Written by Subir Kumar Roy on Saturday, 20 November 2010 12:55

Which team CONTRIVES to lose from winning positions? ARSENAL

Which team is 2-0 up and ends up LOSING 3-2 at the end of the game (Wigan last year)? ARSENAL

Which team CONCEDES goals from SET PIECES more often which end up costing the game? ARSENAL

Which team plays apparently the most BEAUTIFUL, ENTERTAINING football but still manages to LOSE spectacularly? ARSENAL

Which team has not yet learnt CLOSING down games in one of the most physical of leagues? ARSENAL

Which team realises the STRENGTHS of the opposition that can HURT big time (Messi, Drogba, Bale etc) but will not do enough to NEUTRALIZE them? ARSENAL

Which team’s weaknesses are most vividly documented, but those responsible have not done enough to REDRESS the same? ARSENAL

Which team has one of the most MODERN stadiums, costing millions of dollars only to have mastered the art of losing at home turf of late? ARSENAL

Which team’s players probably do not understand the MEANING of being at a top club, WEARING the team shirt and losing a DERBY at HOME? ARSENAL

Which team went UNBEATEN a whole season and now is the most likely team to LOSE against its BITTER rivals? ARSENAL

Which team needs reminding of its PROUD and MAGNIFICIENT history? ARSENAL

Now before all the rest of you, go hammer and tongs at me, for criticizing Arsenal after a loss, take a moment to ask yourselves these questions and if the answer screaming back at you is ARSENAL you will be HURT and ANGRY. It should be no comfort that there are other teams also, that answer some of the above.

The only emotions that have remained after the game is pure hurt and anger, hurt and anger of having lost to our bitter most rivals at home, hurt and anger of epitomizing all that is good and correct in the world of football but of late, having nothing to show for it, hurt and anger that this wonderful club/team needs a reminder of its MAGNIFICIENT history.

There will be no game analysis or “coulda, woulda, shoulda”. Monsieur Wenger and the players earn a fortune to deal with this headache and heartache, there are enough blokes to dissect, analyze and drown their sorrows in a glass of beer.

Don’t tell me that Chelsea also lost, we are currently third in the league, have consistently been in the top four for the past few years and made it continuously to the Champions League year in, year out, finished above Spuds in the league and hadn’t been beaten by the Spuds at our home turf in the last 17 years etc etc.

So as long as the above questions remain, and more importantly the answer to each of the above questions remains ARSENAL, I am HURT and ANGRY. Are you Monsieur?

Mean Lean's Response

I think I should make readers aware that this article was submitted a few hours after the actual game so as with all of us, emotions were running high and that has to be taken into consideration.

Perhaps your feelings are exactly the same on this Monday morning, I do not know. It has been a painful experience for everyone involved in the club. Some of the abuse directed at our manager since then from blogs and forums has been in my opinion, disgusting.

Everyone has a right to question the manager's ability if they think he is not doing the job sufficiently, I do not agree but that is their right and their own view but the personal, xenophobic insults only show what type of person you are. Proper Arsenal fans do not behave in that manner.

Anyway, apologies I am veering away from this article.

To be honest, the first points in the article are pretty baseless without a direct comparison with other clubs and many of the points can be flipped around.

For example.

"Which team is 2-0 up and ends up LOSING 3-2 at the end of the game (Wigan last year)? ARSENAL"

Which team has gained the most amount of points by scoring in between the 80th-90th minute? ARSENAL

"Which team’s players probably do not understand the MEANING of being at a top club, WEARING the team shirt and losing a DERBY at HOME? ARSENAL"

Which team has only lost twice in the last 17 years against their rivals? The lowest loss percentage for a derby in the Premier League? ARSENAL

Whilst it is easy at a time like this to highlight our flaws, we must not lose sight of our strengths. If we only had flaws then we could be sat two points from the bottom of the league. Instead we are two points from the top. Why are we two points from the top when many fans (like above) have highlighted so many apparent problems?

The answer is simple, we have qualities that many, many teams in world football want to have in their squads. We have some of the most talented personnel in world football.

