either.

  4. Study Wenger and you will have your answer. Won some trophys where the leauge was all about football and not cash. A 2 race game between us and manure. 3 epl titles.

    We had one of the best teams in arsenal history, and yet we still could not win the cl.
    Had to wait many years to win the fa cup again and that at extra time with lots of struggle.
    Lost a finale before that against a second devision team.
    Lost a uefa leauge finale, lost cl finale. Best chance. To make a name of oru selfs. The cl finale was the colmination of Wengers accomplishment. He cant top this.

    Wenger is a Stan man not fotball man. Invest as little as possible, to profit as much as possible. Simple as that.

  5. I’ve always been under the assumption that if something can be made better in this world and isn’t being made better, like in All the Presidents Men, follow the money until you find the person who would financially be in conflict with change.

    In our case its spending on a few WC players across the spine of the team. In Arsenal it’s easy to see that trail opposing spending starts and ends with Stan the Sith. Whatever you think of Arsene it’s Kroenke who really holds the purse strings. He’s the majority shareholder. He’s just been quoted as saying he ‘Didn’t buy Arsenal to win stuff.’ He just wants his dividends by running the club we all love purely for profit. Say Wenger leaves, you really think that situation is going to change? It’ll be a fresh outlook, sure. A new manager will want to buy some players and they may get one or two. We’ll all feel a excited by a new era and hope will return, but then, business is business, Stan the Sith Lord, will appear out of the shadows in his Californian robes smoking a cigar and considering creating the worlds largest infinity pool. Suddenly a jolt of the purse strings. The new manager won’t be able to get players, we’ll be aiming for top 4 for financial reasons and we may well feel the same as we do now. The players must to a lesser or greater extent also knows this. Our only real hope for change is Kroenke losing interest and selling to someone with a better vision, ideally someone with genuine a love for the club that the fans have.

    1. Yes, Stan needs to go but Wenger does too.

      Ranieri and team are about to achieve more than us with a lot less.

      That cannot be down to finance.

  6. OT:Per Mertesacker says the Gunners must find a killer instinct in front of goal quickly if they are to turn their fortunes around…

  7. Choosing to skip Leicester in the comments made by Kroenke was a smart move for him with the belief that this will be dominated by Russians and Arabs. It also states that he won’t sell his shares anytime soon with terms such as popularity and scope of the club more valuable than any of his sporting teams by using Rams and Arsenal in the same context and the club buying out of deals with companies like Emirates. I feel extremely dejected that the club will loose the dignity it has and will never retain any of its shine. When a owner makes such comments during tough times it really looks like there will be no happiness after all.

  8. I think the desire to win argument could be afforded to any of the big 4-5. The truth is, players are over paid and defiantly overated (Sterling 50 million)

    The premiership is not the top league by any stretch of the imagination. Yet they pay the highest wages. How many top top players come to the premiership at the peak of their careers? Most come as a final payoff before retirement.

    I’m no Wenger fan, however the truth is the Premierleague is awash with mercenaries. Average ones at that. Unless Arsenal are willing to smash their wage bill, then what world class striker (in their prime) is going to come, to not just, us but the Premierleague?

    Why would you choose arsenal (getting lumps kicked out of you on a freezing February) over playing fantasy football for Barca?

    Yes get a new manager but I guarantee everyone this, you are not getting the world class players you want without a change at the very top….end of.

  9. It seems to me that Silent Stan has set the aim of the club to be top 4 finish for financial reasons. Us fans have accepted this on the basis that we were paying for the stadium and had to sell our best players. The PL title was being won by chelsea, manu or manc, all clubs with more money than us to spend on players transfer fees and wages.

    The expectation of us fans was that when the stadium repayments substantially reduced and our finances improved, we would attract top talent and keep our best players. The arrival of Ozil and Sanchez and not being forced to sell players supported this view. Winning two FA cups also supported this view.

    Silent Stan has now given an interview which I have difficulty understanding. He talks about the importance of The Brand and at the same time not needing to win championships. As far as I can see, to grow the Arsenal Brand we need to win things.

