These are happy days for many Arsenal fans. Excellent to beat a Spurs side who are on the one hand unable to score from open play right now and on the other bulging with exciting new talent thanks to the money they extorted from Real Madrid. Excellent to win back the Emirates crowd with a gutsy performance and of course excellent to have secured champions league football. Again. And since Monday night it seems happiness rains down from heaven’s limpid pools to refresh the parts other celestial downpours cannot reach. Even Arsene’s fiercest critics are forced to raise one eyebrow and sip their drinks in a thoughtful manner following his coup at the fag end of the worst and most hateful transfer window in living memory.
Everybody’s happy nowadays.
Except a few wet blankets of course. Those who wish our team to fail and transfers not to arrive in the belief that the board will be backed into a corner and jettison the hottest property in football management anywhere in the world today. Actually it isn’t only the masochistic self harming hate mob who find themselves conflicted right now. I am a bit of a conflicted wet blanket myself. Maybe bemused is more the word. Cards on the table upfront: I have been an admirer of bey Özil since the world cup of a few years back. Having given up on international football as a tedious waste of time where our players get injured for a cause in which I no longer believed and despising nationalism in all it’s petty small minded nastiness, I found myself able to watch the young and talented German national team in a whole new light. I confess I liked what I saw. I admired especially the close control and audacious inventive speed of thought and movement of the boy from Gelsenkirchen. I remember one breathtaking piece of skill caused me to turn to a friend and say “I haven’t seen that kind of thing since Bergkamp played for Arsenal” and I allowed myself a brief frisson of pleasure as I imagined the likes of Özil, Podolski and the elegant Mertesacker gracing the red and white. Then I shook my head clear of the thought knowing that such talent was these days merely cherries picked from the football tree by a few über rich sides to amuse their sugar daddies. I dared not dream that our great club, mired as it was in economic recession and paying for the daunting optimism of the Emirates Stadium, could ever hope to afford them and their genius.
Well. Here we are.
So why am I conflicted? Perhaps conflicted is too strong a word. I am of course delighted when our squad is enriched by great players be they purchased at either huge or minimal expense or when they have grown up at the club, nurtured from boyhood to blossom on the stage before us. Concerned is perhaps a better word. My delight and excitement are tempered with concern. Concern mainly at the way in which many people are reacting to the news. When they happily share links to news stories, the essential thrust of which is that at long, long last Arsene has spent some money can they not see that these hacks are using our record signing as an opportunity to continue perpetuating a myth, to simply beat our manager with the same stick they’ve used for years? When people say that now things will start to happen, now the dark days are behind us, they are simply hammering another false brick into the wall of denial that the haters and the media have been building around the very real achievements of the last decade. Above all I have an instinctive fear of too much hype, too many raised expectations and the idiotic adherence to the belief that the transfer fairy sprinkles her magic dust and the whole world is suddenly made of champagne and chocolate for ever and ever.
What will these people say or do if (Dennis forbid) the young man gets injured? Presumably they have failed to notice the stories of Van Persie, Rosicky and Diaby. Enormous talents who lost their best years on the treatment table. Hey – I hope he won’t and I know we should never assume he will. It’s like my three legged dog. When she lost her front leg I was too scared to walk her. My wife told me I had to. Dogs need to walk, they like to walk, it’s bad for them not to. But what if she hurts the remaining front leg? She’ll never walk again. Happily wise counsel prevailed and I do walk her and she runs and has a full life and of course my wife was right you cannot live in fear of bad shit happening or you might just as well give up on the whole boiling and hide under the covers. So I’m not doing the three legged dog thing where our new boy is concerned, not at all. He must play and face down the injury Goddess just like every other player. My point is that some people’s over reaction to his signing makes him sound like Jesus, Moses, Allah and Bill Hicks all rolled into one. They now seem to follow the original one man team and I fear for their sanity if anything happens to him. Football is a group endeavour and it is the whole squad will win us things and not one man.