Whilst our mental weaknesses are visible at times we have to hope that we can see less of that and more of our strong points. It is not one way, both negative or positive.

We are perceived as a weak defensive side where as before the game on Saturday we had the third best defensive record and have probably played the toughest away matches of all our rivals thus far. We are weak on set pieces right? Well Blackburn Rovers away pumped everything they had at us from all over the pitch yet we dealt with everything successfully. The goal they scored came from open play.

Wolves with two good wide men put in plenty of crosses yet 'Flappy' was unflappable and the defence won us the game. Manchester City (even with ten men) could not breach us at their own ground so let us not go overboard.

Once again, I am not closing my eyes, covering my ears and shouting 'NA NA NA NA!' at our failures. As painful as Saturday was, all we can do is hope that something clicks inside these players because if an outcome like that against Tottenham cannot shake them up then nothing will.

In the meantime, as supporters of the club we love so much. All we can do is hope that we can find positive consistency and show more of our strengths and less of our weaknesses.

If the saying the table doesn't lie is true, then two points off the top shows that we cannot be as bad as everyone makes out.

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Comments (8)

• 22-Nov-2010 10:34 | | Jan  - Arsenal fans deserve this Arsenal team
  

  We Arsenal fans deserve this Arsenal team. What have we done to impose our will on the club. Look at the ManU fans. Look at the Liverpool fans. And then look at the Arsenal fans. We are a bunch of wimps. We are quiet at the home stadium. We happily pay ridiculously expensive ticket prices to watch an underperforming team. We never show our feelings to the manager and the board. We deserve this losing team. We deserve this stubborn manager. We derserve this greedy board.

• 22-Nov-2010 10:45 | | Tom
  

  Mean,
  
  I'm sorry, but we've been poor defensively for a very long time.
  
  Look back at our results over the last 4 years and you'll see numerous capitulations. Whether we've surrendered 2 goal leads or been stuffed by one of our rivals, it makes grim reading. The Spurs game was merely the straw that broke the camel's back.
  
  Wenger has to take responsibility for this. The inability to forge a solid defensive unit is down to him. He buys the players and he decides our tactical set up. Neither have been up to scratch and this team are making the same mistakes over and over again.
  
  These shortcomings feed into frustrations about the transfer policies pursued by the club. In my opinion, the club seems to have taken a step backwards over the last 2 years. The Emirates Stadium was built to generate the funds needed to compete at the top end of the market. After a few lean years, we are now in the position to bring in the 3 or 4, top quality, ready made players that we desperately need.
  
  However, our transfer policies have remained in 'Highbury mode'. And, for whatever reason, rather than forging ahead while our rivals are in financial straitjackets, the club seems to be standing still. If regular Champions League football and 4th place was our objective all along, we should have stayed at Highbury and not wasted £350 million on the Emirates and Highbury Square development.
  
  Wenger is a great manager. A visionary, a club builder in the mould of Shankly. But I'm starting to wonder whether we need a new manager who will take Wenger's incredible work and move it onto the next level.
  
  Just for the record, in our last 24 league and cup games, we've lost approximately half of them.

• 22-Nov-2010 11:23 | | Lanre  - Grow up
  

  You are the best ML. Could agree more with ur reply to the article. We as the fans always want to find ways to criticise our team (even when we win). We have the same problems as d other top teams but we have held our own. Chelsea was missing only 2 playes and have lost back 2 back. No problem with that. When we lose, regardless of the number of players missing, then we are not good enough. Losing 2 spurs isnt a very bad thing to do but we av to move on. The writer should grow up.

• 22-Nov-2010 12:06 | | Subir Kumar Roy  - perspective
  

  Thanks to everybody including Mean Lean, who provide such valuable insight and varied perspective. I welcome all the criticism with energy and enthusiasm. Mean, you hit the nail on the head, this article was written very soon after the match and thereby the strong emotions have got reflected in the article. To my fellow Arsenal fans, I can only say that I am not a glory hunter and certainly do not harbor the thought that Arsenal have a divine right to win each and every match. I stand by Arsenal through thick and thin. My previous article (written unfortunately after the defeat to Chelsea) is testimony to the same. I wish I could cheer Arsenal at the Emirates, till my voice went hoarse, but living thousands of miles away from London in a cricket crazy country, I only blow the rooftop of my house, during every Arsenal match. It is similar to the sentiment in cricket and hockey that India simply cannot lose to ****stan. It is something bigger than love and pride. You could call it fanaticism really, terming it xenophobia is uncalled for.
  