    Moving on to this season, chelsea, manu and manc have all performed poorly. Arsenal have consistently spurned good opportunities to get a clear lead in the PL. We then move on to the recent dreadful run of form, in 14 games, lost 5, drawn 5 and won 4. Of those four wins, two have been against championship sides. Leicester or Tottenham look like winning the PL. It appears to me that signing Sanchez and Oziz, winning FA cups and keeping our best players was a false dawn. We do not have the character to be winners.

    Not so Silent Stan needs to realise that now the stadiun debt is not a millstone around our necks, success on the field is required to maintain the Arsenal Brand let alone grow it. Success is not top four finish, it is challenging for PL to end of season and sometimes winning it, never looking like dropping below third. Getting beyond last 16 in CL and looking like a potential winner, a team which others will fear. Winning FA cup on a regular basis.

    If silent Stan realises the above and makes the necessary changes, we should get the club we want. If he does not, but proceeds with the current setup, then I expect us fans to become fed up with the ticket prices and become armchair fans, not going to games, not buying merchandise etc. Arsenal will then lose income, stadium will become an empty white elephant and Arsenal will decline.

    Basically I think that fans put up with not winning things because of stadium debt. Now they expect more and are actually getting less, as in Leicester and Tottenham look like they will finish above us and next season I expect manc, manu and chelsea to be much stronger.

  10. We are moaning about players not being good enough, but that isn’t true. Alexis is World class his desire and passion to win unquestionable, which meand there is something far more fundamentally wrong at Arsenal. Player meetings, irrational decisions being madeleft right and centre, this is all signs of poor management. I don’tknow whether it is AW alone or pressure from the board, but our football club as per Stan has different ambitions from what I think most people would expect, and that is to win. For Arsenal has become a business first a football team second. If we make 4th again, (or 3rd it may have to be), Stan’s happy. He owns the majority of the club now so wtf. Heck some of our own fans like the business set up too. Personally, I think legislation should be introduced allowing fans based trusts to purchse 51% of shares in their football teams, and allow the game to go back to where it belongs, with the fans.

  11. What gives you an insight into what’s happening in the club, was when Nasri gave the interview over his exit. Nasri said that Kroenke was forcing Wenger to sell him to Manchester City for the money. So that pretty much gives you where it’s at, Kroenke was selling what was, at the time, one of our best up and coming players to the opposition. You can hate Wenger, you can hate Nasri, but there’s only one person who is scuppering Arsenal’s chances of trophies, for his own financial gain, and with whom it is impossible for Arsenal to win anything.

    It surprises me that fans still refuse to see it as it is, given our lack of success since he’s arrived, and his recent comment of ‘if you want to win championships then you would never get involved’. Unless Arsenal fans do the same as Liverpool fans with their ex-American owners, we will be tormented by generations of mediocrity. He hasn’t contributed a penny towards Arsenal, and has taken out seven million pounds of fans hard earned, whilst earning around £6,500 for each Arsenal share he bought, last time I looked. Arsenal football club would be better off financially without him, and in a better position in the league. AFC is a golden goose to him, with the added benefit that he doesn’t need to feed or look after it.

    I would still like to know why the Arsenal Board backed him to get into this position?

  12. It goes from the top to bottom the mentality. Everybody at the club knows that the real goal is the UCL spot. That’s what they are molded to fight for. As long as that’s not at stake, don’t expect a single player to turn up. They can half ass it all they want as long as they keep the Wenger trophy unharmed and that’s why we are seeing all these poor performances since the start of the year.
    Sure, you can have a player or two actually hungry for silverware, but that’s just a player or two, he’ll either go with the flow or go. So, my dear gooners, expect to see the backs of both Mesut and Alexis. And don’t expect a single top player arriving at the club any time soon. Since these two leaving will send a message powerful enough, that there won’t be a single footballer that values the sport for what it is and that’s thriving for the absolute best, wanting to join this prawn sandwich restaurant.

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