You all know by now how I hate the ridiculous media circus that is the transfer window. I hate it because it causes a spate of crystal ball gazing and soothsaying and I can’t bear all that psychic fortune telling bullshit. If we sign player X then we will win trophy Y. That is the mathematics we are faced with and it sucks. The tedious, mundane truth is very few transfers tell us of their worth until an age after the ink dries on the contract and the journalists’ crisp and crinkly Kleenex has long since been flushed away. We can sign one of the world’s most significant players as we did with Andre Arshavin, he can look like the missing piece of the jigsaw for a while and then inexplicably fade away to a quiet, sad, ignominious exit from the club. Or we can sign an unknown centre back from the lower divisions of French football and he can, in a few seasons, effloresce into one of the best defenders on the planet. Or we can take a very good, solid player like Mikel Arteta from Everton and turn him into a maestro, the country’s leading midfielder by any measure. The future is unknown and I loathe people who claim to be able to see it.
Here’s why. Oh and by the way here’s also why I am emphatically not being a killjoy about this wonderful player coming to play for us. The greatest excitement, the most pleasure you can hope to derive as a football fan when a player is signed or breaks through from the youth or reserve teams is this. It’s the journey we travel with them as their careers unfold. It’s seeing hints of what might be and then being wholly surprised when something else happens. It’s wondering if they’ll ever be good enough only to be confounded by them suddenly playing to their potential because they are teamed up with the perfect on field partner. Or it’s agonising with them after a bad injury and willing them to prove their detractors wrong then being moved to tears as they burst through mental and physical barriers to realise their true potential. I don’t want to be told how this player or that signing will affect my club any more than I want you to tell me what will happen in the last episode of Breaking Bad or who is going to die in the Christmas Eastenders. I want to enjoy it as it actually happens. Also I want our new boys to come to the club and be given time to adapt to their new surroundings, their new team mates, and not to suffer the boo boys when the media inevitably tell them that the wunderkind is a flop. Which they will. They will build him up based purely on his price tag and then try to demolish him. Don’t believe me? They did it with the greatest of them all. They told us Bergkamp was a failure after a few games so don’t believe they won’t do it with our new number 11.
So I say rub your hands together with anticipation at the prospect of a truly skilled and proven talent adding yet more mouthwatering ability to our already great squad. Look forward to his début, his first assist, the first piece of trickery to bring a simultaneous gasp from 60,000 throats but for God’s sake give the boy time and enjoy the journey with him, don’t be in too much of a rush to get to the end. Hopefully we will have many years together to admire the scenery and maybe, just maybe he can become one of the greats. I for one am more than happy to wait and see.
Positively Arsenal 
Top piece Stew – as was the pod last night George – a pleasure and privilege to be part of the audience.
First time I saw Ozil was in an U21 Euro finals (2009 ?) where he, and my other favourite non AFC player Tomas Mueller, tore England apart in the final
Class at 20, improved at 24, potentially a monster in a year or two
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Excellent articulation of the situation and my feelings about it, steww, also ties in with ZP’s remarks the other day.
Can’t wait to see our team with him in it but feel confident without him. Feel very happy for AW because he has been trying to sign this particular player for years. So please don’t play him v Stoke, Arsene. You just know that someone in that side will take it as their bounden duty to put in a leg-breaker on him.
@ Anicoll5
That’s wonderful, the thought that there is even more to come from Ozil.
Sodding international break. I want Arsenal games and I want them NOW!
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Back down to earth then?
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“It’s the journey we travel with them as their careers unfold. It’s seeing hints of what might be and then being wholly surprised when something else happens.”
That’s precisely where I’m coming from. Excellent article. Thanks.
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George – some of us never left!
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I am still floating on air but there is another me running along on the ground below shouting up very much along the lines of steww’s post.
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Well done number 10,echoing all our thoughts as usual.
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Also as Coll suggests Ozil is still only 24-the fact that he’s been discarded by Madrid bodes well for us-just think how Dennis,Patrick & TH14 were treated before they rocked up at Arsenal-nothing like a player with a point to prove is there?
