Have Arsenal lost their ambition?

Have Arsenal lost our ambition? by ED

Ohh the joys of being an Arsenal fan… ain’t it grand folks. We begin the season every year with such optimism and jubilance believing that anything is possible with our squad. Champions League, League titles, you name it the odds are chalked up in Arsenal’s favour, but it has become almost routine that we put in a dismal subpar start to the season next to the other contenders for such accolades. Then we end up in a situation like we do now (arguably it’s usually later, but the result is often the same). We start off poor, pick up form towards December, crash out of the Champions league by Jan/Feb – temporary dip in form – then start winning again – and end the season in 3rd or 4th place (the only addition in the last two seasons being the FA cup), and then we convince ourselves that the same squad is capable of sustaining a title run.

The only thing that is completely comical of this particular situation is that in the past when we have lost our big stars (Fabregas, Van Persie, Nasri – the list goes on). We jump on their back giving them a lecture on loyalty… but if we as fan’s get fed up of seeing the same old crap, how do you logically as player remain loyal to a club that isn’t producing anything rewarding of that loyalty… sure there is the payslip but I think success trumps that.

Looking at Sanchez and Ozil I’m pretty sure that their life ambitions didn’t simply lie in finishing in a respectable position and winning the FA cup, If the crowning achievement of being an Arsenal player is participating or winning the FA Cup, don’t expect big named players to be throwing themselves at the team, all for the opportunity to play against Scunthorpe en-route to the final, what a bloody dream come true (Notice the intense sarcasm).

Back to the whole question of have we lost our ambition, well evidently yes… where we should rectify our problems as in cover/ competition for Coquelin we don’t. Where we should get another striker as cover of course we don’t … because we have faith in Giroud (the footballing goods must be pissing themselves in laughter) we used to have Dennis Bergkamp, Thierry Henry and Robin Van Persie leading the line. Holy Almighty what a downgrade. Having Giroud in your team is like having dial up internet in 2015 (my apologies to anyone who still has, but it gets better as soon as you upgrade) and in case you’re wondering how the analogy links to what I was saying overall in terms of ambition its simple, much like dial-up, Giroud functions at a limited capacity if you need to send an email its good (Score a goal), wanting to stream a movie is a stretch to far (Giroud doesn’t win titles) and if, at the end of the day, showing ambition is showing an intent of doing better than before, taking risks and learning from your mistakes, and how not to repeat them again.

I spent the better half of a month defending Wenger … but its getting harder every week. From the lack of creativity in terms of tactics … we keep playing the same bull crap formations and tactics. It’s that bad a team who don’t even play us on a regular basis know how to beat us – ‘sit back and hit them on the counter’ – to a lack of spending, and I don’t mean the rumoured £200 million let’s-go-crazy money… no. I mean spending for necessity to strengthen. As in the only cover for Coquelin is Arteta (who looks like he just learned how to football) or Flamini, who seems like an reject from the movie goon. Or like I mentioned earlier – rectifying the striker crisis.

Quite simply we face losing players like Ozil and Sanchez, and far quicker than you think, if all we can offer them is a FA winner’s medal and fourth place in the Barclays Premier league. Our inability to facilitate an environment that could be rewarding for people like them, for prolonged loyalty to the club, will only lead to a situation where we end up calling them snakes for leaving a club that gave nothing except a mediocre cup to their career (which I’m sure they’ll treasure for life….yeah) and to paraphrase FatBoySlim continue this ridiculous cycle of ‘hope, play, fail, repeat’..

Eddie D

Tags Fabregas Ozil Sanchez

57 Comments

  1. As per the Board, What is Arsenal’s Ambition, Clearly not to win CL, and PL
    So reach knock-out stage in CL and better 4th place in PL, then i dont think we lost our ambition -Even with our not so grand start to the season that’s still achievable..

    1. ambitions??what ambitions??
      didnt pirez say arsenal were contented with a top 4 position?
      didnt wenger say arsenal are better of in the europa league?
      didnt gazidis say arsenal want to play beautiful football and only need top 4?
      didnt ozil say he only came to arsenal because he was attracted to wenger style of playing and not because he wanted to win titles?
      just wait for a top 4 and maybe another fa cup.

      1. I can assure you that the Arsenal board are looking at Sanchez and Ozil , and what they see is £140,000,0000 in transfer profit rather than title winning players

  2. I am getting tired of this lack ambition excuse.

    Me (mr.wagner-bean) object, your honour.

    don’t overrule me yet.

    my ambition is already achieved, to save our club from the brink of bankrupt, 200 millions iin the bank. to me that’s TRUE SUCCESS.

    you WOBs don’t have the right to moan your coq all the time. grow your coq up.

