This is part one of two articles from ArsenalAndrew
There has been some talk in recent days amongst fans and in the wider media of the need for an Arsenal backlash.
For the side to ‘finally’ stand up and be counted, ideally in the most spectacular of fashions.
Preferably, against Spurs, if at all possible.
Well, it equally has to be said – because it is there for all to see – that even in the games that haven’t ended well for us recently, as a general rule, there has always been signs of a beautiful machine about to click into place. Only by the narrowest of margins have passes been cut out and moves broken down. This much has been evident all season long.
And it is this single, simple observation, that goes to the heart of my personal frustration and anger at those who persist with the negative nonsense.
If those same critics were as willing to get behind the team as they are to ignore the progress being achieved by a group of players still getting to know one another, let alone their opponents and the wider demands of the EPL, then I’ve no doubt Arsenal World would be a much, much better place.
We are told in all seriousness by The Ones Who Doubt, that the Arsenal players should know each other’s game inside out by now.
But this fundamentally fails to grasp the finer points of Arsene’s Quantum Football Mechanics which relies on a near telepathic understanding of where one’s team mates will be found at any stage of the play. The absolute killer attacks are not founded on a leisurely survey of the pitch before a pass is played. Players like Emanuel Petit have said they always knew where their colleagues were, pretty much to within a few inches – in Petit’s case he was referring specifically to his playing relationship with Patrick Viera.
These relationships do not gel overnight.
At Man U, Ferguson has had the great good fortune to be in a position to largely manage player exits so that ‘fallow’ periods have been relatively few and far between. It’s not to attack Arsenal to give United credit for this. And it’s equally telling that the loss of a star player – in their case Ronaldo – was just as problematic for them to deal with as it has been for Arsenal to make adjustments in the wake of the Fabregas and Persie departures.
That Ferguson was able to retain the services of the formerly ‘want away’ Wayne, at vast cost to the Mancunian coffers, at a stroke provides as succinct and near perfect illustration of the impact made by the difference in the circumstances between the two clubs in recent years.
With the benefit of hindsight it’s perfectly possible to suggest Arsenal entered that period (as defined by the club’s new stadium project) financially ‘undercooked’ and in doing so, left themselves vulnerable to player movement on a scale not seen further north.
Or indeed anywhere not involving a club crushed by relegation.
But to condemn Arsenal FC for this is to willfully ignore the impact of two game-changing events that no-one – least of all the club’s harshest critics – predicted.
In some ways one might assume there should be no real need to spell out the effects on Arsenal and it’s wider operating environment when these two developments came to pass.
And yet there appears now to be a widespread failure on the part of many observers – including amongst them, many of the club’s own fans – to properly understand that no conventionally funded club in the world would have been able to withstand with impunity an equivalent double-whammy of the kind that befell our club and its carefully laid plans. To cope with the sudden appearance of two over-funded, under-regulated mega-rivals – a development which crucially coincided with the global Credit Crunch responsible for strangling the club’s access to vital funds at the most critical stage of its post-stadium development. As fluidity within the vital property market all but dried up, so too did our ability to acquire – and retain – the top, top quality players we had only recently grown used to having around.
The arrival of such competitors, their unlimited funds and their propensity towards player ‘theft’ all hit Arsenal at exactly the point our projected funding stream slowed to a trickle.
With our supporters now being asked to pay some of the world’s highest prices to watch home games, the club’s ability to truly compete – and win competitions outright – at the highest levels commensurate to those ticket prices, had been compromised.
And almost fatally so.
How close Arsenal FC itself came, if at all, to some sort of collapse has yet to be fully revealed.
How the club somehow absorbed the attendant pressures will one day form the most remarkable of stories. Certainly, not one you could make up.
From Fever Pitch to Boiling Point, it’ll be another best seller, some day.
Part 2 of this article will appear on Positive Arsenal in the next few days and takes a look at what happened next …
Positively Arsenal 
Excellent, ArsenalAndrew. Can’t wait to find out what happens…
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I think the Arsenal story will be one of the greatest stories in sport ever told. The birth of a modern day super-club has taken the most fascinating of journeys. It will be galling to stumble at the last hurdle but because we are now so near I think a stumble is less likely, regardless of short-term results.
