Confucius once said “Without feelings of respect, what is there to distinguish men from beasts?”

As I sit here and pen this post, I’m reminiscing the past grandeur our fan base once possessed. We were a joyous bunch renowned for getting behind the team and the manager. We were united as a Club.

But today, we’re a completely mess. Divided into two halves, dolling out vitriol at one another. But amidst all this, there is one man with his stoic persona, still carrying on, immune to the commotion and anarchy our fan base has created. I happened to stumble across a video on YouTube last night, in which Wenger was booed and abused by Gooners as he was on his way to his coach, post the Stoke City game. The first sense I was evoked by, was that of sheer disgust at the reaction from the bunch of classless cretins, which immediately turned into a feeling of guilt and embarrassment as I saw the expression on that man’s face. It was pretty obvious he was shocked by what he heard, but he carried on, like he always has. I’d like to make one thing very clear here. I’m not writing this post just to vouch for Arsene or why we need to believe in him. But rather, also to remind our fan base that one of the most important things in life is to respect one another.
It’s been 18 long years since Wenger’s been at the helm of this great football club. Given us moments of great joy that will be cherished forever and spoken in football folklore. I’m a grateful man, and I’d like to thank him for giving me some of the best moments of my life, right from that Wiltord night at Old Trafford, to that Ramsey moment at Wembley. From that Ray Parlour bomb against Chelsea to that Patrick Vieira sublimity against Leicester, in the club’s greatest ever season. Simply put, these are moments I’ll take with, to my grave. But, it is beyond the realms of my understanding as to how can you abuse a man of such measure? I understand, that people have opinions and we have to respect those opinions regardless of us agreeing to It or not. But why abuse? Let’s take out everything from this. Arsene Wenger just for his seniority of age deserves to be respected. I’m not even going to dwell into what this man has done for this football club. But I have one question!

Whatever happened to “Remember who you are, what you are and who you represent”?
Is it that, our fan base has forgotten about it or are completely oblivious to it?

I take immense pride in supporting the Arsenal, and every Arsenal fan should, and, the basic obligation for a supporter, is to get behind the team. You can raise questions, be critical and disagree with the calls taken by the manager, but at the end of it all, the most important thing is to support and respect. To quote Wenger;
“We’re are at our strongest, when we are together”.

At this moment, we’re not, and, it looks like we will be divided for some time to come. But, all I ask of our supporters is to not stoop to the levels of mediocrity with your support. Football is supposed to be a game that unites, not divide. I plead with you, let’s not do this to ourselves.let’s not treat the club’s greatest signing with such odious character assassination.  There’s always a light at the end of the tunnel, and I see us being led into that light by the great man. But please, he doesn’t deserve this. He deserves better. To quote him once again, before I end this;

“If you do not believe you can do it, then you have no chance at all”

‘Victoria Concordia Crescit’

@OptimisticAkash

From yesterday’s game we can see that officials have two different interpretations of the laws of the game, how can one team compete if they are playing to a different interpretation of the rules to the other team. 

Is it the game that’s funny, the fans or Arsenal’s cash flow?

I was chatting to someone during the game last night who made the point that in the 1960’s and ’70’s we hardly knew who was running the club beyond the Manager. Relatively little was really known about Bertie Mee, even, let alone the Assistant Manager, Physio, the Board, majority or minority shareholders. Attention was fixed on the players pretty much exclusively and, happily, on the wider stage, the ‘culture’ of the game was sufficiently slow and violent to exclude most referees from too much scrutiny.  Probably helped that there was next to no football on tv compared to the modern game.

The idea that the ordinary, unbriefed fan might be making judgements about the cash flow of the club in that era would have been completely laughable.

As many are aware, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

But this has been one of the biggest gifts of the online age; it’s ability to throw up wave after wave of those willing to be exposed as having noticeably thin scraps of expertise loosely dressed up as ‘knowledge’ propagated on a platform with almost infinite reach. This indiscriminate dissemination of half-formed views is as efficient as the ability it offers the unwary to dash their own personal reputation on the rock of flimsy logic and foolish conjecture.  Sharing their views, fleetingly presented as ‘the facts’ until the white horse of truth gallops in from the wings to save us all.

So, another very decent article from Trader Chris on PA yesterday highlighted that few habits are as potentially risky to one’s credibility as making wild and largely unsubstantiated claims about the club’s accounts whilst possessing next to no understanding of the mechanics of cash flow or the importance of budgeting.

Such people – and this probably applies to 99% of fans – really should just concentrate on the football.

