Digging ourselves from out of the Grave: Determining How far The Arsenal can go in 2013 (Part 1)

In a two part series, I have done my best to go through our past 7 failed attempts at winning something as a team, in form of a trophy for The Arsenal, even after doing all we could and coming so close on many occasions.

Season(s) Review;

The last seven years for Arsenal have been anything but far from outstanding in football terms. A lot has been said by many about the club and sadly not much in complimentary proclamations; from departing players labeling the club as an unambitious bunch to opponents and pundits reducing us to a club that only flatters to deceive season after season (for the past 7). We’ve continually seen the team trying so hard but yet having so little to show at the end of it all, climbing atop the league table only to be bullied off because the heat had gotten too much for the young squad to stay in the kitchen.

Fewer and fewer staying interested in looking at the balance sheets that have continually (through the 7 seasons) been touted by the club management as the greatest achievements attainable, and as the trophy-less seasons have piled on; Some fans have taken to baying for blood (a list which seems to be steadfastly growing every season that passes). This lot claim that their patience has been stretched to limits too far, so much that they have resorted to booing their "heroes and models" off the playing surface on home turf and threatening to carryout bin bag protests against the manager and the team as a whole.

Balance Sheet: A big polarizing factor amongst gooners

However, it has not been all gloom and doom for all;  there is still a remnant that have held on to faith, a considerable lot that have managed to put things into perspective and decided to approach the situation with heads and not just the hearts. They know importantly how much it takes to keep in topflight football especially after financing one of the biggest projects in modern football of building and moving to a new home stadium with no sugar daddy’s wallet to suckle on. When you don’t have a billionaire financier to treat the club simply as one of his toys that he gets involved with for pleasure. 

Nevertheless, in both cases (for both sets of fans), extremism is their undoing, ignoring the current achievements and trashing glory days of the past to prove your point is just myopic. And on the other hand being completely blind to the current situation and trying to find all sorts of excuses to explain our struggles is simply being hypocritical and out of touch. Considerable and respectful criticism coupled with questions asked in civility have to be raised by all concerned hearts and at least there should be believable answers to explain things out.

With all that said though, surely there should be, and I believe there is a way back to the VERY TOP for The Arsenal! Strange seasons for many clubs come and go, but not many stranger than or even similar to Arsenal’s 2011/12 campaign; A mixture of complete downheartedness and despair adhesively intertwined with absolute joy and bliss could best describe the different stages of the season for The Gunners.

With plenty of learning experiences to be picked from the just concluded season, chief amongst these should be the fact that its more to do with the way you close the season than even the opening. In the first few games of the season, Bolton was actually amongst the top 5 teams on the league table especially after crashing Stoke City by 5 goals to Nil; And up to until the end of December 2011, Wigan Athletic was all but destined for relegation based on their poor run of form. On the other hand, Arsenal were languishing in position 17 on the league table after 7games into the season. But just like the popular adage goes “It is a marathon and never a sprint” and that my friend is the beauty of a league. A league is NEVER won in August, September, October…. and NOT even in February! We have also learned a very BIG lesson that money can, but only get you too far! You can never buy a team of 22 players in one season, and even if you managed to, you cannot maintain their form all season long. Manu and Liverpool FC can testify to this. 

The season ending saw favorite winners and table toppers relinquish an 8point gap lead between them and the team in second position to the eventual winners, and as well saw Wigan defy all odds to triumph over all teams in the top 4 to beat the drop zone. In the same manner we saw a small team choke in the final games of their season to squander 3^rd place on the table surrendering it to their fiercest and mightier rivals just across the road. It is always a Marathon.

End of Part 1

In the next part I’m going to look at some pointers we can put into consideration when vying for our first trophy in 8years, come next season. A big thank you to Nil (@Nilstar1 ) who suggested this topic to me over 3months back hence giving me an idea of what to write about in this article. Hope I’ve made you proud Nil.

Until the next piece, I remain yours

@rodgerk1