Now that the emotion of losing the Europa League final to Chelsea has subsided it is time for reflection and to accept the cold hard realities of life as an Arsenal fan.
Some of these facts will not be easy to accept and no doubt some of you will absolutely disagree with me but I would suggest that if you do disagree with me that you do so based on facts and not emotion and some kind of blind loyalty to Arsenal.
I am as loyal as any Arsenal fan out there and it is not disloyalty to acknowledge the mess we are truly in right now.
Some can point to the wins at Napoli and Valencia, some can point to the wins over Tottenham, Chelsea and Man Utd in the Premier League but without consistency, they are no better results than say what Bournemouth or Wolves achieved at home.
Anyway, these are the five cold hard facts that I believe Arsenal fans have to accept.
Stan Kroenke will not be injecting any money into the club.
There is no point screaming for Kroenke to put his hand in his pocket, he is simply not going to do it and the sooner we realise that the sooner will be able to move on and accept that we will be spending less money than any of our competitors.
Mesut Ozil will not be sold
No one will buy him and pay him the wages he is currently on with us and there is no way he will take a pay cut, he will see his contract out with us it is as simple as that. We are stuck with him no matter what we wish for.
Arsenal are bottle jobs
No point denying that because the results at the end of the season have proven beyond any doubt that we are bottle jobs. No one that saw the losses against Wolves, Everton, Leicester City, Crystal Palace and of course, Chelsea can deny that we bottled it. We had the easiest run in compared to Tottenham, Chelsea and Man Utd and ended up with the worse results, what other word can be used than bottlers.
We have not progressed under Unai Emery
If Arsene Wenger oversaw the end of season collapse that we experienced with Emery then the fans would have been calling for his head in record numbers, there is no way he would have been forgiven for that but because it is Emery’s first season he is given a pass. Now, I accept he does deserve another season but no one can seriously say that we have progressed because we have not.
Tottenham are better than us
It breaks my heart to say that but it is true, I am not for one second suggesting they are a bigger club or anything like that but it would be silly to claim we are the better team. They are in the Champions League final, they have not bought anyone in two transfer windows and still finished above us and if they did not have their own end of season domestic collapse we would not have got close to taking over them in the league no matter how many games we won in our run in.
Oh happy bloody days
Agree with all points except the first as no one knows if Kroenke will be investing money, but it’s likely he won’t be. The other four points unfortunately are correct though it hurts to admit.
Beat me to it Declan.
However, with regards to the spuds, you and I have lived through that particular scenario in the 1960’s onwards haven’t we?
It goes in cycles and weeds out the supporters of a club from the rest!
How does Spurs having one concrete period of success in their history have to do with cycles? You’re talking nonsense. The facts remain Arsenal have traditionally been better than Spurs for ages. 13 League titles vs. 2 League titles. Where is this cycle?
I believe the writer of the article was referring to the last 3 seasons.
We have nothing to call for in this past seasons. Spurs are better ?
Why are we not having serious discussions about boycotts and marches against Kroenke? Since he had owned us he has been slowly killing this great football club
Silent Stan is killing this club. I would ask for an organised demonstration by boycotting the first home game next season save a couple of banners. Treat it again soon after. Giving up your seat is a small price to pay. Trust me Stan will not find a concerted effort easy to ignore. An empty stadium will impact on him.
You’re right . I won’t be renewing my membership . 40 years I’ve been supporting Arsenal .RIP Jose Antonio Reyes
1) I completely agree about Kroenke not changing his ways. Arsenal is purely a business investment for him. There is no emotional attachment to the club for him. I disagree slightly on the spending side of things though, because there has been a huge change. Under the previous regime there was a catastrophic mismanagement of finances, specifically with the selling of players, and contracts. Our highest value assets (in fact, pretty much all our assets), were consistently devalued, some even working away for free, whilst simultaneously earning wages far beyond their performances. You will not find a club at any level, that were this reckless. That’s gone now. The new regime have already said they’ll be dealing with players with 2 years left on their contracts. If we’d had different managers, CEO’s, negotiators, etc, down the years under Kroenke’s reign, and the results had been the same, then yes, Kroenke is 100% the problem. But barring this season, we’ve only ever had the same manager, who was under performing, and same team behind the scenes, that were also under performing. So we need to give the new team time to perform, then we’ll know for sure if it’s all Kroenke’s fault.
2) Ozil will be almost impossible to shift, but I don’t think he’ll be at Arsenal next season. As we’ve seen with a lot of players in recent years, I think he’ll be loaned out until his contract runs down.
3) I agree we’re bottle jobs. That is the mentality that Wenger has cultivated over the years, and what Emery inherited. Of course we need better quality of players, but there needs to be a massive shift in mentality.
