Freaking AKBs

That's more like it - a bit of optimism! Normally I can't bear to look at Arsenal blogs after a defeat, it's always too depressing.

However, whilst addressing our appalling record from set pieces, we should also be looking at our medical staff. Every season, injuries cause massive problems which Gooners often cite as season-defining. For example, we have had problems with RVP, Fabregas, Henry, Gallas, Walcott, Nasri, Ramsey, Diaby, Song, Clichy etc for many seasons, and it always seems that their absence comes at a crucial time. Losing Vermaelen for so long has been a massive blow, but why do we constantly suffer from such injuries?

I agree with Mean Lean's response completely. Seeing crosses being whipped into the box when no one is there is so frustrating. Chamakh should be given more chances (he hasn't been given many since RVP's return, leading Gooners to say his form is poor, but he has barely played), because we know that he can score headers. Furthermore, I wish Walcott, RVP, Cesc, Wilshere and Nasri would get into the box and really fight for the ball. They need to do their all to get a touch for a goal, not stand on the edge of the box, waiting for the cross to be cleared so they can play a pretty one-two or some fancy flicks.

The Shameful Media Witch-hunt


I can take defeat. I can accept that our players are not quite good enough and I also acknowledge that Arsene Wenger has made some crucial errors of judgement both in transfers and tactics. However, what I can't accept is the way that, over the past 18 months, my club, its players and management have been hounded, vilified and broken into pieces by all corners of the media. So called television pundits have slated Arsenal continuously - showing no mercy - I recall one game where Theo Walcott
Scored an impressive hat-trick, only for Alan Hansen to rip into him and point out
A whole host of failings in him, making our win and outstanding display feel tainted.
Then there are the Sky TV ‘experts’ such as Phil Thompson – who when asked at the start of the season who would finish in the top four, he omitted Arsenal and when quizzed by Jeff Stelling he replied: ‘Arsenal are nowhere – not good enough.’ Then there is the internet – a platform for everyone to jump on the ‘Hate Arsenal’ bandwagon – and finally the press, who have hounded, upset and unsettled almost every Arsenal player, have constantly slated every performance and have lambasted one of the finest managers ever to grace these shores. It has conveniently not mentioned perfectly good ‘offside’ goals such as RVP at Spurs or Arshavin v Blackburn, or the incredible refereeing decisions – most notably Phil Dowd v Sunderland, Newcastle and Spurs at home. In short, what has transpired is an absolute disgrace and can only be compared to the bullying of a school child, first at school, then cyber bullying and finally hounded into complete submission.

What I really find incredible is that all Arsenal and their manager try to do is be the best that they can be. They are financially stable through careful management and planning, they encourage youth to develop and strive to entertain as much as they can. In the past 11 seasons they have never finished outside of the top four, have delivered Champions League football and served up some classic encounters against some of the finest teams in the World. They have always tried to maintain a workable wage structure (in a time when some players earn £220,000 a week) and where possible refuse to pay over-inflated transfer fees.

So that is Arsenal’s crime! There are murderers who get better treatment – but now the press and everyone else have got what they have wanted. There is no way we can win the league now – I suppose we will have to settle for the disgrace of Champions League football again. But it won’t stop there, we have the summer to come, where every newspaper every day will try to convince Cesc Fabregas, Nasri and Robin Van Persie that Arsenal are finished. Hang your heads in shame all of you who have been instrumental in harassing and bullying one of the country’s finest managers into a wreck with your personal slurs and insults. I hope that you are contented with your efforts.

Nice confirmation.Its not a suprise that there are 4 thumbs down.