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Mel – that’s a great point. Suddenly being loved after being thrown away is a hell of an incentive.
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I the light of what they thought they knew,some people reconsidered their positions regarding Arsene.
They thought they knew he would not spend big -he did.
Every time they think they know,he proves them wrong.
But having been proven wrong they cling on to their new reality and wont admit to their stupidity.
“but we wanted a striker ” is the new “but we lost to Bradford”
Many people doubted the club and Arsene.And thats fair enough.But at least people can hold there hand up and admit they jumped ship a bit early.These people can be forgiven,understood and accepted.
But the fuckers who still cling to the shit they spewed before? Fuck e’m .fuck them to a man.
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Perusing Arsenal blogs is a mostly a pointless and dismal task I’m reminded. I generally don’t, but have been of late been fluffing about because of the Ozil transfer. There are delightful spots, and voices, but not enough. It’s not that blog-dwellers are unhappy with Ozil, they’re overjoyed and some very knowledgeable with it, but many can’t get their heads out of “what is, was and will probably still be wrong”. I won’t bore you to death with the details, you could list that without even trying. On the whole, what’s wrong to some blog-yappers is the football philosophy and club ethos espoused by Wenger, in that he will not compromise what he considers sound football and financial decisions that are decent and sensible in football and club terms. He will not play to gallery. He will serve up attacking attractive football in a dish of a sustainable business model. He will not be the populist clown that crass types of fans crave. He will (and frequently does) justify decisions, and performance, as an accountable manager should.
I recommend go to Le Grove where the leaden “wit” reminds of vicious children gone quite insane with puerile hatred of their club’s manager (they separate club/good and manager/bad), induced apparently by their own sense of know-it-all entitlement denied, aggravated by victimization from peers and pals who support other clubs, and tease them mercilessly. I swear it’s as simple as that. But why LG? It’s the untamed, hoggish, unwashed version of the same narrative you may find in some polite, erudite blogs.
Ten reasons I’m happy.
The way Arsenal play
The way Arsenal behave
The spirit in this Arsenal team
The fact that it’s young team
That purchases are made with money earned, not via sugar daddies
That the manager trusts his players, and forgives them when it is appropriate
That players like Frimpong and Diaby are on the first team roster (with reason)
That the club is so respected by the most dignified voices
That the club puts its supporters first, always (for instance by building a new stadium)
That when any player craves an exit, he goes (even to a rival, and most want to return)
So, welcome to Ozil, Sanogo, Viviano and welcome back Flamini. Good luck!
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Excellent comment Zim – covered everything I think
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What a wise and erudite man you are ZimPaul.
You have listed my ten reasons I’m happy…
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ZP you epitomise the positive Arsenal fan
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This post reflect my thinking and belief about Arsenal and Arsene Wenger so much that I’d sound like a butt-kisser if I dare to write about how I feel after reading it. I felt the same after reading your post (titled “84” I think) ridiculing the stupid transfer window speculations nonsense. Those who know me from Untold Arsenal can tell.
Great job Steww. I’m a big admirer!
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Booooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Welcome bootoomee 🙂
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I am still up in the clouds.
The players went into that derby game knowing that Ozil was on the way. Heh.
Top, top management.
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Great piece Stew, very thoughtful and thought-provoking too. I’m guilty of being excited that he’s coming to us but as I was arguing with someone last night, it’s not because we finally have a “world-class” player. It’s that he may give us that boost of self-confidence and or self-belief that we sometimes could do with – I’m thinking of games where we have been the better team but still lost (whereas man u have so often won games in which they have been the worst team but hopefully that spell is now broken). I also worry about Özil not fitting in or fulfilling his promise after all the expectation, but give him time and he will, I’m sure of that… So worry not Stew, all will be well. After all, we are The Arsenal.
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Great, great piece Steww
..always happy to chill & behold any team Arsene builds for public viewing.
