(This blog is partially inspired by the 160,000+ Australian fans who showed their love for The Arsenal over two games in Sydney this past week. True love is based on shared values.)
Believe it or not football fans, July 1st is the official start of the new football year, at least in Europe. As of June 30th the books were closed on the old year. The turning of the calendar is the start of new beginnings. Players’ contracts expired or advanced one more year. So it did for many administrators and staff who survived the twists and turns of the previous season. Some may have already been collateral damage as owners engaged in the obligatory sacking of managers and their staff mid-season while others had to endure the pain of relegation knowing full well they would not survive the changed economic circumstances of their club.
In such a ruthless economic climate it is a wonder so many fans retain year-in, year out, that undying, innocent, enduring love of their professional football club. It seems to me that as of July 1st, most fans forget the pain, disappointments and frustrations of the past year and begin to look forward to a new year of hope and opportunity, in most cases, somewhat naively in my humble opinion. That is unless you are a bitter Wenger-outer who foresees a dark, bleak world until the Professor is sacked and a bright, new shiny manager is appointed who will immediately outspend United, City and Chelsea and lead Arsenal to a glorious, golden future of unchallenged success in both Premier and Champion’s Leagues.
Apart from such nonsensical delusions by the Wenger-haters, the vast majority of Arsenal fans remain proverbial optimists, ever hopeful that the club will challenge for the title next season. I happen to be among them despite cultivating the image (successfully I hope) of a cold, dispassionate analyst who despairs at our falling possession stats, lack of chances created from midfield, etc.
During my recent vacation, when I finally emerged from the 9-month football bubble that is the Premier League season, I discovered that such optimism is not shared by the average non-Arsenal football fan. In fact, those who are aware of my voluntarily writing a weekly blog for PA think, if not mad then I am clearly delusional. Why should someone in their right mind express such overt support for a football club that came 5th in the League even if they won the FA cup. These same persons by the way, particularly United supporters, are oblivious of the irony that the Red Devils came 6th in the League and only sneaked into the Champions League via UEFA’s consolation prize (Europa title) in one of (Ed.) the dullest finals in football history.
As for being delusional I must admit that, like most of my readers, I am a bit of an obsessive-compulsive. How else do you explain such devotion to a sport and a football club year-round.
I suspect only amateur psychologists would consider the mumbo-jumbo above sufficient explanation for our enduring love and optimism for club. If being an obsessive-compulsive was the underlying reason for the love of our marital partner or significant-other, then how does that explain our neglect of them during the football season. Evidently that obsession must be very fleeting or transient, i.e. anti-obsessive.
Like love of any type, supporting a football club is surely very personal and due to complex reasons. I initially fell in love with the club 13-years ago because Arsenal played beautiful football. Like sex it was not always orgasmic and to be frank there were many, too many, poor games over the years. But the club was always genuinely committed to playing football the right way, even when it had to break-up The Invincibles and sell off several great players to pay for the new stadium. Over time I learnt that the manager had a deep and abiding commitment to beautiful football. In his own words:
“Football is an art, like dancing is an art – but only when it’s well done does it become an art.”
I am convinced that the key to Wenger’s longevity at Arsenal, despite the haters, despite the many disappointments, despite the failure to win a title in 13 years, is his commitment to football as an art. Playing the “Arsenal way” is now a commonly accepted part of football lexicon. Supporters of the club have deep, divisive debates as to whether so and so is an “Arsenal player”. How many other clubs dare hold such discussions and not hold themselves to contempt and rididicule? Can you imagine a United supporter proudly advocating the “Mourinho way”? Or fiercely arging that a 6 foot plus mountain of a man with the first touch of concrete is an ideal “United player”?
While it is easy to disparage him for the recent lack of titles, even though to date he has made Arsenal the 2nd most successful club in the Premier League, it is readily apparent to those who have two neurons and working synapse that Arsene Wenger is building a foundation and a philosophy of playing that will outlast by generations, if not ages. His legacy is in sharp contrast to the the transient work of the many cheque book managers who win titles but contribute nothing to the sustainable future of the football club with which they were entrusted.
Going back to the metaphor of enduring relationships, Arsenal may not flash the most bling, not be the biggest spenders, have the most attractive bod, but it certainly has class and values that can sustain a relationship with its supporters. How else do you explain over 160,000 fans packing one of the largest stadiums in Australia in the recently ended tour of Sydney, to support the club over two games playing against League One level opponents?