True..sometimes it seems there is an agenda against Arsenal but we dont make it any easier on ourselves.If we won emphatically and consistently enough we would have a solid foundation to stand on whenever we claimed media foul play.
you talk about shameful..what I find shameful is the fact that you think that the board and manager are doing their best when clearly El Capitano himself who is an inside man thinks otherwise.Do you really think Cesc enjoyed saying the things he said to the Spanish media?There is no smoke without fire my friend.best believe that.

my "Good Points but..." reply was meant for you buddy

what a load of tripe....is it not the managers job to have the required personel in place as injuries(especially at Arsenal)are part n parcel of the game? also surely the stadium debt is irrelevant as AW has said for a number of seasons he has had money available and has said that he doesn't intend to spend it!

dont know if you noticed this season but Rio Ferdinand has been missing for most of it but i'm sure Man Utd are top of the league,think Alex has been missing for most of it as well but Chelsea went and did something about it and i'm sure they are 2nd.....we did nothing and where are we again?

we were not that great even when Vermelen was around. stop dreaming that everything will be ok when he comesback. are you clowns paid by Wenger and PHW to publish this rubbish. wake up you delusional muppets

I love this point!!!solid!

Good to see a bit of perspective. Yes, it's disappointing to end the season without a trophy after it promised so much, but there is no point throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I don't think I could have said that better Iceman. absolutely spot on, with everything you said- it is about time al those various people stopped bullying Arsenal about the 'disaster' that is a grand total of 6 years without a trophy and yet never mention Liverpool's lack of league success or Tottenham's lack of results considering their spending. No-one else is bullied like Arsenal, pundits do my head in the most because they should know better- they are too simplistic and stereotypicla, I'd love to see the likes of Phil Thompson or Paul Merson (who seems to hate Arsenal nowadays) try doing better than Arsene Wenger. Lets not forget the reason they are Soccer Saturday- because they aren't good enough to be managers- they just sit there wagging their fingers and carping.

Nowhere near as much as TV though, and Alex isn't Chelsea's main CB, nor is RF really. Plus we've had to cope without RVP, Fabregas, Djourou and Walcott at times as well.

I also liked how you pointed out the Walcott thing- i remember that well as he'd just torn Blackpool apart and Arsenal won 6-0 and yet still the MOTD pundits criticised!

Well.guess what?Not every one can be a manager!of what use is a bulb when there is no switch?talking about people hating us!!hating us for what?You can play the victim but its patently obvious that we are just not good enough!

Its absolutely amazing reading you AKB losers celebrating failure and blaming the ref, the media, the weather, conspiracy etc etc etc. As Dev said you are a bunch of delusional Muppets.

After reading this article, to a certain degree I understand your point and to a certain degree I disagree.
First, to celebrate that we are not getting relegated is just an insult to this team. We are Arsenal FC, and we do not associate with relegation. To be more precise, not being relegated is not something we should be proud of, its something that we should not think of. The thing is that I feel that the club considers staying in the premier league a success, uhhh no, its not. Complacency like that is a good enough excuse for the players to provide mediocrity on the field and leave feeling like they did a good job.
Second, I can honestly say that Arsenal FC is more than one play, and its more than a few players, its made of ALL the players. So missing Vermaelen is not an excuse for us. The lack of leadership is also evident in the fact that the teams problem with organization has been pointed out several times in the season. I'm sure the players watch television and probably watch reports on their games and what the pundits say. If everyone says that Arsenal needs leadership and structure in the back, its should be motivation for someone to step up and take up that role. I think that's why a defender like Squillaci was brought to Arsenal. An experienced and seasoned CB who was supposed to take the reins, WITH vermaelen, just like Vermaelen did with Gallas. Unfortunately he couldn't take it, in the absence of Vermaelen and that was just the beginning of his misfortune.
Finally, the team needs to develop a sense of urgency. I say that because I, as a fan, was guilty of the same thing too this season. We were all so caught up in catching up and keeping up with manchester united that we lost track of chelsea coming in the rear. So when we tied all those games, we saw it as 2 points lost in the title race, but failed to realize that it was 2 points gained to chelsea until they beat birmingham and we tied to the spurs, and we realized that they had taken enough of our dropped points to leapfrog us. With that being said, Man City are only 5 points behind us and have a game in hand. A win on that game takes them 2 points behind us, and another loss for us and a win for them knocks us out of guaranteed UEFA champions league and into qualifications. I made the mistake of overlooking a backslide, I wont do that again. I Hope the team does not either.