The media are lathered up thinking they can smell the blood of Wenger but I’m sure they are quite, quite wrong. That they are leading some Arsenal fans up the wrong garden path won’t exactly endear them to those fans in the coming months and years.
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Absolutely spot on Andrew, but so sad that you need to state the bleedin’ obvious to so called supporters who should know this and stop listening to the jealous and ill-informed whose agenda is to bring down this club.
One of the things that bug me since the announcement of the financial results is the amount of people talking about spending all of the cash reserves. Even the most basic understanding of business would tell you that a certain amount of cash reserves must be kept by a responsible business as a guarantee against debt and insurance for unforeseen circumstances. Yet, all these so called experts are either missing this point or deliberately misleading the ignorant to create yet more unrealistic pressure.
I think I’ll just sit back and wait to see what happens. After all, I have no influence over the decisions of the board, the manager or the players and ultimately, it will be better for my blood pressure to accept that and focus on the things in life that are within my control.
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Brilliant read Mr Andrew. Top quality as usual.
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Good stuff AA.
I agree with Passenal about having to explain what is obvious us but anything but to some ‘fans’.
Only last night on twitter some idiot was saying he couldn’t decide who he wanted to win the NLD on Sunday. What Arsenal fan would ever want spuds to win anything never mind a NLD. Morons all.
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Yes, I saw something similar the previous evening Dups. Utter treachery in my book.
“I think I’ll just sit back and wait to see what happens” – probably the best bit of advice any of us will read all year, Passenal.
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Great article, Andrew. The property price crash could have sunk us, and the fact that it didn’t is a testament to the club.
@ Passenal
Spot on about the cash reserves and the widespread ignorance. And lest anyone forget, we still owe more than we have in reserve – we’re in debt overall, even though the payments are manageable.
Some people think that passion or ambition for your club is in inverse proportion to being financial responsible with your club.
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The board will pay no more attention to ignoramuses on this issue than about Wenger’s tenure, thank goodness.
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Fungunner – yes, agree with you and Passenal’s remarks about the ignorance surrounding the status of the cash reserves.
It’s pitiable, really.
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Off topic, but just a quick example of media bias. Jeremy Wilson in the Telegraph: “Arsenal have conceded 12 goals in their past five Premier League derbies against Spurs, although they have prevailed 5-2 in each of the two most recent meetings.”
Why the last five games? Why not our last result at their place, or all meetings between us? So obvious what’s going on here.
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Why the rush to ‘big up’ the spuds?
Odd.
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It is normally about now Henry Winter turns up to say no one at Arsenal would get near the Spuds first team
He’s still living it down
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Watch out for the referee on Sunday – the spuds are the current media darlings and Bale is the second coming. They want spurs to knock us out of the top 4 to further their ‘Wenger out’ agenda. The radio station I listen to in the morning very rarely gives sports/football news in their bulletins, yet they thought it was worth mentioning several times that spurs beat West Ham to go third in the PL!
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Andrew, let’s hope the pressure of being the media favourites gets to them.
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Marvellous stuff Andrew. Thanks.
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The bigotry in the press and media is so obvious but i can’t for the life of me understand why? Well run club, capable of achieving great things and occasionally does. Plays great football. Respects opposition players and managers.
Isn’t that the sort of club people would like to support? Isn’t that a great story?
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Well done Andrew, none of these “experts” give us a prayer of finishing fourth or winning at the lane on Sunday, but will they be ordering humble pie on Monday morning? even if we win they won’t,god forbid they ever admit being wrong,their arrogance offends me.
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It’s always baffled me somewhat as well, is is something to do with Arsene himself? some underlying xenophobia? or does a well-run club constitute some kind of threat to the status-quo? I dunno. I have spoken to many folks who are attracted to the club for those very reasons, the quality of football and the sense they are kicking against the prevailing of financial doping, and yet the former is so often conveniently forgotten and the latter has become a stick with which to beat us (often by our own supporters)
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Excellent, Andrew. We’ve got everything in place to grow as a club and this “8 year drought” is a drop in the ocean of Arsenal history.
Also, they laughed when AW said 4th was like a trophy. Well, the biggest trophy and what should be a huge source of pride is Ashburton Grove. While Liverpool and the spuds still play in sheds, we’ve taken the biggest step to becoming a genuine power of European football for years to come.
I am proud and I wouldn’t swap our stadium for any trophy.