  3. The way I see it, it all rests on Wenger now (as it always has), how far we’d go in all competitions. It is primarily about what team he sends out, when he makes his substitutions (which player comes off, who comes on and at what time). Let’s forget who we could have bought or couldn’t (don’t wanna go there, hurts). Now it’s primarily about tactics and “COHESION”. I hope Arsene starts getting it right.

    1. They’ll finish second and get knocked out in the next round. It’s routine and we’re already ahead of schedule. Typical Arsenal choking when it matters most, why ? Because Wenger refuses to buy a leader who will question his outdated tactics.

  4. As short sighted a view on football i have read in quite a while. If ‘sitting back against us and hitting us on the counter’ was all it takes to beat us..why do we win more than we lose ??? surely every team would use this insightful knowledge to mastermind a victory against us. Defending AW is alot easier than defending our fans, many of who lets face it.. have no real idea of what it takes to compete at top level sports, let alone manage a top tear side, or what tactics actually are..Most are however well versed in the location of their nearest pub, off licence and are well versed is spouting waffle, more often than not influenced by a biased sensationalist media.

  5. Yes, Arsenal have no ambition to be competing with the biggest clubs in the world. To compete against the likes of RM/FCB/BM you need to start from a very low level and get there. With Arsene Wenger they had a manager who would be capable to build a great team by exactly doing this. Until last year it felt like Arsenal were on the right path to do it and for sure until next year we would have been a super club but with the lack of spending this summer Arsenal has pushed themselves down by a year. Had Arsenal bought just 2 players, Cavani & Schneiderlin (75 million) and offloaded either of Giroud/Welbeck (10 million). It would have been just a 65 million outlay and the team would definitely had won the EPL. Then next year they just had to add a few big names at CB and Wing and they would have been ready to compete at the top with RM/FCB/BM. BM is the best example of how to do that.

    Basically we can just hope that someday Usmanov would take the majority stake from Kroneke so that we would have a owner hungry to win titles. It is just about forward thinking, had they spent on Cavani & Schneiderlin we would have gone atleast till the Quarter final of CL. Adding these two matches only would have yielded us half of this transfer amount. But Kronke seems to be incompetent in taking small risks.

    1. How in the hell would you buy Cavani for 75 mil? And how the hell would you buy both for 75 million ? How much do you want to lose (because lets be honest, anything about 35 milion will be a loss as resale value would be nearly 0 ) in cash and risk not winning UCL/EPL ? This is the question. You think Arsenal board would give green light to Dick Law to splash 70-80-100 million for a player? Like ever? What if he flops like Falcao? OK, sell Giroud and Welbeck but so far these two have more than earned their purchase value with Welbeck still in front of the jury but for me the goal which basically brought us FA Cup was worth 10 million. Don’t call Usmanov again into play, he had exactly the same chance Kroenke had but he dismissed it. He could have been the majority shareholder but he chickened out. It’s easier to be minority, bla bla your way in the press and still cash in from the profits made by Kroenke. What’s stopping him now to buy Kroenke’s share? He’s worth tens of billions ! If I’d had that amount of money I would have spent it all to buy Arsenal. All my money, all of it.

        1. Without good financial position you can’t exist as a club in the top tier EPL. This is where it came. Football today is business. How would you pay astronomical figures for players if you don’t have your finances sorted? Let alone making a profit out of it. You think these players play because they want to be at the club. Let’s stop paying and see who’s staying. How about a fidelity program within the team. They all are millionaires, let’s see if they stay and play just for the sake of trophies and club. Let’s see if the staf does it too.

      1. Barca spent 65mil on Suarez. Guess what happened next ? They won the freaking TREBLE. Cavani scores +20goals a season for the past 6 years. DON’T MAKE EXCUSES FOR A MANAGER AFRAID TO MAKE RISKS

      2. Dude.
        1. start reading with open eyes., I said 75 million for Cavani & Schneiderlin where we all know Schneiderlin was 25, so Cavani is 50.
        2. Also, it is high time we stop thinking about resale values. Ok, i get it we didnt have money but now it is not the case. Income generation should never be through player sales for a big club. Do you think Barca bought Suarez for 75 million thinking that they would have resale?? Infact they would not be able to receive even half of it.
        3. If he flops? So you mean to say we should not buy anyone coz anyone can flop.
        4. Usmanov wants to buy but Kronke doesn’t want to sell. So its plain and simple.