Great article mate

When TV was in the team we shipped goals the problem is not the just the back 4 where only Sagna is anywhere near good enough.Clichy cant defend and Kos and Djourou are only back up players.The main problem is Song.He is not a DM.He does not protect the back 4.We need someone to win the ball and give it to our skilful players like Cesc and Jack not run around the pitch like a headless chicken.

This season is nothing to celebrate.Both Man Utd and Chelsea have been well below the form they have in previous season.The title was there for the winning.No one can argue that,If both Man Utd and Chelsea had had blinding seasons we could put our hands up and say they were better team but this has not been the case.And those saying Wenger will make changes in the summer ,he will but will they be of the same quality of Squillaci or Chamakh? To win just 1 game in 7 and pick up just 8pts out of 21 tells you there really is a mental problem in our team.We have been sulking since the Birmingham defeat

Wenger: The Case for the Prosecution
By Emmanuel Fyle

Evidence for a change at the top is overwhelming

Everyone knows what Arsene Wenger has achieved for this club, but it is time for Arsenal fans to stop talking about the past, and to stop believing in the ‘bright future’ continuously promised every year since 2006 but which never actually arrives.


Merci for the memories
I hear an awful lot of different theories on Arsenal players and Arsene Wenger. One thing that is undeniable is that this Arsenal team is subject to serious mental deficiency, and is psychologically brittle. The evidence is overwhelming and well documented – from repeated frittering of leads against Spurs, Newcastle and Wigan to the infamous recent Liverpool fiasco.

While the players tend to bear the brunt of the criticism, there comes a time when Arsenal fans need to stop blaming individuals for their crass stupidity and patent inability to learn, and start looking at the methodology behind the coaching and continuous selection of these players. Although the names of the players complained about keep changing – Hleb, Silvestre, Squillaci, Denilson, Bendtner – to name but a few - there has been one constant, common denominator - Arsene Wenger. The ingrained loser’s mentality that is now prent in the club has been fostered by Wenger’s culture of over-permissiveness, and his refusal to apportion blame where it is due. I have lost count of the number of times I have seen unacceptable behaviour by an Arsenal player, rewarded by the said player walking straight back into the team. As an example: Abou Diaby’s insanity at St James Park. Had Diaby cost any other big club in the manner he cost Arsenal, be sure that he would have been reprimanded in such a manner that he would have been afraid ever to transgress again. Instead, imagine my horror to see Diaby booting the ball away completely needlessly at Blackpool, in a match Arsenal were in total control of.

We subsequently found out that it was Robin van Persie who had to administer some semblance of dressing room discipline to Diaby. We are also informed by Arshavin that after becoming the first team in history to throw away a 4 goal lead at Newcastle, the manager said ‘nothing’ to the players. This constant lack of discipline has been encouraged by Wenger, who is only too willing to blame anyone and everything but his own flawed management and methodology.

I honestly fail to see how anyone can present a fact-based case, based on recent evidence, as to how Arsene Wenger can remain as Arsenal manager. He is the root cause of our malaise. A manager who insists that he would ‘sign up for twenty years’ to second place, has no business calling himself the manager of a club of Arsenal’s standing, and the fans should certainly not accept such a climate of complacency.

The dwindling amount of AKBs who sit on the fence and claim that: ‘I want Arsene to stay, I just want him to change’ are effectively and unwittingly providing a vote of no confidence. This is tantamount to a husband claiming that ‘I want to stay with my wife, I just want her to completely change who she is’. Alternatively, it would be like demanding an entire government cabinet be fired, but for the Prime Minister to remain in situ, despite being the central figure of that cabinet.

Arsene Wenger is incapable of change. He has been indulged for far too long, and Arsenal fans now need to ask themselves whether we can allow ourselves to consider Arsenal a ‘big club’ if the greater concerns of the club are now secondary to the whims of one man. Is Wenger bigger than the club? If we are a small club who would implode under the weight of Wenger’s departure, then yes, Arsenal are a small club whose future depends on one individual.

