Ever wished you didn’t have a game to watch quite so soon? Usually I find a quick turn around to be the best medicine, get the stench of defeat out of the emotional laundry with the fresh breeze of a new fixture. Unfortunately I also like to spend a few days convincing myself that it is after all only a game and asking why am I getting myself so worked up about it and telling myself there are many more important events in my life with which to concern myself. All the usual self deluding froth with which one hopes to obscure the windscreen of one’s thoughts.
After a wholly unexpected and unwelcome result at the Old T however I needed more than these past two days to want even to think about the round ball game. I had the distraction of the rugby which helped enormously as it gave me and my Man U supporting pal some safe ground over which we could walk together, deftly avoiding the potholes and land mines of football.
All credit to him. He knows I don’t talk footy to friends or enemies after a defeat. I don’t find shouting and arguing and looking for someone to blame as cathartic as others do and so prefer to change the subject and he didn’t mention it even once. Given the season they’re having and the fact that he thought we would clobber them, that must have taken some restraint.
So when I glanced at the fixtures and saw we are opening the doors and welcoming visitors from over the bridge tonight I greeted the news with slumped shoulders and a weary resigned sigh. Of course we all know that the best antidote for disillusion and regret is a thumping good victory. Should we pull one from the bag then, like you, I shall wake up on Thursday morning and place my hat at a jaunty angle before tucking into the eggs and bacon. Such are the shallow, insecure vagaries which dominate the psyche and personality of the football fan.
It is bloody silly placing our happiness in the hands of others isn’t it? I don’t mean those we trust at home, work or at play I mean people we neither know nor are ever likely to meet. Distant millionaires who know nothing of our existence and who’s lives would be entirely unaltered were you and I to perish in a freak ballooning accident over the Pyrenees taking with us all of the readership of Positively Arsenal in the resultant cabin fire.
The more I think about it the more it seems akin to that nasty habit and dangerous addiction, gambling. You decide that your mood, and that of those about whom you purport to care most, is best served by flinging all of your hopes on a bonfire set by people without your best interest at heart and who will only profit from your weakness or affliction.
And still we come back for more.
Of course if you were thinking of quitting and trying to change your life it doesn’t help when Leicester go and drop two points at home against West Brom on the eve of our next fixture. Suddenly they have extended their lead over us and the Spuds but we can, with the right result, claw back a couple of the lost Old Trafford points.
We ought not to be surprised by this. I don’t see any reason to suppose that such a topsy turvy, fairground ride of a season should suddenly level out and become predictable just because there are only ten or eleven games to go. A return to form for our men, a little help from the Hammers and Jurgen Klopp’s Flying Circus and Thursday may dawn bright and cheerful after all. Of course the reverse is equally possible and there would be many a mattress in need of changing in many a cot were that to be the case. Sales of Sudocrem would no doubt rocket judging by the infant out pouring after Sunday’s result.
In among all of this emotional wreckage Swansea FC are quietly making their way along the M4, stopping no doubt for a go on the Space Invaders and a family sized bag of Revels at Leigh Delamere, and rocking up to N7 in time for this evening’s 7.45 kick off. What mood will they be in I wonder? Buoyed by our indifferent results and their history against us they should be in the right frame of mind to give us a game tonight. I certainly hope so. I don’t want us to be faced with another packed defence, it makes for such an excruciating match.
Swansea looked like doing us a favour when they took the lead at WHL recently but according the readers of the South Wales Evening Post they are incapable of defending a lead which given our propensity for conceding the initiative is music to my ears. We all know what is wrong with our side right now, a couple of key players horribly out of form and the necessary rotation during the fixture clog disrupting the rhythm of the rest. The question is can these things be put right in such a short space of time? Who the hell knows? Not me.
It all depends how deep the malaise actually runs. It’s all too easy to look on from the outside and presume there are seismic issues here. That is usually because we are so desperate for the team to do well that we fear the worst and allow that fear to overcome our reason. The side might be just one goal away from clicking, a couple of slick moves away from rediscovering their balletic, telepathic poise – it would not surprise me one bit.
So come on boys and girls, mums and dads, let’s not allow the occasional setback to spoil the fun of following the finest team in the land. Let’s not invest so much in success that we are robbed of our dignity in defeat. Let’s try instead to remember why we are all here in the first place. To enjoy the game of football played by some of its finest practitioners, and maybe, just maybe, see them come away with a trophy every now and then. Sounds like a plan to me. You in?
Positively Arsenal 
Steww,
That is another terrific read. Really enjoyed the gambling analogy.