    2. City said 40 mill for Wilshere.
      Jose said 30 mill for Ox.
      Sell Giroud 12 mill.
      Sell Mertz 7mill.
      Juve said 5 mill for Campbell.
      Sell Podolski 3.
      Sell debuchy 7mill
      Sell Jenkinson 7 mill
      Release Arteta Rosicky Diarby Ryo Wellington
      13 mill wages saved.
      Total. 124 mill.
      Buy.
      30 mill STR Benteke
      31 mill STR Martial
      25 mill DM Kondogbia.
      10 mill GK Cech
      14 mill RB Clyne
      14 mill CB.
      Total 124 mill
      Net spend $0.
      Very easy to do. Don’t need no economics degree
      We are set for 5 years. (Bring back Szcz in 2 years.)

  6. If we win only the fa cup and the shield again, it would be considered a failure. so no I don’t think we lack ambition. What we lack is maturity and patience. Every time we miss a couple of chances, the team just loses its confidence,which then leads to desperation, usually followed by stupidity.

    1. The team loses confidence or the fans? It is our job, yes along with AW and his team, to deliver the atmosphere to play without fear.

  7. Well according to various interviews, the players have the belief that they can win the league so the ambition is there apparently. I just dont see it on the pitch, I would prefer our players to stop talking and start scoring. Also, rre season was a joke, every team we played were ‘easy’ fixtures, is it that hard to test our players against bigger teams in pre season so we get a better idea of what we need to improve on. Of course we’re gonna look good in pre season against weaker sides…

  8. Why would we face losing players like Ozil & Sanchez (having both still 3 yrs on their contract) if we don’t win EPL or UCL and not lose them as well if we land one of these trophies? We are always on danger to lose them but which team will pay for them around 50 million now? Didn’t they came from the world summit of football being thrown out by their respective teams? At least at Arsenal they know they will be appreciated. Where to go? Chelsea, City? Maybe in the last year of the contract but then we will at least get a nice price. There are players like Gundogan, Reus, Hummels which are not phased out by the fact that they didnt win UCL or because Klopp is gone. They simply love where they are.

    1. sanchez did say he was disappointed in his first season + Bayern could easily make a move for ozil/sanchez as replacements for robben/ribery & besides contract means nothing these days like in the case of fabregas

      either wenger win something this season or he leaves & allow someone like pep/ancelotti/klopp to take us forward

      1. Of course Bayern could make a move but the least they can do right now is to pay astronomical price for any of them. They have the money, we probably need the money. I doubt any of these two would give today London for Muenchen. Later? Maybe.

        1. They easily would. if Ozil joined Wenger for style of play what makes you think he’ll say no to Guardiola ? And with Bayern, Sanchez would be winning titles which is what HE WANTS.

        2. where do Bayern get the money. They got the money from a success. Your manager wenger afraid of investing on quality players because he doesn’t have ambition and he is only looking for 4th place.

      2. BTW, why would Bayern buy Sanchez or Ozil when they have Gundogan (which he will probably move) and Reus as options. Like seriously. Gundogan is actually a CM/DM and not an AM as Ozil. Reus is just as versatile as Sanchez.

        1. Because Bayern don’t settle for mediocrity. They can buy Reus and Sanchez at the same time to increase their SQUAD DEPTH. Something our manager REFUSES TO DO.

    2. Wake up this is Arsenal not Dortmund and its nt as if we hvnt sold our best playrz to rivals….i can assure u we will loose one star playr this summer MARK MY WORDS!

      1. You were among people giving Dortmund and Klopp as examples. Why not learning from the best? What’s wrong with Dortmund? Let me give you a reality check here : the only way we can lose a star player this summer is by having that player injured. And I am sure you didn’t mean it. Other than that we would probably agree to SELL a start player for a crazy amount of money. Yes, this is possible. How would that constitute as a loss, may I ask?

  9. All this arsenal fans are fool. don`t u know dat arsene and the board are using arsenal and you fans for business. all the fans money generated from stadium,transfer fee,fa cup trophy fee,etc are all use for business.
    i like arsene and d board they keep doing dis since 10 years ago and use stadium extension as cover{because they still continue there business after extending the stadium}. there are some that name there self akb and some aob, all of you are business stuff for arsene and the board(business strategy).

      1. I never knew fans are part of the business of a club.. Good to know fans are important to the business structure of a club.

