How long will it take Arsenal to become an Elite club again?

It could take at least 5 years to start moving forward again by Konstantin Mitov

So, we won in Belgrade in a game lacking much quality, but in the end another wondergoal by Giroud saved the day and we’re looking like we’ll cruise to the next stage of the Europa league with 2 of the 3 remaining games at home.

The Europa league is not the tournament you want to be playing to be in the Elite, but Arsenal is no longer an elite club. We used to be elite mediocrity, but even this is a compliment now. So Europe’s second competition is where we deserve to be, but there are a few positives from playing there.

We give young players a chance like Nelson who looks more like a senior player than half of the squad that played at Watford did, but also we gave a player like Wilshere a chance to play and with our current sorry excuse of a midfield I am just baffled as to why Jack doesn’t walk back into the starting 11?

The only reason I can imagine is called Arsene Wenger. Arsenal is his plaything and he’s crashing the ship hard. Arsene didn’t want Ozil and Sanchez sold in the summer, but it turns out both could be sold in January for peanuts. It’s all about the money here, but even so, you make a decision, either keep them the whole season and lose them for free or sell.

We made the worse one. We keep unsettled players who don’t really care and that disrupts the rest of the team. Honestly our captain is sinking with the ship, but the crew members are going every man for himself. Alexis and Ozil are already gone, but next up it’s Welbeck and Ramsey and there is no way if I’m one of these players that I’m signing an extension right now.

I honestly feel so sorry for Lacazette and Kolasinac for being tricked to come here. Who are we going to bring in January if we let both our star players leave? Then how do you attract any sort of top player to come when he’ll have to play with Xhaka and a bunch of players with not enough mentality to kill off a dead Watford side?

Arsenal is somewhat like a necromancer. We reanimate the dead. We let United beat us with kids and basically started the career of Marcus Rashford. We let a dead Everton team beat us last year and on Sunday I’d be less than surprised if we crumble to the pressure again and lose.

We’ll finish between 6th and 8th with the way we are playing and this is not even the main problem. The results are something Arsenal takes as it comes. 8-2, 5-1, 6-0 whatever it is, it just happens. Our manager hasn’t felt pressure since 2004 maybe. The players are also easy off the hook. Responsibility is a word that is only accountable to when it comes to count the profit from the season and this is where Arsene always delivers, thus so is never sacked.

Mentality is another word that’s banned from our dictionary. We die the moment we concede. When we pick the ball out of the net, we start playing like our players have never seen themselves before. The worst problem of all is though, that despite the clear fact that players don’t care about the club and don’t play for the manager, the board is willing to sack all the players to keep a dead man walking at his job.

So how can this mess be sorted out? The only way things will change in the near future is fan impact, which is impossible. Last season Arsenal fans forgot years of pain in the flash of an FA cup. For years we’re ignoring the real issue of how the club has been going backwards while others have put out clear examples how you can compete at the top without breaking 10 banks, like Atletico, Dortmund and so on.

I don’t like agitation, but how much more years of failure and top players leaving are needed for people to demand change. We are the football club, more than anybody else, including Arsene, but until we learn this concept, we can either wait for a miracle or do something about it. In the 15 odd years I’ve followed this club closely, only a miracle can change something.

So what kind of miracle is that? One is if Wenger decides to leave by himself, but I see at least 5 more years before he’s gone, because there’s no way in hell he’ll let his favourite toy go in somebody elses hand. Another way to change is to get a new owner, which despite being the most likely of the 3 miracles it’s still a long shot, but there are 2 billionaires who’ve put Arsenal on their wish list.

Will one of them make it happen? Highly unlikely, because the amount of money Kroenke would have to receive will be too high. And Silent Stan is here for the long run. He’d take us to the championship if that means profit for him. Just look at the sports teams he runs in the USA.

The most possible way for us to start moving forward is for Wenger to call it quits and we actually appoint a good manager, but we’re killing any sort of chance for this to happen. If this was 3 years ago, we could’ve had any top manager, but now who will come to this wreck?

Even if Thierry Henry, a guy who will demand nothing but success comes, he’ll have a squad full of average players to play with, and this will require the steel of Simeone to make something happen, but he’ll hardly be interested and he’s already declared his desire to manage in Italy.

So when will we actually start to move forward? I don’t know really. I feel like it will be at least 5 years, before our dead manager decides to call it quits. Until then it’s pointless to talk about the “footballing” side. And if you don’t believe me. Wait until Sunday to see how we’ll bottle it against another dead team.

Konstantin