Gooners – (Try To) Keep Calm and Carry On
First things first, there is absolutely no justification for booing in a friendly. There are many ways of putting this but I’ll opt for the simple one; neither the match nor the tournament actually mattered. We dominated possession and showed some good signs going forward. We happened to be undone in the last 10 minutes of our second game in two days, this time against a side who are at peak fitness, given they’ve been playing competitively in a physically strong league since March.
All the booing does is show that some of our fans, content to partake of Mexican waves just half an hour earlier, are buying into an idea that Arsenal are rapidly losing direction. The dominant narrative around the club is one of stagnation, whether that is factually the case or otherwise. Some argue that our creaky defence has actually weakened despite the fact we’ve shed the greatest liability from last years back four and welcomed back Vermaelen from an extended lay off. Whilst the search for a centre half goes on, many of our problems back there could be solved by organisation and attitude, not exclusively through new personnel. Until we see competitive matches, how can we judge whether things are better or worse?
The air of stasis is fuelled by the media. The pre-season narrative follows a familiar pattern with Wenger cast as too tight to spend whilst premature season previews are filled with assumptions that everyone but us has improved and that our fall from the Champions League places is finally determined. The same prediction that has been made for the last six pre-seasons at least.
Despite the wide range of information sources at our fingertips the vast majority of hacks don’t actually know with any certainty what is happening behind closed doors. This of course doesn’t mean that the people that matter are sat around Highbury House snoozing at their desks. It just means we might have to keep a lid on our anger until something is confirmed as having happened. Or not happened as the case may be.
The complicated futures of Cesc and Nasri, to which a satisfactory conclusion to either saga has yet to appear, still loom over the club and mean that transfers have been harder to commit to. The players we need to sign depend heavily on the players which remain at the club. It’s fair to say that these cases could have been handled better but Wenger’s hard line on Nasri and insistence on not being taken to the cleaners over Fabregas are in place to protect the reputation – and future – of the club.
Whilst talk of imposing deadlines on Barca or board members communicating more boldly are all very well, I would assume that there are very good reasons why we’ve played it as we have. I wouldn’t pretend that I know exactly what’s happening in the corridors of power but, then again, neither do the vast majority of other commentators. I choose to reserve judgement until the first games have been played and the window has slammed shut.
As well as the uncertain future of two key players, we’ve also been criticised for an apparent inactivity in the market. With the business of transfers as it is, you can either pay well above what is reasonable in order to show intent, like Liverpool, or keep your powder dry, looking for players at reasonable prices who will improve your squad, moving when the deals are ready. Of course, the deadline is not far off and our first game is closer. Views will differ on this but I don’t see the value in spending whatever the seller wants to get a deal done early when the fee may well reduce as the deadline looms nearer. We need to improve certain areas but we are not so bad that we can’t manage the first few games of the season with the squad we have.
It often seems to be forgotten that the pool in which we are fishing is exceptionally shallow and is being trawled by every other top club in Europe. These deals are tricky hence there is no sense in Wenger saying that he really wants a specific player only to raise the pressure on the deal. Just imagine the deal he openly talks about doesn’t go through, Wenger would be left in an unmanageable situation of his own making. It is far better for the board to get their head down and do the work for the good of the club rather than to brag about who we’re flirting with this week. Would you rather the cautious Wenger approach or would you trade that for Harry Redknapp’s addiction to cliché ridden quotes garbled from the drivers’ seat of his executive motor?
It’s all well and good saying ‘look at United, they did their business early’, but they are the Champions – they can offer higher wages, and regarding Phil Jones, he’s a Lancashire lad! If he was from Potters Bar then he’d be a Gooner.
This lack of concrete knowledge about our club, coupled with the fact that a seat at Football is increasingly expensive and hard to come by means that some feel they have been alienated; reduced to the position of customers rather than fans. As a customer you pay up and expect something for your money; whether that be the parading of the utterly meaningless Emirates Cup or a routine 3-0 Premier League win. When punters see the team fail to win they feel that the right to be entertained has been replaced by the right to complain.