4) To say we haven’t progressed under Emery, after we just appeared in our first European final in 13 years, in only his first season, is a bit ridiculous! Our performances in big games, have been much better. We got more points than last season, and moved up the table by one position. The improvement hasn’t been huge, but it is there. Let’s not forget that Emery did all this with a crippling injury list. Remember that Klopp also lost the EL final in his first season at Liverpool, and finished a lowly 8th in the league, and look what he’s done since. Is it fair to judge Emery after just one season?
5) Tottenham are better than us, but not by as much as people think. We easily should have finished above them in the league this season. Arsenal are still the bigger club by some distance, but if Spurs do win the CL, then that is major cause of concern.
Thank you! this article was crying out for some perspective.
ThirdManJW and so say I as well. Please try and contact me when you get to Australia (hopefully Admin will supply my email address).
Well, there’s nothing you’ve mentioned that’s not the truth or that I don’t already know.
I like to be fair and honest with my views all the time,
It’s not just dawning on me that Spurs are better than us, it ain’t just dawning on me that we haven’t improved (People will say we won some big games)
Are we any better than Wolves when it comes to that?
To be honest why should Kroenke put more money into this club when he has witnessed how the club is being run? When he has witnessed how we wasted funds on average players? Is there anything encouraging more funds?
At a point, we could’ve signed Kante, but wasted that amount on Xhaka, at a point we could’ve signed Mahrez, the list goes on.
Kroenke not putting money in doesn’t bother me, I don’t care if he does or doesn’t, the problem of this club is bigger than the funds money, that’s one truth most of y’all need to see, the problem is bigger than Kroenke himself, it’s deep in the roots of the club.
Getting rid of Ozil will be hard, we all know that already.
With everything being said, I ain’t investing my emotions into this club, next season, I’ll watch our league games and that’s it, I ain’t sitting my ass watching no goddamn Thursday night football for a third season straight
When was the first time we got into an European final ? Emery did it in his first season .
The most sensible comment !
Agree. Emery should have us in UCL though. That was the target of this season and he missed it. And when all you needed was a win against Brighton or Palace at home, then it’s a bottle job. On both the players and managers parts.
Yeah we get to a final and are humiliated. Also under Emery we bottled it against Palace, Brighton, Wolves, Southampton, Leicester , West Ham etc. need any more evidence?
Am not giving up on the Ozil point, I think we can dump him on the Chinese! Didn’t his agent say he had £1M a week offers from Asia? Man I really hope him and Mkhitaryan can just have some dignity and leave.
I agree with you 100% I would just like to add fans were quick to blame Ozil for the lost when in truth our defense failed. If is anyone to blame, is the coach. We had two opportunities to qualify for the Champions league and none materialized that unacceptable.
Someone out there better tell Ozil he’s not in our plans for next season. Manager, sporting director, whatever. Did our contract say we Have To Play Him? If we just let him rot in the reserves, he won’t be in the dressing room and won’t drag down the rest of the team.
agreed.
Heres another 5 unpleasant points worth considering:
1) Arsenals accounts for the season just gone are expected to show a loss of between £50-£100million before player sales. So, no other top manager is going to come to Arsenal and sort things out, because there will be no transfer budget for them either.
2) Kroenke may not splash the cash like some want, but he could be worse.
He hasnt put a big pile of debt on the club, he doesnt take much money out of the club, he doesnt try to overrule the people running the club.
3) Arsenal may have to subsidise (Mustafi,) Ozil and Mkhitaryans wages to get them out of the club on loan. Its not ideal, but it would at least drop the wage bill a bit.
4) With our defense the way it is at the moment next seasons Champions League could have been seriously embaressing for Arsenal, which would probably have impacted our league performance too.
5) Dont be too surprised if we lose one or both of Lacazette or Aubamayang to a Champions league side. Looking on the bright side, selling either of them should make Arsenal sufficient money that more serious work can be done rebuilding the squad.
We should sell Auba and invest the funds in a replacement for Ramsey and Ozil. It is shame to let such a good striker go but there is no point for us to have two great strikers if they get no service and the rest of our squad is so weak. (see what two greast strikers did for us in Baku)
Arsenal lack of investment is to be blame for everything. Now Klop has won the champions league. How much as he spent in over 4 years to achieve that? Hundreds of millions. Arsenal will not perform any magic with mediocre players. And there’s no way to get top players without spending.
Is Klop a better coach than Emery? Absolutely not. But he has more money in his team 3 times better than Arsenal. Until our club is ready to spend big, we’ll only be recycling failure.