This is clearly a fictitious notion. Arsenal are a big club, who were in possession of ten league titles long before Arsene Wenger had arrived at this club. There are a number of occurrences that take place at this club that are in my view, patently unacceptable.

We are (mis)informed that Wenger does an excellent job ‘despite the financial constraints he is under’. This is not a fact-based argument and appears rather weak when one considers that Arsenal have a wage bill of over £110 million. Spurs have a reported wage bill of just £67 million. There is a massive financial disparity right there, but this is never mentioned when Wenger’s so-called financial prudence is uttered. The insistence on renewing the contracts of undeserving individuals has created a false economy, and a system that is the polar opposite of a meritocracy. The manager has assured a mediocre group of players that irrespective of performance, they will not be subjected to competition for places as this may ‘kill’ them.

Could you imagine applying such an absurd notion to a real-life working environment?

Wenger’s other faults have little or nothing to do with finances. Coaching a defence to defend set-pieces costs little, and when Alex McLeish is tactically outthinking you in a cup final, you know there is a major issue. Appointing a number 2 to challenge your authority costs very little, yet Jack Wilshere claims that Jens Lehmann at half-time against Blackpool was ‘like an assistant manager’. Oh is that so? So what is Pat Rice?

The most grating problem, and the reason Arsene Wenger in my opinion needs to be thanked and then shown the door, is that the ‘six years no trophies’ is not the main issue. The main issue is that Arsene Wenger has the resources at his disposal to rectify glaring deficiencies in the team, but he continues to show a complete disregard for this, and seems more concerned about bringing his pet ‘project’ to fruition. Wenger makes derisory comments about the fans, yet, these people who ‘have not worked even half a day in football’ seemed to know their stuff about Manuel Almunia, about Denilson’s suitability as a holding midfielder and about playing Van Persie (a number 10) as the focal point of an attack without a number 9 to run the line.

Arsene Wenger cannot, and will not change. It is a forlorn fantasy to expect him to do so. The more Wenger is challenged, the more entrenched he becomes, and this is evidenced by his outrageous comments in press conferences, followed up by the dim-witted Hill-Wood’s ill-advised, crass commentary.

Those that witter on about money fail to note for instance, that despite Laurent Koscielny having cost more than Nemanja Vidic, Vincent Kompany, Patrice Evra and Ivanovic, he has yet to learn that as a defender you simply do not go to ground inside the penalty area. This proves the lack of attention to tactical detail that takes place at Arsenal and this is a managerial issue that has not been rectified.

A further and more grave issue that has disheartened many Arsenal fans is the leadership issue. Again, Wenger has shown a patent disregard for the fans when he claimed that ‘in England you like to focus on fighting qualities a little too much’. He went on to extol the virtues of the ‘collective expression’ they so treasure in France. May I please be reminded at this juncture which country Wenger manages in please?

The leadership issue dovetails nicely with the Cesc Fabregas scenario. It has become apparent, through his increasingly vocal and acerbic public outbursts, that Cesc Fabregas is angling for a move away from Arsenal. Fabregas is a superb footballer, who has been badly let down by his manager, who failed to surround him with the requisite quality to make Cesc believe in this team. His desire to leave is understandable. However I, like many others, was extremely disappointed with his shena****ns in the Nou Camp prior to the Barca game when he was canoodling and giggling with his future team-mates.

The past three Arsenal captains have all presented us with evidence of the lack of foresight that has gone into the Arsenal captaincy. The captaincy of Arsenal is important, it is an honour to be bestowed and not a leverage tool to appease want-away star players. Arsene Wenger first did this with Patrick Vieira whom, despite being a superb captain and leader, was desperate to leave Arsenal in our Invincible season. Real Madrid made an official bid of £31 million that was turned down after a protracted saga. After a season of going through the motions, visible through Vieira’s body language, he was sold at a knockdown £14 million to Juventus. So the next time someone mentions Wenger’s ‘constrained finances’, any manager willing to lose out £17 million on a transfer whilst increasing the unhappy player’s contract cannot be in dire straits.

The Cesc situation is a mirror of the Vieira scenario. Now we are hearing the usual howls from some Gooners claiming ‘Sell Cesc for £50 million and use the money to sign such and such’.