The problem is that there is no such thing as entitlement in Football. It doesn’t matter how good you once were, how expensive your seat was or how much money the club spends. There is never a guaranteed outcome. As a result, booing is about the least useful thing you can do at a game. If it is designed to urge the board to act and to hurry up a couple of transfers it is misguided. This is a pivotal season for Wenger therefore it makes no sense for him to rush in to a deal just to make summer more palatable for a few aggrieved fans.
Having said that, I really do hope that come September 1st, Ivan Gazidis has earned his salary and brokered deals that will have seen Wenger’s targets acquired within budget. Not being able to shed the dead wood has been a factor also, and maybe it would have made sense to lower our valuation of players that are obviously surplus to requirements. This, I believe the Board can rightly be criticised for.
Affiliation to a Football club doesn’t guarantee a certain number of star players, signings or trophies. Your Sky subscription or your season ticket means you get to watch Football matches, it doesn’t guarantee satisfaction. When it comes down to 11 v 11 this sport is unpredictable. Within reason anything can happen, any team can beat any other more so now than ever in the Premier League, so anyone coming to the ground, expecting to experience those advertised moments of fist pumping joy are more than likely going to be disappointed. If you want to guarantee an outcome or a return on your ticket price then I’m afraid Football isn’t, and never was, the game for you. The agonising defeats make victory and glory that bit more sweeter.
Of course, last season’s capitulation was crushingly familiar and the lack of certainty in the window isn’t filling many people with the optimism that pre-season should bring. We’re in a tricky time and yet more patience is required. At the moment we have plenty of training hours until the season kicks off and the best part of a month until business has to be concluded. Let’s reserve judgement until we know how this pans out. I might be proven wrong but it will only take a couple of positive moves in the next few weeks to get the disappointed faction back on side.
Keep The Faith. In Arsene We Trust.
Excellent article; brilliant read from a worried but realistic Gooner. Forward
A well thought out response.
If you are only interested in silverware there are plenty of clubs out there that are more than willing to buy trophies. We, as a club, have remained successful (top 4 in a difficult league, & getting into the CL is success) while managing a business on a tight budget. The alternative would be to do a Leeds, criple the club & hope for the best; I know which I’d prefer…
Disagree that we can get through the start of the season unscathed with this squad because by September last year we had dropped 5 points to ‘pool and West Brom, which made the difference between finishing 2nd and 4th. For 2011-12 we head straight into a tricky away tie at Toon then off to ‘pool and Utd. Can’t understand why you think we’ll get through that unscathed. Wenger has dallied too long and any signings now won’t have pre-season time to gel with the existing squad.
It’s the same squad that got us into a decent position in the first place. Definite room for improvement but last season is over, we could make a decent enough start as we are.
I’ll wager that Wenger’s first excuses of the season will be:
a) We were without Fabregas / Fabregas was tired because he didn’t get a decent pre-season.
b) We were tired because of the huge physcological and mental demands of the Udinese tie, which of course Utd, City etc didn’t have to face.
Rubbish. Sounds like Wenger wrote this article. Only excuses. You sound like an apologist for the club/board/manager. What about the Toure/Adebayor money? What about the TPA of £35M at the start of the window? Inexcusable how he hasn’t signed a defender in 2 months! You think Gibbs and Traore are our saviors. Agree whith the booing bit, its daft and doesn’t help. But fans booed not at losing the emirates cup, but at this stubborn miserly inept manager and the clubs transfer policies. AT LEAST a CB should have been in place by now.
All I can say to that is read my section about buying at the appropriate time for VFM. It’s not our fault the window doesn’t end before the start of the season, that would be sensible but as it is we will have to take it to the wire. It’s not ideal but what can you do, just spend more than is reasonable when you could hold on an extra few weeks?
Ok, we crumbled at the end of last season but that same squad got us into a good position in the first place.
None of this is ideal but it’s not quite panic stations just yet.
Here’s a good summery of the past 2 months. A bit of a reality check for you. Please read. –
http://yankeegunnerblog.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/the-summer-of-our-discontent/
I read that article from yankeegunner; very well considered piece, but I think we’ve addressed the underlying issues here too. Point is TPA started at £35m and now can be estimated at £26.4m having spent £10.6m on Gervinho and accounting for roughly £2.5m in his wage for this season; £1m for Jenkinson, and around £500,000 in wages, and the £7m sale of Clichy. Enough for a CB and a LB, yes, but bear in mind the inflated prices the club has to try to overcome. What I’m disappointed about is the delay in bringing in a CB in particular, but Cesc issue really has stalled our moves, plus the fact that dead wood has taken too long to shift. Of course the Board could and should have dealt with matters with more efficiency but the Board dynamic has changed of late. Also, it’s easy to write off Wenger, but I guarantee you’ll miss him when he’s gone.
nice article…gooner 4 lyf
It’s all good to be positive but underlying problems still exist.
