The sad and unsettling truth about the club we love by Ozzy AFC
So fellow Gooners we are again into January and apart from the fact that it’s depressing enough with the hangover of Christmas to contend with, we find ourselves living in a state of “Forlorn Hope” during the winter transfer window.
I’m sure we are not unique in the fact that we are most likely all to a man checking the headlines and the forums on a daily if not hourly basis in order to see if our club has made any progress towards improving the squad and moving a little closer to successes in the relevant fields.
We sit eating up every scrap of gossip and whilst most of us have become cynical enough NOT to believe the paper talk and journo rubbish, I would bet my house that when you, like me, read the outrageous claims that we are about to bid for Isco, or that Cavanni wants to make a transfer to Arsenal, you may not believe it but you do wish that it would happen, that anything would happen, while our rivals fans have a January period of realistic hope, all us Gooners get is tantalising titbits from the papers that never amount to anything solid.
Now consider the situation so far, we currently have a Squad of mixed talent, some of whom are “World Class” some of whom are really just mediocre, we have an abundance of talent in the midfield but lots of these players seem to be only able to play in one position, and while there is almost a queuing system for attacking midfield we have a huge great gap in both defensive midfield and in the defensive area as a whole. It appears that Wenger has assembled a group of players that individually could all be world class but who as a team’s seem to have little cohesion or drive unless one or two of them take the lead and play out of their skins. Sanchez and Carzorla are two that spring to mind.
We all can see that we as a team need a world class Defensive midfielder and a central defender with intelligence and pace, as well as pure goal scoring animal that exists purely to put their boot on the end of the ball whenever it’s within the opponent’s area.
3 Key signings that’s all it takes, maybe a spend in the region of 65 to 85 million to bring the cohesive and disorganised group of potential world beaters together and actually compete for, if not win, some of the real prestigious trophies on offer.
BUT what do we get? Year in and year out? Dithering, quibbling over pennies and links that tie us to either proven stars or promising new talents that never amount to anything.
While the rest of the teams in the EPL are making concrete moves and, at the very least, putting out the feelers with potential players to boost their squads either for right now or the summer, Arsene Wnger and the mighty AFC quibble over what amounts to pennies for a 17 year old Polish boy who may or may not be the new Patrick Viera in four years’ time.
Meanwhile real live potentials who we could use and who are still (for a wonder interested in coming to the club) are ignored and passed up and generally let go, along with the players that are being loaned out due to their perceived lack of use to us, (Podolski and potentially Sanogo), though why the latter was ever considered a potential is beyond anyone with half a brain.
Three Key signings is all it takes to Re boost our Brand worldwide, to enable us to really and I do mean REALLY compete for honours and to actually, and most importantly, give some faith back to the people that actually make the club what it is, THE FANS!!!!!.
And this is where the nuts of the matter really lays, The board are made up of Ex merchant banker public schoolboys whose interest in Football begins and ends with the share price Men who are more interested in smoking big cigars and drinking brandy in private members clubs than seeing the club that they represent winning a trophy and clucking about how many millions they have in the bank, Parody? Yes, but you get my drift they don’t CARE about football after its entirely still in their mind a working class yobbo’s interest.
On top of this plump soft overfed heap sits a man who owns half of the United States sporting clubs (all of which have suffered under his control), a man who bought a lump of shares from his mates for a club he’d never really heard of before, involved in a sport that he vaguely knows about, in a country that is considered the poor 51st state. And we wonder why he apparently has nothing to say about anything?
Running the whole corporate circus is a man who at one stage was revolutionary in his methods in bringing in new talent and creating teams who could win things but who has now (in my opinion) succumbed to his own egotistical and now outdated approaches and who is really still dining out on the fact that at one stage he really was a top notch manager.
1) Ten years without a significant trophy yet the Manager is never questioned
2) Selling off key “World beater” Players season after season and replacing them with mediocre at best replacements
3) Keeping a 33% shareholder who is one of the world’s richest men AND a true football fan as far away from the board as possible
4) Charging possibly the highest prices in Europe but NOT reinvesting within the team in any really significant way
5) Classing 4th place in the EPL as a trophy
6) Boasting of a £100 million war chest for transfers then quibbling over a few hundred thousand on deals.
The above are just a few of the indicators that the club has no real football ambition and that it’s not going to change anytime soon. All you “Arsene Out” fans will be in for a big surprise if he goes because the board will only replace him with someone of the same mind-set, and all you AKB’s really need to wise up and realise that until real change is implemented NOTHING is going to change. I guess my point is that I don’t really know how we, as the foundations of the club, can ever really get what WE want, and what WE deserve. And that’s a club that competes and sometimes wins silverware and that respects the fans and the foundation of the club, and doesn’t either ignore us or treat us like idiots. But I’m not going to hold my breath.
OzzyAFC