Especially those at the back.

Talking of the football, a decent result last night against a magnificently supported German outfit, none of whose supporters, to my knowledge, appeared to be discussing depreciating assets or waving hi-end A4 “Klopp Out” banners. Someone tweeted me that this is linked to the price of their tickets although I don’t recall seeing similar scenes on the terraces in the lower and presumably cheaper echelons of the English league. But, we are told, the downward pressure on morale caused by having to pay for the ‘most expensive tickets in the game’ is now one of the keys to understanding the mindset of the typical Arsenal supporter.

To me, Arsenal’s German Quarter just looked like 3,000 fans taking pride in themselves as much as their team and they are a credit to their club, regardless of any debate on ticketing prices.

Give yourselves a hand …

For Arsenal, the result was pleasing both in the score and in the manner of the way a team that is still badly fractured by injury went about it’s business.

Some have heralded the significance of the return to form of Aaron Ramsey who has himself recently alluded to the fine-tuning going on at squad-level in training and on the pitch.

The loss to any side of players with the outstanding form of midfielder Aaron Ramsey alongside the injuries to key contributors  in attack and defence such as Theo and Kos would have had huge consequences.

That the winner of our Champions’ League group is still in the balance not to mention our place in the English league, is little short of a miracle given the vital importance of these three players alone. Factor in the rest of the injuries and we can see that actually, although not all results have gone our way and in-game finishing and defending errors have clearly been made, what we have here could yet prove to be our strongest squad in many, many years.

That the three of Kos, Theo and Ramsey are about to be reunited is of huge significance both for the Premier League and our future progress in the Champions’ League.

Now if people were to stop wrestling with transfer budgets and get to grips with the realities of the season, they might just begin to appreciate all this.

Sadly, as evidenced last night at least, the joy of an Arsenal win is rarely as heartily celebrated on Twitter or the Blogosphere as are the setbacks, so in certain quarters I suspect the ‘expert’ focus of some may lie elsewhere, for now, at least.

Funny old things, fans.

A guest post from  @TraderChris87 . 

I cant stand for his figures so dont shoot the messenger. 

A guest post from  @TraderChris87

Three weeks ago, Borrusia Dortmund took on Bayern Munich. Whilst a few years ago this may have been a clash of the heavyweights in a Champions League Final, this is no longer the case. Dortmund struggling with injuries and having two of their best players poached by Bayern in the last couple of seasons and 2 of their current stars heavily linked with a move away are currently struggling in the bottom half of the Bundesliga, even staying bottom of the league for a short period of time, you would think that Jurgen Klopps job may well be on the line. Yet after a recent game, in a post match news conference, a Dortmund fan told Klopp “You led us to success and we will lead you through the crisis,” which got me thinking.

Honestly, I am ashamed to listen to Arsenal fans speak on TV, comments on post match reports and obviously on Twitter. To me I find it disgusting the attitude they posses to Arsene Wenger, Someone who has given his life to our club, made us successful beyond anyones wildest dreams, playing beautiful football winning trophies and quite literally, made us unbeatable. All this whilst revolutionising almost every aspect of the English game from training methods to scouting. At that point did he rest on his laurels, absolutely not. Realising that to make us a true giant in world football, we would need revenues to match those of the biggest clubs, he guided us through a tough transition financially whilst we navigated our move from Highbury to the Emirates, keeping us playing in the Champions League for the 18th year running, a record that only Real Madrid boast.

Most managers wouldn’t have even accepted the challenge of not only keeping us in the Champions League so we had the revenue to pay off the short term debt on the stadium (who knows how many years of not being in the Champions League would have set us back financially). Not only did he keep us competitive, he had to make a profit on player transfers most seasons at a time where Chelsea and Man City were spending quite literally billions and Manchester United, Liverpool and Tottenham were spending. Yet you never once heard Arsene complain about this restriction.

Does he get any appreciation for guiding us through a very difficult period? No instead he is getting hurled abuse by stupid people who think they know the first thing about running a football club, tactics, man management or economics. All this just a few short months after winning the FA Cup.

Well we have spent money and are still struggling some may say. Yes we are struggling at the minute there is no denying that. We are all disappointed at recent results and I can understand being frustrated but hurling abuse at the manager and calling for his head are definitely not the answer. Also, 2 transfer windows of having a net spend for around £100m does not mean we automatically have the right to be beating teams who have had the best part of a decade of spending a billion. Financial Fair Play may even the playing field. It caused Man City to curb their spending the summer just gone and Chelsea were only able to spend £80m on Fabregas, Costa, Felipe Luiz because of the £40m they had previously spent on David Luiz and Lukaku, allowing them to profit from those sales to spend the money.