Özil should fit in like a glove…
I’m also looking forward to a focused Bendtner, a sturdier Diaby, some crunchy Flamini, Vivianobelisima, a TH-OG-LP goalfest & a few dabs of FrimpYayaZelalem behind the ears to blow the roof off this season.
my appetite has grown…..forgive me.
well said ZP
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corr: TH = TW
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Thanks for the comments folks and welcome Bootoomee, nice to have a fellow thinker on board.
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I saw Özil for Germany in S.A., but I didn’t pay too much attention to him. As a fan of deep-lying playmakers, I payed more attention to Schweinsteiger. Then, when he moved to Real Madrid, I don’t think I watched him more than two games the whole time he was there. I just didn’t watch that team given how I detest the Galacticos ethos and I detested the poster boy of that ethos, Mourinho, even more. I’m lucky, I guess, in that I’m getting to know him as a Wenger player.
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Steww,
Thanks for the kind words, both here and on my blog.
I think I’ll be spending some time here as Untold is now being over-run by bloviating and loud-mouthed morons. You know, those who post theses length comments on blogs that are usually filled with the same crap: “splash the cash so that we can win trophies”.
I am happy that only positive comments are allowed here. I am all for freedom of speech and divergence of opinion but I am totally against dickishness. And most of these guys are pathetic dicks! While I dislike the Le Groan dicks, at least I respect them for keeping their shit to themselves. It is those who come to pollute positive sites like this I really can’t stand. Obscure as my blog is, some of these pathetic idiots still post abusive and utterly braindead nonsense. Of course, I always delete them.
Please keep it positive and interesting. I may cross-post here in future if you find my piece worthy of publication.
Oh, and thanks for following me!
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finsbury,
It’s been a loooonnnng time! So this is where you are hiding 🙂
I’ll be joining you more often!
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Steww, you are good. This is pure brilliance.
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bootoomee, I have thoroughly enjoyed your comments on Untold. Welcome!
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Bey Özil? Rather Mesut Bey; in fact i’d suggest it is Mesut Efendi! Very fine and thoughtful post and reasonable caution about resting everything on one star player. Right as initial news of the Ozil deal, i drew the cautionary analogy to Arshavin. ozil is human and this is a team game; there are things to be aware of in his adaptation to a physically senanding league. On the otherhand, AW might help him get even better and while we saw the first priority initially as a striker, last season we were solid but did lack some creation and invention at times. This is a real committment to Wengerball which makes me really happy.
So bravo to all involved.
The question is: is this a one off key signing or is this the start of operating across a wider range in the market now–we’ll have free signings and hidden young gems just like this summer but does this mean the manager has the support and finances to go to the top end for the right players? I think it’s the latter and it will be great to see some constraints lifted. That could be very meaningful this season and in the near future.
My other question is what is a reasonable expectation or hope for this season? I feel AW with more resources is a frightening prospect for even the richer clubs. Mourinho seems worried, I note.
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My thoughts is that the young man is coming to join an already excellent team. It is like some forget that this team has not lost in a while (I don’t count the Villa game), as George said yesterday, and what actually was the start of the unbeaten run. It was us only losing out on the away goals rule to a team that slaughtered Barca 7-0 over two legs. Ozil is not coming to save Arsenal he is coming to be a part of something that is already on the rise, we cannot forget that. For this reason, this line really spoke to me – “Football is a group endeavour and it is the whole squad will win us things and not one man.”
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Good stuff. Thank you.
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Cheers guys I’m glad I didn’t get slaughtered for not being excited enough! And bootoomee, contact George he welcomes guest writers and your stuff is real quality.
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@ Calamity Jane
That was how I felt when I heard he was coming – finally, a lock-picker. For those times when all the heart and determination in the world isn’t quite enough. For those times when we just need to fashion a goal out of thin air.
@ bootoomee
you don’t come around here enough.