Isn’t this demonstration that the values of the club are universally appreciated the wind in our sails as we embark on a new campaign? Players come and go, no matter how famous (note to Alexis Sanchez), strategy and tactics change, but the club stands for something beyond merely winning games. In the words of Arsene:
“I believe that despite all the money a club is about identity. Identity is about values and values have been carried through the generations through somebody. Is it the chairman, is it the manager, is it some players who stay for a long period at the club? I hope it will always be the case. It’s not only about spending money or sacking the manager.
“Football has to be a bit bigger than that. That’s why I believe the big clubs worry about values and identity. We have to be conscious that that is important as well.”
Naught more needs to be said.
Positively Arsenal 
yes passenal he slipped, but for me that was caused by him charging in needlessly after he got caught out of position, one of those half panic moments when a player knows they are not where they should have been.
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AFC bring on Willock and Nelson for Ramsey and Ox
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what a dive by kenedy, disgraceful
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Malen on now too
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Pre-season is about getting your fitness, working on tactics and ironing out those little errors. Given the amount of travelling, hard training, sickness and youngsters playing for Arsenal, we can’t be surprised that the team is a little ragged.
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Martinez on too
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Malen hits the post
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FT: Arsenal 0-3 Chelsea
CFC the better team on the day, some poor defending by AFC and not enough going forward either. Pitch was awful and not good for our passing game. CFC sharper and more energetic. Ospina despite the 3 goals was on top form with many good saves. Iwobi played the full 90 and was probably our best outfield player. Ramsey and Ozil had their moments too.
thats the tour games done, back to England and the Emirates cup games next weekend, then CS before the real action starts. Hopefully we will be fully on our game for the league opener.
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we play Benfica and Seville next weekend, I would expect to see our strongest possible 11 start together in one of those games, the fringe/kids to start the other.
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Tony Pubic has confirmed that WBA are no longer in for Kieran Gibbs and are looking at other targets
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Haha. Less than an hour since the PRE SEASON match ended and Le Grove has an article out with the headline ‘Arsenal stink out Beijing with familiar performance’
Nothing can be a better indication as to just how much these people look forward to things not going well for the club they purport to love.
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our starting 11 today had only 4 of the players who started our last league game.
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has anyone ever played for as long for Arsenal as that Rice Nelson guy who played today
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its pre season but i’m worried about our defence. i’m afraid we might witness a decline in performance of kos this season. he is not getting younger. his game is more dependent on pace and power rather than reading of the game like per or monreal. my prayer is that bielik who has shown some promises in the tour will come good for us this season.
unfortuantely, many are ranting about our attack, but even if we do not sign any more striker and keep sanchez, we are among the strongest in the league if not the strongest. people alway forget that we always score goals and there is definately goals in this team but we need better defenders and also need to do better defending as a team.
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Layksite, I wouldn’t worry so much about the defence – 4 defensive players were not available for the tour and Kos is just recovering from a back problem. He also said he was not likely to be 100% for today’s game.
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passnal, that is exactly what i mean, he is just recovering from back injury that was a feature several times last season. we may be without for defender, but those four are not necessarily starters for our level. and we are playing 3 at the back this season.
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layksite
Koscielny is also dealing with a chronic Achilles problem, so you might be right that he will start to decline to an extent. But I think we’re ok for next season. Defending depends on organisation too. Even more so than individual brilliance (which is why many small teams – and small minded coaches- opt to just sit and defend) If we can get that organisation right, we have the personnel to be good.
I also think it’s noteworthy that Arsene Wenger has mentioned at least 3 times since the season was over that we let in too many goals and weren’t good enough defensively last season. He even brought in Lehmann to work with the GKs and help Bould with defense coaching. So he obviously sees it as a focus area.
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what a nightmare! chelski giving us a good spanking despite missing Hazard, Morata and others and it being their first game of the tour.
But seriously, we were playing a youngster at CB who would I imagine wouldn’t feature in our top ten first choice players in that position. It will always be difficult to mix and match youngsters and first eleven players for several games of a tour. chelski started with their best available 11 and it was noticeable how they stuggled when they changed their back 3, suggesting we are better covered in that posistion than they are at this stage.
I thought we played well enough but there was certainly some misunderstandings and unforced errors in our play. I would also imagine the heat certainly helped their style of play rather than ours and the loss of concerntration may not of been helped by the drinks break coming straight after a long injury making it unecessary in my opinion.