Looking at our squad subjectively we are not far off competing for the title, I honestly believe that once this team starts gelling, things will turn around for us. Shad Forsythe needs time to implement his methods which will hopefully ease our injury problems and it will take time for Sanchez and Welbeck to learn the way their team mates play. You still see them making passes where nobody is running or them not anticipating passes from certain players etc. This will take time. All I can say is that when Arsene turns things around and when he gets us winning trophies again, which he will, there will be alot of fans who don’t deserve to celebrate and who need to look at their behavior and they way they have acted and hang their heads in shame.

Arsenal supporters from a different era …

The salient points from yesterday’s game, courtesy of Northbank1969:

“I’m still looking on the bright side. We are still only two points from 4th place, the boys can turn this season around. They played some excellent football yesterday and no single player can be blamed for the result. It was just one of those days.
We’ll still finish above United.”

There’s famous old film footage in the Arsenal Museum of what appears to be a pre-war, pre-match game with what is definitely a pre-Payton Supporters’ Club member parading a placard around a packed ground with the words: ”May the best team win”.

Yesterday, the best team did not win.

But it was hardly the fault of Man u or, surprisingly, the ref. Of course, we can point to McNair’s ankle-breaker of a tackle on a wet pitch that went unspotted by the ref – and most others in the stadium, in real time. And Fellaini’s similarly unspotted, unpunished agricultural shove on Gibbs which led to the most unfortunate of deflected goals.

As is the case in every game I’ve watched this season, outcomes would have been so very different had video technology been in use. But it wasn’t in use yesterday so Jack’s assailant got off Scot-free and the simple pre-goal shove that took out two of our defence was legitimised by the honourable willingness of Ches to stagger to his feet rather than stay down injured, an act which in turn helped the ref to turn a blind eye to Fellaini’s rustic tactics moments before.

Our failure to score, having dominated Man u to the point of opening up a multitude of chances was the reason for the defeat. Not United. Not the referee. And certainly not the Arsenal Manager and his supposedly empty tactics book, his failure to by a DM or play with the handbrake on. Or off – or whichever charge is en vogue this particular week. It was hardly tactics that led to a slew of chances landing in De Gea’s hands or over his cross bar.

Like Stew, from yesterday’s post, United are the team against whom I most hate to lose.

Chelsea are a close second, admittedly, but they have a touch too much of the Johnny-come-latelies about them. United are – or certainly, under Red Nose, were – the ultimate visitors from the dark side. But, post-Ferguson, they look a very different prospect and its hard to see them returning to their dominant position in English football anytime soon. Yesterday they were very much there for the taking and once their post-match celebrations have ebbed away, their injury-hit squad’s inadequacies and it’s gaping vulnerability, will be very much apparent to all future opponents. The state of their defence, the fading of van Persie, the going down of the Young. The patchy contributions of their new mega-waged, mega-signings. All must be of immense concern to united followers who, deep down, will recognise the lucky win for what it was.

Today, of course, it’s all about The Arsenal, and the media and fair weather fans are again in inglorious cahoots echoing hideous harmonies rising and falling on our own perceived vulnerabilities. As is now almost traditional for this time of year, they merrily seize on any scrap of ‘evidence’ to justify and re-fuel the current orgy of criticism and abuse against the same club, manager and players they simultaneously still claim to ‘support’.

After yesterday’s result they must be feeling all their Christmases have come at once.

Indeed, so many of the ‘Arsenal ’til I Die‘ mob had left the stadium early to start up their celebration of failure in the bars around Holloway Road and beyond, that shockingly substantial numbers failed to see the extra eight minutes of added time, or witness the worldie from Giroud. They were certainly not present to give their all to support the team that was clearly giving it’s all. But a team that had failed to finish and ultimately was undone by a deflection and a hit-and-run winner as it worked over-anxiously throughout the match for a breakthrough, clearly deserved much more than it got, both from the gods of chance and at the hands of their own fans. Or some of them, at least.

As Northbank rightly says, we played some excellent football yesterday and though the result didn’t go our way, the end of the world is most certainly not upon us, whatever the Goners might have you believe.

The team will work to bring supporters back on side, the injured will continue to return, the squad will be strengthened by continued assimilation of the newbies and, doubtless, one or two January signings will catch the eye. The team will calm down, and will aim, we are told, to become more ‘efficient’ in defence and attack.