2 top stars have stated their wishes to leave. Not good to lose them but also not good having players that don’t want to be there.
Next, ticket holders aren’t entitled to watch wins. But last year’s display was an awful one and that is appreciated with an increase to make it the highest in Europe and probably the world.
Our defence has been crap for years and you expect us to keep faith with what we have. When Vermaelen came we enjoyed he scored goals but we still let in over 40 goals.
I agree we should wait and see when we have evidence to get upset about. Booing at a game that means absolutely nothing is wrong.
Superb article.
Can’t say there’s anything in that I don’t agree with.
One thing I might add is that it’s not just our valuation in terms of a transfer fee that means we’ve been unable to sell our dead-wood but also our excessive wage bill.
Unlike City and co. – we don’t have anyone above around £110,000/week (I believe that’s right!), but we do have a lot of ‘squad/rotation’ players who are earning £50,000+/week and that (as in the case of Bendtner especially) has been a big stumbling block.
Great to see some perspective at last from Arsenal fans. In Wenger we most certainly trust.
Name SHOULD read Joss by the way. Not Jos.
Sir,Your article makes a lot of sense, but it makes sense because you are looking at only what AW & the Board stand for & what they might ‘gain’. What about the fans? What do we stand for? Our feelings and input, does it not matter? Fabregas wants to go no doubt, pls let him go. We have enough reserves – Cash- to buy two world class CB & very decent DM, the question now is: Must AW sell before he can buy? I do not think so. AW buy now! you are toying with the faith of thousands of Arsenal supporters worldwide. Buy now. The season starts in two weeks time.
Totally agree that we do need to buy but I think you’re slightly over estiamting what we’re capable of in the market.
If we sell Cesc it has to be for a reasonable price, we can;’t just take what ever they want to offer; for financial and political reasons.
As nonflyingdutchman says above, we have a limnited amount to spend. Yes, go out and get a CB, do it soon but make sure that the price is apporopriate. Imagine we pay close to £20m for Cahill and he doesn’t solve all the problems. Wenger would be risking his job and we’d all be upset again. We have to get the right players. It’s not as easy as we can sometimes make it seem.
I believed your article can incite even more hatred towards Arsenal by the fans. You have to know that those booing are English fans and they have the rights to demand more from the club they supported for years. For examaple, if you walk into a high class boutique in London, you expect to be served politely and getting the good advice on the selection of clothing.
Wenger, no doubt is a great manager and be remembered for a long time even after our time but practising transfer too discreetly will harm more than good. The money from players sold should be re-invested instead of keeping it in the bank.
The fans were perturbed about the quality of the current players and committment and this was proven to be true by the number of goals and mistakes the players made. The match against Newcastle and Spurs has proven the current players of weakness in the mind/lack of committment or Wenger simply using the same old tactic against any team.
Maybe it wil be good if you stop writing something that prtect Wenger at the moment since your argument seemed unfounded and that the fact already speaks for itself that new players will be needed sooner rather than later to inrease competition and add quality and consistency to the current team.
“You have to know that those booing are English fans and they have the rights to demand more from the club they supported for years. For examaple, if you walk into a high class boutique in London, you expect to be served politely and getting the good advice on the selection of clothing.”
Ricky, I am an English fan who has been going to games for over 25 years. I’ve seen things far worse than this and have never booed.
A significant part of this blog was to point out that even if you see yourself as a consumer, someone who goes to a game and pays for a service, you cannot demand anything. Football is not a usual exchange off money for a service. You pay to watch a game, you can’t pay for a specific result.
We all want better for our club and we all want a few transfers but we may just have to be patient until they happen. Booing in pre season is ridiculous and serves no purpose other than to further destabilise the club.
LOve the website lads, more frequent articles would be well appreciated;)