Which generation of Arsenal fan are you?
asks Gurjit
It’s been a while since I have been on this forum, as reading more about the current state of our club after enduring a tough season did not sound particularly appealing to me. I did however read some comments which made me, as a younger Arsenal fan who has only experienced Wenger’s years, think.
Arsenal for me has always been a club which has played the best football in the league and has had a little something that just makes us seem a class above. Over the last few seasons this has changed drastically, starting with our style of play and the way in which we have conducted ourselves, both with redundancies and with the treatment of players (Ozil, Saliba etc).
It’s easy to see how this jarring change in the identity of our club can be difficult to process and lead to a lot of resentment towards those in charge. This leads me on to some of the comments I have seen – many members of this forum have seen Arsenal in many stages and over many years, whilst this certainly would allow someone to take a step back and not stress as much about where we are now, it certainly does not mean that anyone who expresses a view different to theirs, that the current state of the club is unacceptable is just someone young, who has no patience and is a glory hunter.
Patience of course is key for a club in transition and in the same vain there are certainly many on here that are unable to see past “next season” to look at how the club needs to progress and are unwilling to accept that positive change with a strong foundation takes time. That’s not to say that it is unreasonable to have run out of patience with the choices made by the club over several seasons now.
We are not the only club who have had to go through this, we are not uniquely in a worse position than other clubs. Man Utd’s league performances have not suffered as much as ours whilst having gone through a similar change – you could even argue the perpetual change and transfers at Chelsea is far worse for any manager that comes in to deal with, than what has happened at Arsenal.
As I see it we should all be glory hunters regardless of however long we have supported Arsenal. I want the best for the club and personally I’m not keen on the huge variety of views that make this a fantastic forum being put down, based on how long we have supported the club. We all love the club, which is why we are on here in the first place and we all want the best for Arsenal.
So let me ask you a few questions, fans of all generations (please answer in the comments below and feel free to add how long you have supported Arsenal):
At the point at which Wenger left how many years did you expect to wait for us to be a title challenging side again?
Are you content/happy/disappointed where the club is now, compared to where you felt it should be at this point?
Does the clubs leadership have your support (excluding owners)?
How much time would you give the current leadership from this point to get to where you think we should be?
Gurjit