  10. If everyone in the current team played to their absolute max potential we’d win the league, maybe more, but that’s a mighty big IF. I actually don’t get it, I really don’t. Everyone on here states the same issues with the team, transfers and rotation on a daily basis but nothing ever changes. I’d love us to dominate the game once again like we did in the Henry & Bergkamp days but our best players will leave with the current lack of ambition and we all know they’ll be replaced with someone unproven but with potential and this cycle will continue. Need a bonifide striker in Jan.

  11. the board should also be held responsible along with wenger.david dein would have never allowed this to happen kroenke is clueless lady nina should have never sold her shares to this clown

    1. Kroenke was already major shareholder when he bought shares from Fiszman and Bracewell-Smith. RWH way before Kroenke was the major shareholder in 2008 but they announced that despite having the necessary funds to increase share they will not do it for 6 months. At that time Kroenke had 12% shares. It is not like the club did not wanted Usmanov. My take on all this is that Kroenke or Usmanov would have been the same story. Should we have stayed at Highbury I believe we would have seen the same scenario as with Chelsea, probably Usmanov buying the whole club but I believe he wanted an Abramovic and not having to actually make money for the club to pay stadium debt.

        1. David Dein was the head of RWH (the conglomerate owned by Usmanov & Moshiri) to which Dein sold his shares (at that time a whopping 14.6%). He lost (in fact resigned) because the board (which he was part of it) already had an agreement not to sell to anyone for one year. The fact that he stepped down also as chairman for RWH after the failure to tip Usmanov as benefactor for AFC will always make room for speculation that it was Usmanov firing him from that position.

  12. The ambition for champion in league and European championship has gone for ages…..

    I thought this article was written a few years back….

    Wenger and Kroenke OUT!!

    Those Wenger supporters, where are you?
    Those who say we have good enough strikers?
    Those who say we do well in the second part of last season?

    Where the hell are the league trophies?

      1. That’s what Wenger say at the beginning of every season. By the end, Wenger will tell you getting a fourth place isn’t easy….

  13. can’t see us wining the title city are clear favorites already welbeck/wilshere/rosciky are out injured + if coq gets injured it will be arteta/flamini in cdm giroud/sanchez form is also a big concern
    as always wenger has the squad short & at the end of the season it will be the same old story the cycle will keep repeating unless klopp/guardiola/ancelotti comes in

      1. wenger deserves better agree with u that we should forget about cl , pl our best chance .do well till jan & make 2 signings a cdm & a striker it will be difficult but not impossible

        1. I dare to say UCL is going to take a while now for an English club to win it. I may be wrong (and I do hope to be proven as such) but the writting is on the wall.
          We have to stop thinking that the PL is the best in the world, it is surely most entertaining and the richest league but most world class players these days want to go to teams in Spain, Germany, Italy even Portugal mostly. Except Ronaldo (not even sure he got it while at Manure) and Owen I can’t even recall who else won the Ballon D’or from a PL team in the Last 10+ years. Drogba, Ronaldo, Henry, Aguero, Hazard, Vidic, Suarez etc are some of the dying breed of world class players that played or are playing in the PL. But very rarely these days does a player ever want to come to the PL.

          1. I think the pl is the toughest given the number of fixtures while in other leagues say like la liga all u have to do is win the el clasico + maybe atheltico Madrid rest are guaranteed 3 points (almost) same in bundesliga as well in pl all teams have to work hard even the mid table teams like crystal palace etc put in a decenet fight

            1. OH, I totally agree with that. Trouble is that our Europe clubs will be exhausted by the internal competition. Ffs, Spain, Italy, Germany don’t play XMas days. Their players will be rested and start the spring ready to win european competition.

  14. it’s getting harder and harder to trust wenger…i am actually worried that ozil and sanchez might leave in the coming years. think about it. they are proven winners and in their golden years of their career and they chose to come to arsenal. (that was actually 1of the reasons that i thought winger might be serious this time. and they trusted him)…how we handle the game
    against chelsea might cut it for me if we are going to contend or not.

    1. Then it will be easy for the board : chose Wenger or Ozil&Sanchez&co. I’d say that will define the future, board’s choice.

  15. Budd or Mr. Wenger you can’t be successful financially if you can’t compete on top level. Look how Chelsea is performing, in 2014 Chelsea got £18.4 million and a record turnover of £319.8 million even though they invest on quality players. Man. Utd. is the richest club because of its success on and off the field.

    1. Arsenal turnover was 375m. But don’t let the numbers beat you. Pray tell, how is Arsenal not competing at the high level?

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