In for the long haul
I can’t deny it, losing to the Chavs was disappointing. Not disastrous, not world-ending, but it was disappointing because they are not a team, they are a rich man’s pick-and-mix. In fact you could go as far as to say that they are hardly even a club, they are something to be unwrapped by a billionaire and played with. Needless to say batteries not included, everything costs extra.
Sure they won this thing and that thing and don’t they like to tell you, but over the last couple of days my belief in the inherent superiority of intellect of the supporters of our great club has been restored. First there was the post from the excellent Lady Arse, hopefully putting the Chavs result into some sort of sensible perspective. And then last night I read the guest post on the always admirable Goonerholic. The Goonerholic post in particular seemed to resonate with a whole bunch of Gooners who had inherited their good sense in footie from their dad’s.
And this is the point. If you intend to support a football team for your lifetime then yes, there will conceivably be whole decades or more without the chance to exercise bragging rights. But supporting a team is for the long haul, disappointing as it is, five years isn’t that big a time when you look at it from a broader perspective. Not saying it’s good, at one point I thought we would kick on and be the dominant force in the English Premier League for years. Then some players got greedy, some got old and it didn’t happen. So although it will most likely be ignored or lambasted, my advice to supporters is don’t peak too early. If you use all your energy cursing Wenger, the board, whomever, you’re missing the point. We have a club with history to be proud of, memories worth remembering, and will no doubt have a future to match. Immediate gratification is a modern idea, you don’t have to give in to it.
So anyways, with the Interlull in full effect, we can either dwell on the last result and have a rant, or compose ourselves and think of the facts. For instance we had three players who had barely played six months for Arsenal between them rather than the normally expected six months plus to acclimatize to the English Prem. Two of them were our central defence and the other our main attacker. Kinda core personnel don’t you think? It would have been better if we had not had to play such an established team without our more established players, but we didn’t. We need to get over it.
Even those with relatively short memories can’t fail to recognise that the points margin is not excessive compared to previous seasons in which we made ground up again. The thing is the Premiership is becoming less of a procession in that the ‘lesser’ clubs can now not be expected to roll over just because they are playing the big boys. Break some legs, cause some pain, but not roll over. Even if you take the massive investment in Al Citeh out of the equation, it’s getting harder for the top teams to win. This is good as most are managing it without massive investment though with dubious tactics at times. I honestly think that supporters of all the traditionally big clubs have to moderate their expectations now, though obviously not quite as much as the Scousers. The game has changed, maybe not for the best in some ways, but it means we need to forget any divine right we think we may have. Things may change again if uefa and/or fifa do end up capping expeniture, but to be frank they don’t have a long record of sensible ruling, now do they?
‘Course taking the chances and putting them away wouldn’t hurt in our case. And if anything is worth a rant it has to be that. I can’t imagine that the players deliberately try not to score, but if a couple of our early chances had been converted it may have been a different game. Well the score would’ve been different anyway. I did find myself wondering what may have been different if Eduardo hadn’t been maimed and lost his edge in the box. If it had been him on the end of some of our chances recently… Although to be fair, if even the current Prem champions defend in depth, you figure maybe we need to get wing-backs who can cross and other players who into the box. And then get the ball somewhere near them. Safe to say going through the middle doesn’t seem to be a percentage choice when the opposition have time to get back.
So whilst the Interlull is upon us, you can only hope that we can somehow get some of Jack’s DNA into some of his more brittle team mates so they don’t break so easy. Or find out what the heck is going on with our medical bods. I think I’d feel better if we checked their bona fides weren’t downloaded from the Internet and maybe a refresher course or two. Cos if it ain’t their problem we need to find out whose it is.
.jpg)