As ever, my only real concern is the mental state of some of our supporters but there is little to be done about that.

Had they stayed to the end and given as much as they demanded of their own team, I might have more time for them. I do understand people being upset and very much include myself in that – it was United, after all, and a mis-firing one at that. But before fans get started on complaining about players/manager/tactics going missing, they need to look at themselves and ask why they allowed themselves an early ‘in’ at the bar, to allow the 12th man to disappear with the best part of 15 minutes still to play? Why did they make themselves at least partly culpable?  It looks terrible when you see it happening at other clubs; with our record of turning games around in the last few minutes it’s pretty much unforgiveable to bale out before full time is up against any opponent.  Let alone Manchester United.

The squad will doubtless be devastated by the result – that much was evident at the final whistle.

But they’ll encouraged, too, by most of the performance and it will be that which is carried forward to the next game.

First up today is Steww

I’ll let you into a secret. Not all of us regard the North London derby as the biggest game of the season. I’ll go further. None of us should regard the North London derby as the biggest game of the season. In fact only Spurs fans should regard the North London derby as the biggest game of the season. For them, beating us became the holy grail. Year after year, season after season the dream of finally winning a match against Arsène’s Arsenal had them tossing and turning at night , feverish in their hopeless dreaming. They knew they would never win anything of significance would never join us at the top table with Europe’s elite, but would live forever in our shadow hoping that one day a lucky shot would bring them a brief transitory moment of joy which they could put onto a DVD and then masturbate in front of for years to come.

Before you rush to unfollow me on Twitter just hear me out. I know that for North Londoners there is a genuine local rivalry going back years, to before Spurs were even a London club in fact, and I respect that. But even if you all decided to take an unlikely interest in the fixture list of Welton Rovers I shouldn’t expect you to suddenly hate Radstock Town or Paulton Rovers. The people of Peasedown St John may be a hissing and a byword in the leafy lanes of lovely Midsomer Norton but I don’t expect the good folk of Hartlepool or Antrim to despise them just because we higher evolved people have an ancient rivalry with the thumbless mutants from up on Bath hill. The point is that nowadays Arsenal is supported on a global level, and while we all enjoy seeing a silly side like Spurs getting stuffed they aren’t the real enemy for much of the fan-base. The truly despised team for me has historically always been Manchester United.

There are some who have moved away from Man United, preferring Chelsea as the demons du jour . There are people who tell me I despise whoever is at the top of the league simply because that is a place I regard as rightfully ours, that my feelings stem from jealousy at another’s success. You can psychoanalyse it all you like but the simple truth is that along with huge swathes of the football supporting population I have never ever liked Man United and there has been a deep seated rivalry between us and them for as long as I can recall. When I used to watch matches on television, before being forced from that medium by the appalling one eyed agenda driven drones spewing their pro United bias from the commentary box, I would record the United game. This wasn’t so that I could rewatch it over and again but so that I could fast forward through any of their possession and thereby minimise my exposure to them and their horrible players. I have always struggled to watch them and as Ferguson’s grip on the referees and the British media and football establishment in general reached its apogee it became all but impossible for me so to do.

Of course post Ferguson they have become a whole lot more entertaining to watch. Granted there is still Rooney’s presence to turn your stomach and that grey haired old man they sometimes wheel out up front is an off putting spectacle. I still wouldn’t recommend watching them whilst eating, but they have shed the indigestive collective of Evra, Vidic, and Ferdinand in recent times and that has helped lessen their toxicity enormously. It doesn’t hurt that they can go out and lose to the likes of Milton Keynes either.

The problem is that even in their wildly unpredictable current condition they seem to exert some kind of malicious hoodoo over us. Remember Old Trafford last season? We had never been better set to humble them in their own home until a mystery virus meandered through our squad on the morning of the match. The home side were effectively playing against a team shambling about in hospital gowns – those that could be dragged out of bed to actually take the field did their best but the result had a horrible predictability about it once we’d heard of the contagion in our ranks.

This time around neither side is in the best of nick, either can lose to anybody but unlike us they don’t look really capable of beating very many teams either. At our best even in this stop start season we could take them apart. Unfortunately we could also dominate possession and lose to a couple of quick counter attacks, it’s an outcome which we don’t want to consider today. A lot of people are predicting a very open game based on both sides having a loose hinged back door allied to attacking mentalities. Of course that entirely ignores the fact that Arsène will want to tighten up the defensive side of our game having seen us pegged back from winning positions in recent matches. I’m excited at the prospect of Theo’s continuing recovery and were he not suffering with his groin, he might have been expected to start in place of Sanchez who will be eating his breakfast while the rest of the squad are having their supper. Or something. I take my holidays an hour down the road at Brean so I’m not all that clear on jet lag, what it is or how it affects people. With Welbeck knackered wasting his talent playing in a pointless international, Giroud not match fit, and Sanogo just back from injury I haven’t a clue who will start up front. Sadly it is atrocious luck with injuries which once again will define our season. Not the manager. Not the tactics, the training, the referees, the opposition’s spending power but pure and simple rotten luck.