I will be avoiding ballooning over the Pyrenees.
For many years i have tried to analyse my “addiction” to The Arsenal.
I invested a bucket of money with various psychiatrists in order to discover why I got the disease in a family which cares little for sport. The shrinks conclusion was that I have “middle child syndrome” which led me to this conclusion …. never trust a man in a corduroy jacket.
For the sake of my mental health let Arsenal win tonight
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Splendid stuff Stew and agree with every word of it. With over a quarter of the season left and many points to play for, why are so many AFC ‘fans’ waving the white flag and grizzling? Of course, we all hated losing to a perky and penetrative Manure but hey, that’s football. Every season is unique and this season everything is up for grabs.
So let’s all just do our bit and save the recriminations for the summer, if you must.
Yes, I’m in.
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I was busy elsewhere on Sunday and so didn’t see the game – and apart from checking in here occasionally stayed off-line for most of Monday, so I was genuinely quite shocked at the tone of the criticism I picked up yesterday. It didn’t strike me as strange that Manchester beat us on their patch: they have some good players and at last injury has allowed van Gaal to do what Ferguson did in his last (and trophy winning) year, namely side-line Wayne. Young Rooney has been a fine player, one of the best, but his powers are on the wane and have been for some time: he more than most has clogged things up for them. and interestingly too, Depay who looked so very promising when first signed, disappeared the moment Martial was added to the ranks – almost as if he went into a crisis of confidence that he wasn’t the managers most favoured young son. So it didn’t altogether surprise me to see them play with a freedom and a flair that is more characteristic of United teams of old. We may have thought we were going to play against a crowd of kids, but just sometimes you stumble across the first incarnation of a new era. And it is always worth remembering (either when looking at other sides or your own) how often an older player can stifle the unfettered joy of youth – and, dare I say it, managers can sometimes do this too. So it seemed strange to me that there was such an outpouring of hate from all and sundry (and well done Stew for predicting that on Sunday morning) but as you rightly point out a win this evening would make everything feel a bit different.
And I think if I was the manager I would be very tempted to keep faith with the players who maybe didn’t play so well on the weekend – not just to reassure them that I still believed, but also because they are good players who are the most likely to take us on a run of success. Form as they say being temporary and all that. It is the class of Ozil, Ramsey, Alexis, Walcott that will win us trophies, not some return to the old thump and bash tactics of an earlier age. McLintock was all over the papers for his ‘lack of leaders’ comments, but I for one have little time for the puffed up words of former players. I spent an afternoon at Ascot with him (well, we were both guests in the same box) and he struck me as both thick and unpleasant in the comments he made about the current regime. Wonderful player though he was, wonderful team that he was a part of, he couldn’t seemingly shake of the bitterness of being no longer central. While we can always learn lessons from the past, and should never ever forget values that once made us great, the quickest way for any organisation to founder is to stay stuck in yesterday. The trick of course is to be slightly ahead of the game, and for all that anyone says, the man most likely to be that is probably AW, such is (it seems to me) his willingness to keep on learning.
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I’m in.
A marvellous collection of words and phrases, Stew. Let’s hope the team get their shit together in as good an order. and produce a footballing equivalent.
If I had to single out a single match winner from your piece then I plump for;
‘Space Invaders and revels at Leigh Delamere’
Cheers. UTA.
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To invest in a thing larger than yourself is to join with your brothers and sisters, with faith, with emotion, with perseverance to become an active agent in human society. There is no vice in such unqualified devotion. The only vice, as we see so vividly elsewhere, is expecting, and in some cases demanding, a return for that commitment.
No I do not see supporting Arsenal football club as akin to gambling or substance abuse, or any other weakness or human foible. It is entering a fine medieval cathedral, built by skilled craftsman over many years, maintained by priests with knowledge far beyond my modest ken, a mighty structure that lived before me and will live on long after my demise, be that by balloon fire or something less eye-catching.
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And I wish this fucking on line box office would hurry up with the Watford tickets.
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9.44 Great stuff Anicoll. Poetry
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Clearly I am a bit too poetic this morning Raddy – having elbowed my way to the front of the digital queue the Watford game is on a day I am on holiday ( banned village idiot / Paul Merson face )
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Arsenal had a scout at the league 2 game between Bristol Rovers V Hartlepool, the game was won 4-1 by Rovers
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a young lad has joined the Arsenal Hale End Academy, after impressing at the Arsenal Soccer Schools
https://www.playthearsenalway.com/public/about/article.htm?id=15
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Steww
I loved this sentence:
“Let’s not invest so much in success that we are robbed of our dignity in defeat”.
