Your Vision Your Vision - An epiphany plus some thoughts
Written by Ahmed El Hawary on Sunday, 19 February 2012 16:37
We sport fans & players are a superstitious bunch, we have our lucky shirts, bars & even lucky ( & unlucky ) people. Some don't wash their lucky socks and/or their lucky underwear. We feel that the slightest change in our winning routine will have a butterfly effect and jinx our team. Of course these superstitions are just some nonsense, but that's how much we love our respective teams, how much we love to win, that we invent these superstitions to feel we're part of the team we love and to blame these superstitions for our teams' losses.
I was am superstitious when it comes to Arsenal. I wasn't always, but I became really superstitious in the past few years. I never wear my Arsenal kit in big games, I have two friends ( let's call them X & Y) that I never watch Arsenal games with (they aren't fans of any particular team but the like football) and if Arsenal play a difficult team twice in quick succession or have multiple difficult back to back games I know that we can only win one of them, for example as soon as i found out that we were going to play sunderland away twice with a trip to milan in between I started to think about which match I'd rather we won and when Henry scored the winner at sunderland I jumped in elation only to stop mid air and think "Fuck....that means we're out of the FA cup".
It's hard being superstitious, but a few days ago ( before the Facup loss to Sunderland ) I had an epiphany, I decided to look more closely at the things that I think bring Arsenal bad luck. And this my friends is what I found: I generally used to wear my Arsenal jersey only in big games, Man U, Chelsea, Barca....etc. We lose most of these games, my friends X & Y don't watch Arsenal every game, but they watch big games, el clasicos, derbys, cup knockouts and finals....we almost always lose those as well and when we play difficult teams in quick succession or in a two legged knockout we lose those, numerous back to back games...we lose more than we win.
My point is, I'm not superstitious because that's just me, no I became superstitious because we're just not good enough. How many times over the past few ( six) seasons have we lost big games or finals. All the things that I think bring me bad luck are the things that normally happen before and during big games and sadly we lose too much of those. I live in Egypt so it isn't the easiest thing for me to go watch Arsenal in the flesh, last season I saved some money, flew to London to watch my first Arsenal game since I became a fan 14 years ago, put on my Arsenal shirt and the game I went to......our first home loss to spurs in two decades!!! Thankfully since then I've went to this seasons wins against west brom (3-0) and blackburn (7-1) where I didn't put on my Arsenal shirt. Of course these weren't big games ( although *sarcasm alert* some would argue considering our record against those teams in this and last season).
So enough with all my gibberish, lets talk about what's really happening at the club and how on earth are we going to get out of this "transitional period". It's no shame losing to A.C Milan, its not the end of the world if a team concedes 4 goals to Milan but what's unacceptable the way this team played in such a game. Firstly why on earth did Arsene Wenger change the formation for this game, with all due respect to Rosicky and Arteta they really aren't effective players. I know Arteta has been great for us & he's one of the very intelligent players I've ever sen play football BUT he just isn't effective in assisting and scoring goals. During his time in Arsenal he scored 4 goals and had 2 or 3 assists in all competitions. maybe these numbers aren't that bad but considering he's playing behind one of the world's most prolific strikers these numbers start to look a little weak, and I urge you to give previous arsenal matches a look and try to spot how many times Arteta has the ball in the middle of the park and either Van persie or walcott start to run expecting a cesc like lobbed through ball but almost always a sideways pass is what he does. And rosicky, I dont know if he's just unlucky or if he's really bad but nothing is coming off for him, all his shots are either sliced ( example 2nd half against milan ) or shot directly at a defender and most of his through balls are either longer than needed or straight to a defender. So having both of them at the same time instead of having two wide players made the team a little less mobile.
But one could argue that we played with two wingers against sunderland and lost as well, I guess this means we're just not good enough. The thing that really really bugged me is that I really don't feel that our players care at all, for example for milan's first goal no defender was near boateng and we always think why players score wonder goals against us? well because we give them all the time and space in the world to do so. For milans second bacary sagna decides that Ibrahimovic is offside and decides to stop running to raise his hand!!! the phrase play to the ref's whistle come to mind, and it actually happened at the beginning og the match as well but that time ibra was called offside although replays showed it was too close for comfort. Walcott also had a moment where he was defending a corner and decided not to run towards the ball and just stood there!!! there is really something wrong if the players aren't busting their guts in such a game.