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Hunter will be in seventh heaven when he reads that Andrew.
It is exactly what I have been saying for years.Unfortunately I have been unable to express myself as you have.
What a wonderful read.
“Excellent, ArsenalAndrew. Can’t wait to find out what happens…” is too funny.
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class andrew, pure class, fully understandable. the principle of self sustainability with its hard cold realism and pragmatism and the concept of academies to create the soul and romance beautifully combined. i want fincher to direct the movie and adrian brody as arsene, for thiery we will take his lookalike from the us comedy “the ladykillers” by coen bros, and for dennis …hmmmm… himself really….
hey goonerkam..well played last night!! as for the clough video ….one things stands out ” he is a top top manager, he is brilliant but we dont want to make it to obvious to him, now do we?’ hehehe….he has just lost his unbeaten record to a frenchman and although he says “we dont like the french” he doesnt let it cloud his opinion of his work…it was more like light hearted humour than being a bigot like many in the press and establishment are..
i think the positivity has ripped the negativity to shreds this week, all them moaning twats have been getting their fitting replies from positive supporters in every blog i visit.. nobody can fool us when we know what we’re about. good to see the real fans standing up in any way they can.
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You read other blogs Hunter?
That can be bad for your blood pressure,you know
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George, hunter is like you – he enjoys a scrap and he’s not going to get that on here!
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hehe george…last night i ripped to shreds the spud at at… i got him to the point where he got so exposed he stopped replying and then ” no access”.. the git..
sizzled him, turned him over, sizzled him again, then in the oven
i started mocking him about his 104 followers on facebook …such an army…then i caught him creating multiple profiles posting stuff agreeing with himself…serious psychological problems i caused him….he couldnt take it even though he says he takes pride in “shutting us up” … 🙂 such a clown…
he has under his logo the words ” therapy for the modern gooner” – gooner is a derogatory term …from goon….and the inclusion of the term therapy and modern tells me all ineed to know about his intentions…
last night i was giving the therapy though and boy he didnt liek it one bit …hehe the cunt!
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Passenal – George and Hunter remind of a couple of cats (actual cats, not cool dudes) we had when I was growing up.
They were absolutely charming company at home, civilized, beguiling at times, even.
But most nights they’d disappear, only returning much later with the gift of feathers and sometimes entire avian carcasses as the wider world accommodated their ‘livelier’ instincts!
Harry – it’s baffled me too, for a long time. One doesn’t want to assume xenophobia (and I know Hunter will want to leap to correct me on this) but in the absence of any other available theory …
And here’s the thing; when Arsenal make top four it somehow doesn’t count for much. Should the Spuds not lose their nerve as is traditional at this time of year, and actually qualify for Europe, their achievement will be the cause of a national celebration.
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its for a good purpose passenal 😉
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Andrew that’s a brilliantly written post. You nail the argument with such precision it is in fact unarguable. Anyone who fails to grasp it must, to my way of thinking, therefore have a separate agenda.
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heheh harry watch clough’sinterview on unbeaten arsenal …he says it all
” we dont like the french” .. but he aint some mug to let a national stereotype affect his critique or judgement on the man;s work.
ever since the invincibles the establishment is trying to belittle that achievement since it came from a foreign manager with foreign players
is it any surprise that the arsenal games are approached by sportscasters as we are the away team in a european fixture with their constant backing of whichever underdog we are facing ?
whichever game arsenal plays the sportscaster will always support our opponents as f the opponents are playing for the european cup somewhere abroad.
you sense it in their voices how happy they are to watch the opposition score and how eager they are for arsenal to conceed ….everything for the opponent…nothing for arsenal.
i found another gem last night, an australian ex liverpool player with pony tail ripping the fa and the establishment for their pathetic approach at grass roots level after croatia kicked england out of the euros or world cup…. right on the money!
note his emabarassment when he had to take the 11, 12 and 13 yearolds against the 11, 12 and 13 year olds of holland, spain, france, italy, germany. now lets remind ourselves which is the one club that focuses on teaching technique and comfort on the ball in this country ? ohhh its arsenal and arsene wenger !
as a personal note i still believe eduardo was smashed as revenge, combined with the ” lets kick arsenal” mantra endorsed by the sith lord.