It’s hard to bear but for today’s match it is rendered almost irrelevant as the opposition have had their fair share of injuries too. Nowhere near as disruptive as ours nor over such a long period but when you look at the side they cannot field today it does look as if the playing field may be a little more level than usual. The Mirror even goes so far as to provide us all with a graphic. Funny, I can’t recall journalists making such a song and dance about the way injuries have destroyed our title challenge season after season but then, Arsenal aren’t the media darlings that United have always been.

Today I shall be watching the entire thing from the kick off and I hope that we can stick it to Mike Riley, The FA, Sky the BBC et al and take their favourites to pieces. If Giroud really is fit enough to start and can hit the ground running I believe we have more than enough to beat them even with the players we will be missing. He has been the grease in our gears since he arrived, at the heart of so many of our best moves and very best goals. A massively underrated player, who has the prefect first touch, the vision, the selfless team play and a pretty good eye for goal but above all he keeps the ball moving. So much of our attacking play has looked faltering without him. Oh, and he’s pretty handy defending corners and other set pieces which I have to admit would be no bad thing.

So chin up Positivistas, today is, for me, and many other non London based Arsenal fans, the big one. Can we win? Of course. We can win any game, the script hasn’t been written yet and this Arsenal team hasn’t shown what it is really capable of yet this season. This evening would be a perfect time to start.

And now we have Andrew @anicoll5 , (don’t tell me this blog is on the decline !)

The cyber static clears, the media can break from its incessant clatter for a moment, the blogocracy can wind its collective neck in in anticipation, and that instant of hush caused by  another football contest, and one that is traditionally between the two biggest clubs in the country, and usually a highlight of the season’s fixtures for both clubs. While I rely on the figures produced elsewhere this is the 200^th league game between the clubs, stretching back to a 3-3 draw between Woolwich Arsenal and Newton Heath on the 13^th October 1894.

And into the silence, albeit a short silence until the noise starts up again,  I come with my three ha’pence worth. Let me illuminate the scene tonight, as I see it;

It seems to me a long time since the final whistle blew in South Wales. The opportunity finally arrives to right the wrongs of the Liberty, to set our compass for the Pole and stride onwards.  To open our eyes and our minds to the joy of football, and more particularly Arsenal football, again.

A wet day in London and likely to remain so to kick off and through the game. And what therefore can we expect to see as Mr Michael Leslie Dean, hops, skips and a puff of his shiny pink cheeks at 5.30 p.m. Our first meeting with the Wirral whistler this season I see,  which just goes to prove you can’t keep a good man down.

I shall not stray into the statistics that attempt to measure the event and predict the future based upon the arithmetical measurement of previous events. As Rich so eloquently explained this week( I think), statistics are right about 50% of the time, and wrong 50% of the time. I will not ponder who ill be deemed fit and remain fit until 7.20 p.m. , and who will not. We all have our favourite players and hypothetical starting line up, an infinite jigsaw of flair and steel. You are a well informed bunch and know enough to make your own minds up.

Both sides come into the game below full strength but with more than enough good and experienced footballers, particularly in the attacking departments to ensure that it will not end 0-0. I do not however ser a lot of goals. The handbrakes will be on, the result of paramount importance for both sides.

Both sides have had at various times in recent weeks, against the Belgians for us, against Leicester for our visitors, a dose of the ‘yips’ that embarrassed both clubs, players, manager and fans. For me that suggests that today there will be less concentration on the high pressing game we have tried this season, Mikel will tackle more and run less, more care taken of possession and no time on the ball or for self indulgence. Again that suggests the scoreboard will not click over more than once or twice.

I sense however it will be our afternoon. We are physically stronger this year, slightly cleverer, and at home. The Ems will rock, as it always does on big game afternoons. And it will bring our first win since Sunday 1^st May 2011. What will make the difference, where does he spark of confidence come from  ?

“The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.”

So said the immortal Vince Lombardi. It is wisdom and a message I think that our players have grasped and can put into practice in the undeniably tight contest tonight.