I thought both teams played some good football and some precision long passes which were great to watch in the context of a friendly and not have to worry to much about the outcome.
The fullback areas are a worry at the moment and certainly we are not in a position to let the Ox go, as at the moment he is more important than Sanchez.
Oviously I am not a major tactition but I still feel having all 11 players deep in the area while defending corners is leaving us vunerable.
Overall a decent tour and some excellent displays by some of the younger folk amongst the party.
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last season for instance, we could argue we had seven strikers. sanchez, giroud, welbs, walcott, apom, sanogo, iwobi. but the truth, we had four. but this season we can confidently say six. lacazette, giroud, sanchez?, walcott, welbs and iwobi who is now a 1st team regular. in the defence, i’m looking at kos, mustafi, holding and gabriel who is out, monreal maybe. and we play 3 at the back. of this number, only 2 are on tour and likely to start the season.
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shard, i agree.
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Big big big news from Wenger on Alexis
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“Alexis is not for Sale”
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so what had Arsene to say about all the reports yesterday about Alexis being in Paris having transfer talks with the PSG DoF, I bet that stumped him
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“Only Media imagination.”
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.but but but but the ITK’s and journos/redtops couldn’t all be wrong, surely they aren’t all liars,
say it aint so, say it aint so Shane
who knew
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Wenger even went as far as to say it doesn’t make a difference if its a foreign club that wants to sign him, Alexis is not for sale.
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Shard, I’m going to make a wild and crazy guess that the same author did not publish an article two hours after the fa cup final.
That one definitely considers itself to be a subcontractor to Football Agents, most definitely it is a frustrated football agent bitter at the few crumbs that fall it’s way.
it’s time for the so called malcontent to F off, pardon my Wexitesque French, and to form their own FC Arse. If they were truly upset for the reasons proclaimed, they would already have done so. Like the former ManIOU fans who are nearly in the football league with their new club.
These blagger are liars.
Enough Is Enough
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Eds from these comments by AW on AS I’m guessing that the uber blaggers were yet again not reporting or paying attention to what happens or happened on the football pitch in this case after the final whistle of the fa cup final.
That wasn’t a hug between AW & AS, the old gaffer put him in a headlock! What was said, we can only guess and speculate. Heh.
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New post up
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finsbury
Don’t you know, a hug after winning a trophy means nothing, because it’s not a trophy worth winning so why would Alexis be happy?? Oh..never mind.. Forget it.
The real issue is him sitting on his haunches when he has cause to be unhappy (we lost a game..yet again..Venggaaarr out) proves as I show over umpteen pages, he is completely unhappy with the manager, his teammates and the club.
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I have sometimes marvelled about the magnificent resolve of salmon fighting against the downhill deluge they face in order to get to the calm waters of the river of their inception, so they in their turn can cavort with any willing salmonesses until they croak from exhaustive pleasure.
All very admirable, most would say, but after reading the comments in this inestimable blog which stout-heartedly hold out against the likes of Le Groan, I feel that my inconsequential views are going to play the salmon and somewhat swim in the face of the popular sentiments of so many.
You see, I am suffering from a personal dichotomy between my inadequate cerebral understanding that pre-season games are first and foremost a vehicle to build fitness for the travails of the upcoming season, and to share, up front and personal, close up views of the Arsenal players for those fans normally restricted to TV watching in some far flung corner of this amazing world, and to some extent to separate the team wheat from the chaff which will help to establish who is a worthwhile member of the squad.
Nothing too much wrong with any of that, and this understanding allows me to rationalise the game, and its relative lack of any meaningful importance, and I can say all the ‘correct’ and supportive phrases — but deep down, the result today left me aching for the young players in a makeshift Gunners team who faced a very strong Chavs team, and were frankly outmatched and found out in a disappointing and disjointed display.
So — here’s what the more resolute of you can do for me, and any others who may share these sentiments — you can cheer me/us up, and remind us that the performance and the result does not matter in the grand scheme of things, and a full strength Gunners team will exact retribution for this the next time we meet in the league — which we will surely do — but that is months away, and your empathy and stirring words are needed now – please.
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Henry
Apparently something called The Open is happening? And the third test starts on the 27th, the Oval, usually a good wicket. I exepect a serious and absorbing contest.
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Nice read!
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