Bacon and eggs? That’s not very vegan…
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We mustn’t invest so much emotion but the last few has been emotional taxing. Not so much because of the defeat but the vitriol overreaction of those insisting on sucking out the joy out off of all us who chose the keep our heads up, while digging our heels in to proceed doing the one job signed up for.
Thanks Stew for wiping the slate clean and allow us starting afresh as we prepare our quest for getting over the next hurdle. May there be joy for all of us at the end of the night.
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I really feel that Arsenal FC are missing a trick on their ticket pricing, its time we do away with Cat C games, its clear too many don’t want to go to them, £26 tickets are clearly a no no, AFC need to upgrade all games to Cat A, as fans are clearly happy to pay the big bucks for Cat A games, always sold out, but as usual tonight’s Cat C game has thousands of tickets available. The idiotic soundbite “a generation of fans being priced out of watching Arsenal games”, gets more stupid by every passing Cat C game. Also once again I will remind everyone that our £10 youth tickets are not selling out either.
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anyone know why the environmentalists and media who had so much to say about Arsenal taking a 15 minute flight to Norwich, earlier in the season, had nothing to say about Spurs doing the same a few weeks later, and again nothing to say after CFC done the same yesterday. Its almost as if the media have an agenda.
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Wenger: “Do people think football is only winning and never losing any games?”
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Daniel Cowan @thedanielcowan 2h2 hours ago
Saying something critical doesn’t make you a WOB. Saying something supportive doesn’t make you AKB. There are layers.
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Daniel Cowan @thedanielcowan 13h13 hours ago
I’m not sure I agree with the logic that we’re lucky City & Chelsea are having an off season because we are too. By that logic Spurs and Leicester are lucky we’re having an off season yet all I see is admiration for both sides from our fans.
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Mohammed Amali @MoAmali 12h12 hours ago Bradford, England
And it was Sessegnon that was booked for dissent. The asst referee was three steps away.
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Arsenal’s FA Youth Cup game v Liverpool on Friday, Kick off 7pm, will be shown live on Arsenal.com, the show starts at 6.40
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In the words of a wise man:
“It’s all too easy to look on from the outside and presume there are seismic issues here. That is usually because we are so desperate for the team to do well that we fear the worst and allow that fear to overcome our reason.”
I went on twitter last night and wrote “”when”, not if, we defeat Swansea and Spurs a lot of Arsenal supporters will look fairly stupid. It was a deliberate piece of provocative bravado which I can easily do since I don’t have 5,000 followers relishing the opportunity to ridicule me publicly. But seriously, given the consistent track record of Arsene Wenger, it is a fairly safe prediction, especially since 90% of fans have lost all reason and expect us to lose. Follow the data as well as your heart Positivistas.
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Great again Steww and while I agree with the sentiment I’m still very much depressed. It wasn’t the result that has got me that way but the performance so bad it’s made me realise that for the first time in twenty years I believe the spuds will finish above us. Not only that but if I was a betting man (and I’m not) I would have my money on them to win the whole thing.
The shadow looming over us that it might become a reality scares me silly. I hope I don’t need reminding everyone that apart from the aggrevators in our own camp I have cousins on the blue side of north London.
A win tonight would be very gratefully received, however it still wouldn’t give me confidence for the weekend let alone the rest of the season.
I know this Positively ARSENAL and I feel a bit of a traitor writing like this but that’s how I feel.
At the end of the day Steww is right and beautiful football will lift my mood
COYG
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IanSpace: If Spurs finish above us once in 20 years, is that a disaster? 5% of the time. Surely that proves how dominant we have been and continue to be. Surely the record of consistently outdoing them is the evidence we should not turn a 5% occurrence into a disaster. I recognize that being 1500 miles away makes it easier to be view this without the emotional baggage of a North London rivalry. But factually I am correct, no.
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Excellent preview Steww. Many thanks. Im sure its not always easy to write week in week out in such a grounded manner,impressive stuff.
Personally I wasn’t surprised that we lost up there at Theatre of Riley.After the Barca defeat I speculated to myself that it would hit out players quite hard, (I didnt see us as favourites going into the game)and of course that defeat started a certain avalanche of shit on the intersweat thats now in full force.
