When Arsenal took apart the Liverpool side of Brendan Rodgers that has been feted by the English media for their surge up the Premier League table after a shaky start to the season, it highlighted our own surge and the way that Arsene Wenger and the players have answered a lot of our critics and suggested to the fans that the Gunners have finally got a squad capable of winning the title. Or have we?
Serial Arsenal and Wenger critic Adrian Durham has written in the Daily Mail to suggest that our recent run of 15 wins from 17 games only goes to highlight his point, that the Gunners are great when the pressure is off but prone to fold like a cheap suit when it really matters.
It is no surprise to hear this sort of Arsenal bashing from the blatantly biased hack and I think he writes half his twaddle just to get an extreme reaction, but has he got a point on this one? Durham points to the fact that our run of form came after it was clear that Chelsea were running away with the title and also that the two games we lost were the two that really mattered, the first leg against Monaco and the north London derby at Tottenham.
So there is his point, as well as the fact that we only have one FA cup in the last nine years and no title since 2004. Here’s mine. All the Arsenal and Wenger critics conveniently forget that the club has been run on a shoestring budget in the last decade and lots of clubs that have spent much more have done much worse.
Durham also conveniently chooses to ignore one very crucial match, away to his beloved Man United in the FA cup. I seem to remember only one team bottling it at Old Trafford Ady boy. And finally you have the effect that our injury crisis has had for the last two years. When Arsenal fans mention it we are making excuses but when other clubs lose one or two key players it is a disaster and nobody expects them to win. Maybe this is because our injury problems have become so commonplace that everyone is used to them.
I think Durham is barking up the wrong tree here. Wenger has been under severe pressure many times just to qualify for the Champions League and have often looked like we would fail but the Frenchman and his Gunners have always stepped up and done what clubs like the spuds and Everton would love to achieve.
But there is only one way we will see the end of these accusations and that is to win the Premier League again or the Champions League. What do you guys think?