  Tom has echoed one of the implicit sentiments in my article that the Emirates stadium was built with a very big objective of the club’s development, both on and off the field, nationally (UK) and globally. I have great respect for Mr. Wenger and all the players. Hope to see the success of Arsene Wenger’s project during his tenure in the club. Sincerely, do hope that my next article is after an Arsenal victory. Live and breathe Arsenal.
  
  BTW how the hell did Nas roll the ball into the net? Incredible.
  
  Gooner for life.

• 22-Nov-2010 12:28 | | richie  - Holding our nerve as supporters & supporting
  

  Well said ML! Yet again you stand firm and offer up the right perspective.
  Which is why although I read other blogs (with maybe one exception) I can't bring myself to contribute to all the rubbish they spout. I, like all Gooners was high on all the negative's after that match, and Arsene and the team need to look at themselves and how & why our defense didn't work.
  
  Now I'd like to suggest that as fans (those at the Emirates anyway) we need to look at ourselves and at our own contribution. At 2-1 Five mins after they scored the silence was deafening! And our contributional input was "0" The anxiety in the croud was palpable. At Highbury those onfield could feel the crouds contribution. This isn't a reflextion on the magnificent Emirates its a reflextion on our fickle supporters. (as demonstrated by much of the disgusting blog comments directed at our own)
  
  I know loads of our real supporters can't afford the ticket prices but those in the stands that can, ain't vocal enough for me! And the Emirates itself lends inself to sound. When we do sing and chant it rings around the ground. If we sang & chanted fortress Emirates it might well be! As fans lets clean up our own act before we ask others to clean up theirs.

• 22-Nov-2010 13:38 | | steve  - all you have to relise
  

  all you have to relise is it was going to happen sooner then later tottenham beating us that is, but it was just a really bad way to lose thats all, the players should donate half of there wages to charitys or something and wenger should apoligise. However when 2012 comes and England fail in the euros im about 95% sure this will happen, capello will be off like the mouse speedy gonzalez and rednapp will take his place then the spuds will fail once again and be bottom of the table and have carried on with there tradition of having more managers in and out then players. the clock is counting down. p.s. we still have a chance of winning the league carling cup champions league FA cup come on!

• 22-Nov-2010 14:27 | | Paxton Upper !..  - Cant smile without you !.
  

  How funny !..
  
  Wenger being compared to Shankly ..how exactly ?
  
  He joined a team with the best defence in England that George Graham put in place , he has since fluffed about , selling all your tacklers, selling cole, selling everyone...and replacing them with shit !..
  
  Now you compare him with Shankly, Meanwhile George Graham made people like Gary Doherty league cup winners with the worst side we have ever had..wake up you lot !...Wenger inherited a great team and has gone backwards since..the bloke is a kiddy fiddling C*NT !

• 22-Nov-2010 18:50 | | Wilsheres Dad
  

  Some very valid points here ..especially about the poor support showed by the majority of the Emirates crowd (I'm loath to call them 'fans'). Defence is an issue but more often than not it's the inability of the team to defend as a unit than the weakness of the defensive players that lets us down.
  However, this has been an issue for a long time & it needs to be addressed if we are going to gain any kind of champion winning consistancy.
  With respect to the week-end game...this is a massive defeat! Certainly the most important that Wenger has suffered since starting his "youth development" phase & possibly the most important in the EPL of his Arsenal career. Personally I think it's the defining moment for him
  and this current squad (project). It's all well & good to continually talk about increased maturity, spirit & desire, all of which were conspicuoulsy absent for most of the second half on Saturday.
  If the importance of this defeat is not taken on board by the squad, &
  lessons (really) learned, the project will have failed & we will continue
  as a team that simply makes up the numbers in the upper levels of the EPL & Champions League...but no more.

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