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The fine line between genius and catastrophe LSG
‘one-off key signing’
‘one off-key signing’
I admit I had to read it twice
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@ ZimPaul September 5, 2013 at 1:55 pm
Forgot to say, top comments. Our ethos is always to try to be “the bigger man”.
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I am still feeling physically ill after emptying loads of jars of dead-slug-snail-and-beer-soup down the drain, and a quick read of the recent comments almost took my mind off it. But not quite. The smell is still in my nostrils.
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Paul-N,
Thanks!
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FunGunner,
I intend to be here more. It’s uplifting to be among positive people. Although, I think most of our negative nellies are attention seekers.
Steww,
Thanks again. I’ll be in touch with George as soon as I am able to put something worth reading together.
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“…Özil is not coming to save Arsenal he is coming to be a part of something that is already on the rise…” Right you are, Paul, this says it for me.
Great stuff, as always, Stew. I have worried a little that the hype balloon will come crashing down on his head if the poor boy has the misfortune to misplace a few passes. But as always, I trust AW to shepherd him as he has all the other charges placed in his care. As brilliant a tactical manager as he is, I still feel his ability to mold, connect with and care for his players is his greatest strength. Seems Özil thinks so as well.
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Kelly, the boy didn’t think there was much of a decision to be made between Moyes and Arsene did he?
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Wise words, brilliantly expressed Steww.
As usual.
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thank you Andrew
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PaulN: “My thoughts is that the young man is coming to join an already excellent team.”
Santi, Poldi, Sagna, Koscielny, Per, Theo and Olive are all top players. The only reason they’re not considered super stars is because they didn’t cost crap loads of money. All these players would walk into any top team, no problems.
CJ: ” I’m thinking of games where we have been the better team but still lost (whereas man u have so often won games in which they have been the worst team but hopefully that spell is now broken). ”
Man U has had a bit of help from refs, though. The only reason that spell may be broken now is because the Alky is gone. Perhaps now that we have Özil and our games receive more international scrutiny, the refs will not fuck us over like Taylor did against Villa or Dowd did against Newcastle. There are still people who reference the Newcastle game as an example of how weak we were that season. Never mind the role Joey Barton played in getting Diaby red carded, the non-penalty on Koscielny and Kevin Nolan’s headlock on Szczesny going unpunished.
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correct steww, the journey and the memmories. id say that most bloggers got inspired by wenger;s arsenal into making their blogs….hehehe …but all of a sudden they took him for granted and thought they could bitch about him and tell him whats wrong and not.
pedantic george September 5, 2013 at 1:37 pm …brilliant….
zim : On the whole, what’s wrong to some blog-yappers is the football philosophy and club ethos espoused by Wenger, in that he will not compromise what he considers sound football and financial decisions that are decent and sensible in football and club terms. He will not play to gallery.
Absolutely….why change it (philosophy) when its working .?.or why change it when the one applying it is a master scientist guru zen alchemist planetman …
I particularly laugh with those mugs who give credit to themselves for the arrival of ozil when the last 5 – 6 years have poured nothing but poison on arsenal…thinking that it was their moaning that brought ozil and completely ignoring the process the club was in ever since launching the stadium.
that is not to say that back in 2006 arsene planned to bring ozil in 2013 but the whole idea of the stadium and academies was to build a solid base ( infrastructure,players and financial), get to champions league every year, keep the standards and targets high irrespective of the difficulty in achieveing them and slowly slowly wait for one generation to click and to be suplemented with purchases which could only be made once large chunks of the stadium were repaid and commercial deals renegotiated. Or even wait till one of chelsea city united fuck it up from years of spending and mismanagement.
. not only is it the childish wit as you mentioned in lg but also the self entitlement of those who only identify with an arsenal of a past era and cant come to grips with what arsenal has evolved into.
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Brilliant posts all around today, I enjoyed it a lot. Thanks for that!
as Paul rightly said: we already have a very strong team. This is a side that beat Bayern at home. How often have Bayern lost so far in 2013?