As long as Arsene Wenger is in charge, that money will never be used. I am still to this day, waiting with bated breath to see what will happen to the £41 million we received from Manchester City for Kolo Toure and Emmanuel Adebayor.

Arsene Wenger is not doing the Arsenal job out of love and charity. He is remunerated to the tune of £6.5 million per year. He has not won a single trophy in six years and attempts to persuade the world that finishing top four – whilst managing the team with the third/fourth highest wage bill in the league – is an achievement. It is not an achievement. And when a manager is being paid more than Alex Ferguson and Pep Guardiola, you really need to begin to ask yourself what fact-based justification there can be for keeping him in his role. We are often asked by the AKBs ‘who would you replace him with?’

Big clubs do not rely on the strength of one man, they evolve and never fear change. They show adaptability. Better managers than Arsene Wenger, who have won more trophies than him have been moved on from big clubs. At Bayern Munich, Louis van Gaal won a domestic double, and came within a whisker of winning the Treble last season. Bayern were in the Champions League qualification places when van Gaal was handed his P45 for unacceptable performances.

Wenger has been demonstrating four years of unacceptable performances, and not once in this time has he ever demonstrated the humility and grace to apologise to fans of the club for some of these displays. Think back to all the travelling Gooners that went to Old Trafford for the FA Cup in 2008, when he threw the game, fielding a weak team that was hammered 4-0. Think back to Newcastle this season, a new unwanted Premier League record as a 4-0 lead was tossed away.

Another oft-quoted myth is that of Arsenal’s ‘beautiful football’ . This needs only slight investigation to disprove as nothing but a subjective theory. Going 360 minutes in the league without a single goal from open play is not ‘beautiful football’. Going to the Nou Camp and producing zero shots on or off target throughout 90 minutes; when even lowly teams like Almeria and Hercules manage this, is quite simply unacceptable (another unwanted record), no matter how good Barcelona are. Beautiful football, as Evra so cruelly and correctly highlighted, is the kind that succeeds and wins trophies; which is the reason Barcelona are rightly lauded as the master exponents of the art.

Next season will be an action replay of this one unless drastic changes are made, and these need to begin at the top. Wenger has done great things for the club in the past but has now morphed into an autocrat, unchallenged upon his throne and this needs to change. Perhaps Ivan Gazidis, whose appointment was comically ratified by Wenger (a bit like a prisoner choosing his own parole officer), could actually perform duties beyond his spouted ‘Arsenalisation’. The Arsenal board are just as complicit in our lack of success as Wenger is, and this should never be forgotten.

Arsene Wenger can, and should be replaced. He has been given more than sufficient chances. A new manager coming in to this Arsenal squad would have the job of instilling a new mentality, based on a meritocracy, and not who he likes best, or who he sees as the future of French football. There are managers out there: Villas Boas at Porto is young, hungry and served his tutelage under Mourinho.

‘Oh but he is unproven’, I hear the cries.

Is winning the Portuguese league less of an achievement than winning the J-League in Japan then? Besides is ‘the Arsenal way’ not to do with giving youth a chance? Villas Boas is just 34 years of age. The fact that he is unproven strikes an ironic chord, since unproven players seem to be order of the day at Arsenal, and the club has no problem playing and paying a bunch of unproven players. Failing this, Pep Guardiola leaves Barcelona in 2012. So Wenger can be given his final season to prove that he cannot win the league by making a profit, and Guardiola can take the reins in 2012.

Even Wenger’s signings these days are underwhelming: you have a striker on £80k a week filing his nails on the bench, even when the team are desperately chasing a goal with 20 minutes to go. What does that indicate to you about Chamakh’s quality when the much-maligned Bendtner is consistently trusted ahead of him? The less said about Squillaci the better.

Merci pour les memoires Arsene, but I think it’s time we started seeing other people. You have taken us as far as you can – now we need someone else to push us to the next level.

28th April 2011

The case for the prosecution was written by Emmanuel Fyle form Onlinegooner