Hope Hunter13 is out there razzing them though…
ManUre were always going to be up for that game having nursed the hurts of being beaten twice,and the old Van der Unholy Graaail could smell blood and a chance to salvage something. On another day and perhaps if Nacho had scored then he would have been crying,but the Ferguson/Riley haunting carries on.But one day it will be gone.
Tonight’s game is a tough one to call.
The players must be hurting,especially if theyve re- watched the game against ManUre which was the most painful to see so far this season.
I like your post FH, I knew someone who was a tenant of FM and he said pretty much the same thing. Its interesting what motivates our opinions!
I hope we give them a beating tonight and Theo (if playing) scores a hat trick and Larry picks up a couple.Those guys need a confidence boost.
I feel pretty shitty about Cazorla having a set back,we miss him badly,and the Ox will want to personally forget this season so far.
Then its the smelly Chickens at the Poop Coop.Now thats one team who deserve a thrashing.They need putting in there place (6th).
Heres hoping for grit and goals from dear old Arsenal.
COYG!
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I’m in, Steww.
I’ve hidden from everything, inc. myself. Indeed, I’d forgotten there were matches on last night, and now I know there were, I still haven’t checked the results.
At least in clicking on the review, (thanks), the first thing I saw was the photo montage of the former players, which I enjoyed.
So, this preview. It’s summary beyond that description.
My ManU friend actually msg’d a little dig at me, which I didn’t even recognise until he pointed out that asking me ‘how am I’? – related to Ars’s loss!
I’d asked him how he was, as he’d had a bout of flu and had had time off work (and still checking work emails from his bed).
I found that amazing cos in the past he’s thanked me for not calling to tease him about any Ars victory over ManU. I’d made it clear that’s not how I operate. But then he’s a ManU fan. Nuff said.
FH, A5, Big Rad, ianspace, and Shotts, etc, your posts are amazing.
The “preview”, once again, has Touched me.
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Just seen Mills post.
“Smelly chickens at the poop scoop”.
Ta. I forgot I had a smile.
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Look on the bright side Ian – we play Spuds on Saturday therefore whatever happens we do not face serving as the “guard of honour’ at the Lane, and the chances are that will not be performing the same embarrassing ritual at the Etihad on 7th May. If all clicks back into gear it will be us receiving the accolades from Villa.
If our best efforts are defeated by a better opposition, even Tottingham, so be it. The League table in May never, ever lies.
I wonder what the great unwashed of N17 will call this unique festival (if it happens) ? “St Gooner’s Day” !
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Hmm Bobby Madley tonight – young lad, lots of potential, one for the future.
He has taken charge of us just once this season, against Sunlun at home in the League and an easy win. Swansea he has been in charge of three times in 2015/2016, three defeats.
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Space Invaders and Revels Stew…Space Invaders and Revels mate. Brilliant.
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Come on the Gunners!
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Let’s see what Wenger has up his sleeve because we need to put this game away pronto. The Spuds face West Ham away and the blue Mancs face Liverpool away as well. This can end up being a really good day for us. COYRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!
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“Surprised by the piece of news appeared in press, deadlines are going as planned. I will be ready on 1st April.”
From Santi’s twitter. He’ll be ready just in time for the title push.
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Ranty,
Santi says he’s still on schedule for a return at the start of April.
Further minutes for this midfield to find their tune though this week regardless of results or form some rotation with the likes of Cazorla, Wilshere, Rozza etc would’ve been nice (why Welbeck isn’t a starter today).
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Arsenal: Cech, Bellerin, Mertesacker (c), Gabriel, Monreal, Campbell, Coquelin, Ramsey, Alexis, Ozil, Giroud
Substitutes: Ospina, Chambers, Welbeck, Walcott, Flamini, Elneny, Gibbs
Read more at http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20160302/team-news-mertesacker-returns#CPpriPz3YJCfaVbR.99
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COYG1
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come on you Irons!
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oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
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Post!
Come on!
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Giroud should have done better with a great chance,
alexis mishits a good chance and then on the follow up he drives the ball off the post
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Joel has made a great start. Intelligent movement, neat use of the ball.
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yeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssssssssssss
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And now a goal as well. Superb.
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great finish by Campbell, after good build up play, Coquelin, Monreal
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Come on you Goooners!
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I’m sure Alexis will come good again but at the moment when the ball goes to him one does rather conflate it with the ball going to the opposition
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shit.
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Great through ball and excellent finish but where was the whistle for our free kick in the build up?
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looked like a foul in the build up to that swansea goal
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Horrible foul on Ozil in the build up. Referee deserves the pre assist for Swansea’s goal.
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oooooooooooo
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