Let’s be honest here, for the last few months if you’re an Arsenal fan like me then you’ve probably just been sick and tired of all this “Wenger In / Wenger Out” crap and been bored senseless of all the speculation over Arsene’s future.
The club at the moment is a complete mess; we have owners who do fuck all – I’ve heard more noises from the Loch Ness Monster than I have from Silent Stan – and why does Ivan Gazidis get paid? Seriously? Is there another Chief Executive in world football that does less than him?
Arsene Wenger is a great man who is carrying all of Arsenal’s problems on his own shoulders and the fans know it. Silent Stan, Ivan Gazidis and the Arsenal board have been a completely disgrace with their treatment of Arsene Wenger and the Arsenal fans – deciding not to talk about what their intention are. What do they want? Do they actually want the club to be successful??
There are a million questions that need answering and it’s just mind-boggling how quiet the Arsenal board are. They’re more than happy for Arsene Wenger to take the bullet week in, week out and it’s just pathetic. The Arsenal board in its current form is destroying the reputation and trust the fans have in the club.
Arsene Wenger made a series of revealing comments after the Everton game yesterday, admitting that his future disrupted the players and had an affect on the teams performances. That was the first time he admitted that and it’s quite interesting to see why he’s decided now is the time to admit the truth.
Of course, it would have been stupid to say otherwise before the end of the season but to admit it at all seemed like a shot to the board and owner Stan Kroenke. It also seemed like a dig at the board when Arsene said he’s turned down every single offer from other clubs from around the world, to help transform the club, and that he loves Arsenal. From that it appears Arsene Wenger is telling the world that he is perhaps the only man at the club who actually cares about Arsenal.
And it would make sense. The owners are always absent and their lack of public comment is deafening. Do they care? Do they fuck?
What do the owner care about? Money. We’ve seen that from Stan’s other sports franchises that he only cares about taking a yearly profit from his teams, and on the whole, they’re not successful on the pitch. Because that’s not what matters to him.
And look, business is business. Every successful businessman is out to make money but in football you want a billionaire who actually respects the fans and wants to see success for their club. Stan is clearly not that man so thank you very much for the last how many years you’ve been here, but fuck off.
And that got me thinking – did Arsene Wenger finish 5th on purpose? He’s not getting enough backing to improve the club and he knows better than anyone that the best we can do is finish in the Top Four and reach the last 16 in the Champions League. What’s the best way to shake things up? Not get into the Top Four.
Arsene Wenger is now the man with all the power because where do the Arsenal board go from here? There’s no way in hell they would recruit someone else now as Arsenal aren’t such a big attraction without Champions League football and they know it would take a magician to get Arsenal back into the Top Four – or Arsene Wenger.
This could be a power play by the Frenchman who has for all intents and purposes been left to hang out to dry by the board. Finishing 5th isn’t a disaster but sends out a message to the Arsenal hierarchy that they shouldn’t forget who’s in charge and if you want to fuck with Arsene Wenger then he’ll make sure your yearly profits that you take from the club year in, year out, take a hit.
It’s really sad how we treat Wenger as Arsenal fans. He has been loyal to to the club, some might say that for the kind of salary he is on he should be loyal . I just don’t think it’s about money, I think he genuinely cares about the club and the club is hanging him to dry. He never says anything bad about the club even when it’s clear to everybody that the club doesn’t care. He cannot do it alone, he needs support from the club, fans and his players. He isn’t without fault don’t get me wrong, I just find it hard to accept that the man who brought us the invincibles suddenly forgot how to coach a football team, but that’s just me.
Crooked money; corrupt officialdom; PayTV; Betting Companies; Biased Media; crazy transfers; crazy pay; agents; greed; have hijacked the great game.
Wenger and the Board are just part of the circus. Why feel sorry for AW? His rewards, ultimately for “also-ran” failure are measured in the tens of millions; and are out of all proportion to reality!
AFC is still probably the most famous and respected football club, housed in a palace, in one of the worlds biggest and richest capital cities. The fact that fans have had to put up with the scraps of success for the last 13 years, and have each year had to swallow more empty words is, frankly shameful.
However if the alternative is simply to follow the bent money, and join the sellout ranks of the likes of Chelski, Man City, MUFC, etc, maybe the answer would be to follow local town teams such as Sutton Utd and get a flavour of the real game and honest passions.
Long live the memory of the real Arsenal, the Highbury days, when the hearts of players and fans seemed to beat more in tune. When we did not import superstars with their supercars, when many players were developed, and often homegrown.
If our future has to be to ‘swim with the sharks” then we need to aim to be a “Great White”; big fish in a big pond.