As for the sunderland game, as soon as I saw the lineup I knew deep down what kind of game it would be, we've been there too many times before it's getting ridiculous. The only thing I would say is at least I feel chamberlain is really trying even if he own goaled.
I've been one of Wenger's biggest fan over the years, but I really believe his time at the club is up. Six years of the same problems, six years of conceding from set pieces, six years of inability of scoring from set pieces, six years of conceding more goals than a top team should, six years of selling our best players, six years of buying players with potential that either never fulfill it or when they do they jump ship, six years of injuries ( Something must be wrong in the way they train or in what they eat because this has been the only consistent thing in our team) six years of excuses. If nothing has changed in six years I can't see it changing soon without changing the manager, at least another manager might tell our player that they can score from setpieces and long range shots.
Why would wenger apply for a special talent permit for Ryo when he never played him, only to loan him out last month, where although still early, he's not doing too bad for bolton in his first two games. Park anyone?? why was he bought?? Why was the sale of Cesc & Nasri left so late with no replacements available?? What if we don't qualify for the champions league, who will we be able to buy to help this team, & IF we do qualify will we wait until we are guaranteed qualification before we go but players? by which time all good players have been either sold or if we do get the players we want they would need time to gel. I'm getting sick and tired of the same story year after year.
I was watching a stream of an arsenal game (can't be bothered to remember which) on fox soccer channel, where Gazidis called and said that we were in three competitions while City were in one so we're in a better situation than them!!! really!! I mean you should see the reaction of the pundits when they heard that. We're becoming a laughing stock and no one in the club seems to care.
Yes some players might leave if Wenger leaves, but really ask yourselves this, how many of this Arsenal team are irreplaceable? I would say with the exception of Van persie & maybe vermaelin the rest are all replaceable. We need proven players with experience, we need the likes of Hazard, Canales maybe even a Snijder, no matter how much they cost, and sadly we need a new manager, a new way of thinking, some one that doesn't reward mediocrity ( really Djourou for two more seasons? lets hope we can tie squilacci to a long term contract).
The way I see it, they only way we can keep Van persie at the club is if he sees quality players being signed or else I would not blame him if he wanted to jump ship as all our good players have been doing lately. And for those who say we need to have a self sustaing financial model, I say go watch the stock market, because its really simple, fans pay money to watch their club win and sponsors pay more money for teams that have more following, so a team like barcelona gets more money from sponsors than a team like plymouth argyle for example. If we look at liverpool, Addidas dropped being there official kit supplier because of their lack of success, and starting next season Warrior sports are their kit supplier, now some would tell me that Warrior actually paid liverpool more money that addidas were, but the problem is that addidas store are available in most countries in the world so their kits would sell more than being with warrior sport who only have stores in the U.S.
Sorry for this long incoherent post, my 2nd in a week, but I really do believe that some drastic changes need to happen in order to prevent us from falling even further, just look at where ajax are right now. And don't you guys miss how trophies felt?
Thank you for the article Ahmed. You ask how many of the squad are irreplaceable but I think it is too early to ask that question purely because of the design of this squad on the whole.
We are all concerned at our situation to varying degrees, we are not used to the position we find ourselves in and we do not know exactly which direction the club is going. The sooner we as fans realise that we find ourselves back in transition the better. How long this transition takes is anybodies guess.
We hemorrhaged players last summer, one player who was vital to the way we played the game and had been for some time. As Wenger Boy said in a great recent article, building a team is like rotating a rubix cube. Somehow I don't believe that this is Wenger's final twist of the cube.
I remain optimistic about a good number of players in our squad. One in particular that hasn't kicked a competitive ball so far this season and who we all expect to grow and improve considerably. While there are plenty of bodies in this squad who are unlikely to have much of a future at the club and for the most part I hope that they will be moved on during the summer, we cannot pretend that we do not have plenty of quality to build around.
After an awful summer, bad patches of form and some big injuries we currently sit above billionaire owned Chelsea in the table in mid February. This is because contrary to popular belief we actually still have good players, very good players and one of the best strikers in world football.
My big concern is not making fourth and our manager not having the money he needs to spend in the transfer window. Going back to which players are irreplaceable, I guess we will only know once our new team has been completed.
A quick point on why we brought Ryo to Arsenal. We bring in players to the club early so we can educate them on how we play the game at Arsenal, to be given pointers on how to develop their strong points. Once they have been integrated into the squad then they can go on loan to get game time and in Ryo's case, hopefully develop physically.
So far so good for Ryo at Bolton.
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