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Too many fans are blinded by emotion when it comes to football finances. Chelsea could easily have been a Pompey, lucked out on the right Russian. By the same token, City could easily been a Malaga. Arsenal could easily have done a Liverpool by squandering its equity and failing to build a stadium so as to truly compete with United in the long run.
What gets on my nerves are those pseudo radicals and populists who attack the board and owner for being conservative but never giving them credit for keeping the club out of the clutches of the banks. You bet the banks would lend us money to compete for a title while taking us to the cleaners with interest payments.
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When you think of the low point for Arsenal finances when the recession bit in 09,the investment in Ardrei Arshavin was massive.
And worth every penny I would say
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ha, two years ago i was insulted wherever i wrote that arsenal has grown from the local london club and has been embraced internationally and how the old guard cant relate to what the club has evolved into…. today i read one of those who insulted me trying to calmly pass it on to his readers…. better late than never
🙂
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ha shotta. chelsea would still be the 1 pound club with one title had it not been for a 600m investment by a tax-dodging russian….
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them 4 goals at anfield and the winner against barca worth every penny spent.
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Very good writing Andrew – “over funded, under regulated” – I like it
The move to the Grove laid the foundation for another 50-100 years for the club in the same way that Norris’ original move to Highbury laid the stone on which Arsenal in the 20th century was built.
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Hunter – you know full well shooting the messenger might as well be an Olympic event!
George – you are right, the Arshavin investment was massive for us especially in the context of everything happening around us. And yet there are some who witter on merrily about how we lack ambition.
I suppose there’s a difference between the ambition of the real world and that of the fantasy one half these clowns inhabit.
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Anicoll5 – you can just imagine the fantasists of the day scrawling “Norris Out” and “No Ambition Norris” in the favoured channels of communication of the day (back of toilet doors, I’m guessing).
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oh i’ll take the hits andrew i dont mind…as long as i put the message across 🙂 im no prophet or epxert, i just know what we were and what we transformed into. others are still struggling i suppose…
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I think they used to chain themselves to railings in the good old days AA, a constable would be summoned and they would find themselves be up before the beak after a night in jug
Corleeeevitarrrrrtguvnah
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“I think the Arsenal story will be one of the greatest stories in sport ever told. The birth of a modern day super-club has taken the most fascinating of journeys.”
With its stadium, world wide following and a winning tradition that spans more than a century, Arsenal is a super club. The notion that this club will only earn the title of super when it can match the wages on offer at financially doped clubs, is one that I find hard to swallow.
“It will be galling to stumble at the last hurdle but because we are now so near I think a stumble is less likely, regardless of short-term results.”
We can’t stumble. You want to know why? Because for the first time in modern, tv revenue driven sport we have a manager and a board, because the manager doesn’t keep on offering contracts to himself, who have chosen to put aside personal glory for the good of the club. Put it this way, if you were running a country you’d want a Yoda type like Arsene Wenger as prime minister and a majority of people like him in parliament.
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Wonderful read , Andrew with such simplicity.
Two thoughts that I agree with – 1. that you cannot argue these points (if you are dealing with reality) and 2, that it should not have to be spelled out for Arsenal supporters. Shame!
I think Hunter is right, I think the “enough is enough” and “Wenger out” cries have backfired. The sensible supporters have had enough and they are starting to fight back.
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Great art. Andrew. Looking for ward to next. Since I have been on twitter (12 ms) the negative crap I end up reading is alarming . If you step back and look at the Arsenal since we left Highbury , we have been in transition. The main reason being money . We still keep our great qualities on the pitch and general club running going…. This will pay off …we seem to be the only sensible Gooners !!! I could rant on but I hope you know what I’m on about !!!
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“One of the things that bug me since the announcement of the financial results is the amount of people talking about spending all of the cash reserves. Even the most basic understanding of business would tell you that a certain amount of cash reserves must be kept by a responsible business as a guarantee against debt and insurance for unforeseen circumstances. Yet, all these so called experts are either missing this point or deliberately misleading the ignorant to create yet more unrealistic pressure.”
I was listening to the British parliament shout at each other this morning about the possibility of Britain’s economy dropping into a triple dip recession, due to its credit rating being downgraded.
Pass, these so called experts are anything but experts. Here, I’ll give you a sampling of the silliest rubbish I’ve read in the last couple of days about our financial results.
