If this is what the future looks like then count me out. Put me down. Anesthetize me. This no longer the beginning of the end. It’s more than the end of the beginning. It’s the end. I think this is it for our glorious leader. And it should be for the general leadership at the club – except they are insulated because of AW who will absorb all the abuse and frustration.
How do you loose to Bournemouth when you’re 1-0 up and dominating the game? Easy, you play an under aged, inexperienced defensive line and give away two goals. Simple, you leave out your top scored – Alexis – and you replace him with the world-class skills of a Man United reject – Danny Welbeck.
But it’s so much more than any individual player. It’s now – as it has been for a number of years now – a belief and structural issue. Who can be surprised after our previous away defeats that we let this happen? Let’s face it we are an average team now. We are not top 4. And it’s not clear we’re even top 6. We are average. Accept it. Because Arsenal FC have.
How else do you explain the Alexis and Ozil situation? You leave out Alexis and have no replacement. He’s not even on the bench yet he got time mid-week. How is he on our wage bill still. We all knew this was coming. Just sell the fucking guy and get the replacement in. We now have the worst of both worlds. We have not sold him, have no replacement and yet don’t get to play him. How utterly incompetent is that? Why is this so difficult. Look at Liverpool. They sold Coutinho and bought in a player all within a week. But we dither and futz around. Why? It’s because this club lack leadership and management. We lack the ability to make decisions. Until that is resolved our only progress will be to further decay. Our future is to become a mid-table average team – though maybe we’ve already achieved it.
The irony is that today Ob1 had he’s best game of the season. I can’t blame him. Even Bellend was half way decent. We lost the game because of our defense. For once Cech lets us down. And then our mental fragility caused us to inevitably give up the second goal. Not because they were so good or deserved it. But because we can’t defend. Who thought we’d hold that 1-0 lead? No-one.
We had so many chances though to put the game away. We were so dominant and so much better than them. And we played better football. But between the ears we are weak. Who thought we’d recover once we went behind? How many saves did their GK have to make? How much pressure were they actually under?
But the point is this club is ever so gradual gently sliding into irrelevancy. Before you know it we will be Everton.
Today Jack was excellent. The creative force behind everything good we did. Xhaka was pretty solid. The pair of them played pretty well. Ob1 set up the goal and Maitland-Niles was pretty good. Mustafi was solid. Apart from DW23 everyone was ok or very good. Yet we lost. How can that be. And against, essentially, bottom of the table fare. How many people look back in the 3-3 draw from last year with envy now. One point would not look so bad.
But let’s not kid ourselves. The cancer in this club runs deep. Again, the farcical and incompetent manner in which we handled Alexis speaks volume from the malaise at the club. Really, why is he still with us? Why have we not brought in a forward who can provide us with something more than DW23? I honestly don’t understand. What are they waiting for? How have we all not been able to see this play out since the summer? Did they not learn anything from the Van Persie fiasco? How is this club actually moving forward.
The result today, whist irritating, frustrating and embarrassing does not teach us anything we did not know. Substitute in Watford or Stoke if in doubt. We are a sixth place team. We are not worthy of the top four. Again, we knew that. So the question is, what are we waiting for? Sell Alexis and get the money. Keeping him and not playing him is insane. It’s appalling business. And it makes us look like morons. Though maybe that’s what we are. Welcome to Moron FC. The club run by morons, played by morons for morons. That’s you and me. Because, for the next six months nothing will change. “Management” have to decide when they want to start on the re-build. They have to decide when they will call time on AW. It won’t be till the summer. But will they have the balls to do it. Because until they do this team cannot be successful. Where here I consider bring in the top 4 as success. I did not mind missing out on the Champions League this year. But that was on the assumption we would re-tool, have a long-term plan and move forward. But when you have this broken Alexis situation and the clear departure of Ozil – our one true world-class player – how can you even consider the notion that this team is evolving or moving forward. Devolving and decaying, yes I can see that.
This is a pivotal time for AFC. It feels like we are going through the post-Wenger period while he is still our manager. I was always worried we’d suffer as did ManUre when Fergie departed. But when he left he left them with the Premiership. Wenger will leave us with nothing. He is in the final throws of destroying his legacy.
So, will we see a post ManU 8-2 loss hyper activity in the transfer market? Will the club display and vision or strategy? In some ways I hope not yet. In some ways I’d be OK with us struggling to get through to the end of the season and then start to see a complete make-over. But only on the basis that there is a clear plan with clear leadership – new leadership.
Between now and then we’ll have the odd good game but that will inevitably be followed by fiasco’s such as this. When you compare the relative qualities of the two teams today then you’d conclude only one team can win. When you watch the first 70 minutes of this game you’d conclude that only one team deserved to win. But, yet, reality is such that this team can’t consistently perform, it has no backbone and the sum of the parts is the less than the whole. That, friends, is not what you want from your team. And it’s not what we need from this club.
So, dark days ahead. Strap yourself in. it’s going to get darker before the light returns. Assuming that it will. How we handle the next 18 months can determine whether we return to our expected levels or whether we complete the switch with our North London rivals. It already feels like we’ve completed a complete club switch. We’ve had 20 years of clear domination based on a strategy, quality players, world-class manager and attracting the best players. But now if feels like they are the new Arsenal and we have become the old Sp*rs. Shoot me now
– LB7