What the signing will do is turn us from a top side capable of beating anyone but sometimes lacking a bit consistency into a team to be feared. As has often been mentioned around here but how are teams supposed to neutralise our creative threat from now on? Most teams already struggle to keep Santi quiet and now there’s Özil, too (and obviously our lil Mozart as well). How do you man mark three very creative play makers at the same time? But that’s the reality those stubborn ultra defensive teams are going to face when we really need to get a goal. We will have Santi, Rosicky and Özil on the pitch, as well as Giroud and Theo, our two full backs bombing forward and obviously the threat coming from our more deep-lying midfielder, too. How do you defend against that?
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Right, Stew. Not much of a choice to make there. I’m actually starting to feel a bit sorry for Moyes… Nah, not really.
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After the transfer window has closed there’s just one thing left I struggle to understand: why is there still a group of people out there, trying to undermine the manager no matter what he does? Hunter mentioned it yesterday, someone quipping that “Wenger only bought Özil thanks to fan pressure”. That’s a ridiculous thing to say, not only because it’s wrong (you can’t have Wenger being a stubborn geezer and then an easily bullied wimp at the same time) but because it’s highly disrespectful. Why can’t some people just say thanks when something great happens without the need for backhanded compliments? I bet if and when we win the league, the same old people will say something along the lines that we won “despite Wenger”.
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Mesut Bey in his first Arsenal interview conveyed a real humility. One thing interesting g was that he modeled himself after Zidane and mentioned that he didn’t make headlines in his personal life. Another moment of interest , asked about London he was enthusiastic about it as a world city but concluded that he was coming to work and that was most important. Asked about growing up playing street ball in the monkey cage, he talked about it being helpful for his technique and concluded that you could see on the pitch that he has excellent technical skill, then gave a shy almost embarrassed smile that he had allowed such matter of fact self-praise pass his lips! I don’t think he is a big headed star type–confident, but believes he can develop much more under AW’s guidance which he mentioned several times. I think he’s going to fit in well with the team ethic and our experienced professionals; he’s not a selfish player, but one who makes those around him play better which is why he is so popular in that circus of a dressing room and club at RM. he certainly doesn’t seem to project any idea that he sees himself saving this team but rather joining a good group that can achieve big things and help him become better too.
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@hunter
Spot on! It’s all been part of the plan, but the majority still fails to understand that those barren years in which we miraculously managed to stay in the CL despite the odds being firmly stacked against us, were not a “failure” but the foundation that had to be laid to allow us to be in this position right now.
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I have no doubt, top managers are not fools, not really, watching an almost unbeaten run since 1 March soured only by a stupid ref, and so already thinking be careful, this team is on the rise, typified by Giroud, 4 in 5. And then comes the transfer(s) of the summer. I count Flamini and Sanogo amongst those; I know nothing about Viviano.
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Brilliant post Steww.
Thank you guys for this blog. As far as international football goes, I’ll be watching out for Germany now instead of holland.
Exiting times.
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Brilliant post as ever Steww. great great comments folk.
What I find quite daunting (daunting the word here? not sure, I find it quite ‘something’ anyway, maybe exciting but exciting with a sense of awe/anticipation perhaps) IS that EVERY professional footballer, EVERY professional manager and EVERY ‘hack/media knob/pundit’ across the whole of Europe (and most likely far beyond) is aware of what’s happened/happening here.
Each of them will be watching, wondering (maybe not publically but certainly privately) how things might progress. Some sad twats of course hoping for a fall but the biggest majority of those players/managers/pundits/ and a few of the hacks are willing us on. The players will be thinking “hmmm Arsenal might be where I want to be”
The Managers “Must have a chat with Arsene and pat him on the back when i meet him”
The Hacks “Who can I attack next. Breasts. Scandal. lawsuits. I’m a gibbon. I knew all along that Arsene knew what he was doing [that bit a lie of course]”
The Footballing world is watching and starting to grasp what some of us have understood for years…
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