Pedro “Cunt From Le Moan”:
“Arsenal on the face of it look like a club that is incredibly well run, however, when you scratch beneath the surface, we’re in a state of disarray. That’s down to one man and his monumental power at the club. He might had an economics degree and a penchant for a bit of idealistic philosophy… but a business brain? I’m not sure he has one of those.”
Of course Arsene Wenger doesn’t have a brain for business. Just ask any chairman in Europe if he’d like to have him run his club and he’d slap you in the face for asking such a stupid question. And by any I’m including the red and blue Mancs, Real Madrid, barcelona, A.c. Milan, Juve, Chelsea, you name it.
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Gains
If you were to expect anything sensible from that blog it would be a large error on your part.
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For most of the doubters it is just a question of ‘winning trophies’. They have been gullible and bought the rubbish spouted by press, media and some notable bloggers and ‘spokesmen’, desperate for hits. As soon as we win something their moaning will fade a little.
For others, the one’s who own their own plumbing firms and the middle management accountants, their egotism will mean that they always ‘know better’, witness the comments from AST and AISA oh and the silly fuckers who have managed to screw up The Gooner and The Online Gooner by making them into anti-Arsenal organs.
For yet others and I include the football establishment in this, Arsene Wenger is an intellectual and football of all sports is unable to tolerate intellectuals. It was ever thus.
Fuck em all.
Best to just watch the football.
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Wenkev02 – to be honest, most of the fellow Gooners I talk to ARE sensible. The nature of Twitter is to exaggerate everything – good and bad – there’s very little ‘middle ground’ on show there. Most fellow fans would like the club to be getting more rewards for the team’s on-pitch efforts, but are more than aware of the advantages most of our biggest rivals have over us.
So too with blogs, albeit to a lesser extent; in the main, people who contribute have a point to make, one way or another. But the mistake the media constantly make is to assume what they read from Arsenal fans on twitter and on blogs is truly representative of the overall mood.
They think they can smell blood in north London because they are misjudging the scale, in numerical terms, of those who have seemingly turned against the club. In this they are no doubt encouraged by the laughably described ‘supporters clubs’ but there are plenty of other places to go to (le groan etc) to further this impression.
That’s not to say Arsenal don’t have issues to address on this front but they will only ever address them through the avenues they have control over – team building, prudent management, etc. And rightly so I’d say, on balance, much as I’d love them now and again to come out and shoot down the worst of the nonsense.
Hunter’s point about ‘ordinary’ fans now tiring of the relentless attacks on the club rings true with me, I have to say. Whether we’ve ‘bottomed out’ is hard to tell; there may be a few twists in the tale yet but when twitter reduces itself to becoming a platform for alleged AFC fans rooting for a Spuds win in the NLD, commonsense tells you that most fans aren’t going to stomach that level of moronic ‘contribution’ indefinitely.
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You know what gets me, Frankie? Most of these idiots shouting about Wenger being a tight wad are the same ones who were most likely cheering when Cameron applied his austerity measures. And here they are, moaning at Wenger, for cutting spending when times are good and saving for a rainy day, which is what every serious, fiscally responsible person agrees is the best way to fend off recession.
By the way, I don’t know if anyone has noticed, but the only reason Arsenal is this rich is because Barcelona, Manchester City and lately, Manchester United have payed way over the odds for players Arsene picked up on the cheap while every one was looking out for the next Messi and Ronaldo. And these bastards have the nerve to say that Wenger doesn’t have a head for business? Unbelievable.
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It has often been said that the grizzling tends to die down with a good run. I think that that is right. Most of all a win in the team up the road’s rats nest will have true Arsenal fans singing from the rooftops.
No Arsenal fan who roots for the other lot is an Arsenal fan. A truism. There is no discussion to be had about that.
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Actually, Serge, it would be interesting to know what percentage of Arsenal fans are Europhiles. I had always imagined to my pleasure that it would be higher than the population average. But it seems that I might have misjudged the fan base. Lord I hope they don’t follow this Nigel Farridge fellow.
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Andrew, you put the most popular Arsenal blogs together and you wouldn’t reach ten thousand supporters commenting even on match days, when the blogs are at their most active. That’s like .001% of the number of Gooners around the world. The reason these wankers are thought to speak for most supporters is because lazy journalists skim blogs for news instead of doing their job.
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Hope the fans are getting some good footie practice in today. Excellent weather for a kick around.
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