I am one out of millions of Arsenal fans who are currently in painful quiescence. My heart bleeds for Arsenal not because of our streak of poor results, especially when it matters most, but because our wounds are largely self inflicted. It beats and bites me that Arsenal has gone six years without a single trophy. Could there be a better assassin assassinating Arsenal than Arsene? In football, your pedigree is as good as your last result; I wish it were about the last result for Arsenal. Six years without a sniff at even the community shield...I need a break! Arsenal is a big club in the class of Man U, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Inter Milan, AC Milan, Liverpool and the rest yet Arsene Wenger’s philosophy of “cosmebabyish” football has drained Arsenal of every iota of ambition. What can you ever achieve in life without ambition? When you see Arsenal players on the pitch, it is so obvious that they lack the hunger to do that extra thing that would always make the difference when the going gets tough.
Added to lack of ambition is the obvious plummet in quality. In the hey days of Arsenal, when Arsenal combined football athleticism with flair, no Man U or Chelsea player could be so inflicted with “oral diarrhea” to look Arsenal in the eye and declare “I will beat you silly”. No longer! They said it last weekend; they did it once again on Saturday in the FA Cup quarters. Since Arsene started considering the turf at the other side of the Nou Camp fence greener than the one at the Emirates, he foolhardily abandoned a brand of football that produced results for him and Arsenal, with silverwares to boot, and started pursuing Barcelona with their so called sexy football. Has he ever beaten Barca in this game? The last time it happened, even Wenger and his players were so thunder shocked, they were shaking their heads in absolute disbelief!
In Wenger’s illicit romance with a brand of game that is not his and can never be his, he pretends to forget that the football culture in Spain and the one in England are not the same. The system in Spain encourages sexy football but in a physical environment like England, you need more than flair to survive. If you are in doubt, watch the glorious 2003/2004 Arsenal team that went the whole season unbeaten and the current Arsenal squad, you cannot help but weep for what Arsene has done to Arsenal in the last six years. Yet, a clueless board has gone dining while Rome burns. Now, it is becoming clearer why people like Dein left Arsenal. In deed, where there is no vision a club perishes. How has the mighty fallen!
Apart from running after a brand of football he does not fully understand, at least to the point of producing results, like Barca does, Wenger’s declining touch in transforming young players to gem stones has continued to show. Gone are the days when certain starters like Viera, Henry, Pires, Campbell, Toure would be transformed under two years into world beaters under the tutelage of Arsene. The difference between now and then is that something terribly and fundamentally wrong has gone wrong with Arsene’s abilities at talent spotting, grooming and deployment. The last of his product is Cesc Fabregas and the young man is already tired of the charade currently going on in Arsenal. All the stars that made Arsene’s hey days at Arsenal have been equally frustrated out of the Emirates. The so-called rookies in Arsenal are obviously stunted by both dearth in talent depth, poor grooming and lack of ambition as induced by a systemic complacency duly professed by Arsene and irresponsibly certified by a snoring board.
They say Wenger makes tons and tons of money for Arsenal. At what and at whose expense? It even gets super ridiculous when some Arsenal fans, especially the Nigerian genre, join the “wishy washy” debate of how much profit Arsene has raked in for Arsenal. Is Wenger now an investment manager or a football manager? I am so heartbroken that it is so difficult for Arsenal fans to see through the antics of Wenger...”keep buying rookies and blame their inexperience for an obvious decline in managerial quality.” Arsene Wenger is actually on a rollercoaster downhill and he is poised to take Arsenal down with him. What is happening to Arsene is what is called “the law of diminishing returns”. Wenger of all people should understand this better than some of us; at least, I don’t have a Masters in Economics! If there is still some honour left in Wenger, he should kindly resign NOW, at least, for the sake of millions of Arsenal fans who will never benefit a dime from the ‘penny wise, pound foolish’ profits he claims to be making for Arsenal. I do not think a club like Man U would allow Sir Ferguson with all his loads of success at Old Trafford (something Wenger, not Arsenal, can only dream of) to stay longer than a minute if after three years, Man U keeps telling tales instead of showing trophies.
One more thing before this ink runs dry is that Arsene Wenger has refused to accept his mistakes instead chooses to revel in buck passing foolhardiness. He blames everyone but himself for his woes. Nobody succeeds with that kind of attitude. The worst harm you can ever do to yourself is to explain away failure. For Arsene, its either a certain Buscaca ruined his team even when they fail to fire one single shot at goal or that a certain Stoke team is too physical for his frail boys as if football has become volleyball or that the pitch at Wembley is too slippery as if Birmingham players played on a different pitch or ... it just goes on and on annoyingly. Unfortunately, many Arsenal fans have bought into this laid back approach to life. It might just suffice to advise that such mentality should be left behind at the turnstiles of Emirates Staduim...dare take it into town and you would definitely get beaten blue black!
What is the way forward? The earlier the sleeping board members at the Emirates wake up from their suffocating slumber, hand an ambition-less Wenger a golden handshake and recruit a hungry hand to run the club, the better for all Arsenal fans. A stitch now would save Arsenal from “Arsenic” assassins from within. A word is enough for the wise!!!
•Echezona Asuzu
echesuzu@yahoo.com
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