The lack of pull to Arsenal Football Club
I got thinking of saddening thoughts of Arsenal the other day, and as a fan for nearly 2 decades, this wasn’t the first time I’ve yearned for yesteryear. Prepare for a reflection of what we used to be, and what we have become and the potential to return to the heights we reached during the noughties.
Now I’m not one of these self hating Arsenal fans, I understand we have fallen off our perch that we placed ourselves upon during the early 2000’s and although it does pain me to see Spurs being 1 point off us for the past two seasons at the final day of the league and it coming down to the wire both times, but I understand football domination comes in cycles. Take the German assertion taking place on world football at the moment, they have confirmed their league is better this year as both representatives of the Champions League final are German, this may continue for the next few years or the La Liga teams may rectify their mistakes and return to their former domination of club football and even extend it onto the world stage next season as it is a World Cup year.
I am drifting off the point and could ramble on about the dealings of Arsenal and how the mighty have fallen but I think it is blatant to see why we have not been able to contend with the powerhouses of the English and European football in recent times, with a bit of financial doping with teams like Manchester City and Chelsea within English football and hints of it with Manchester United, but their twinned with their brilliant management and riding the crest of their wave from years of building a team entwined with the financial backing, but with the risk of their zenith being reached with the end of the Fergie years, it would be interesting in years to come to see if there is a correlation between United’s dominance with Ferguson and the Moyes tenure after. The same can be seen across world football as well, Barcelona are the more team building orientated outfit of Spain, in contrast to Real Madrid and their Galactico’s where they buy big and it pays off. Their seems to be a template of this throughout European football, Dortmund are like United and act like a TEAM in comparison to their rivals Bayern, who come across as individuals, and with Arjen Robben in your starting XI, you’ve gotta have some big ego’s to compensate, same for Montpellier and PSG in Ligue 1’s battle at the top, although Montpellier have drifted off.
The thing with Arsenal is that we don’t really act as a team when we play or have the financial backing to allure the bigger names. We bring through marvellous players such as Jack Wilshere at the moment, with Cesc Fabregas coming through after we poached him from Barcelona and we mould them into big fishes in a smaller pond and they inevitably move on. Cesc is allowed to leave for Barca in my eyes; I do not begrudge him a move back to his boy hood club and he would of left us even if we were the best team in England, in my opinion. But let’s use Samir Nasri as an example, we bought him from France and he was relatively unknown to the English public and in the few seasons he was with us he was phenomenal, he could play wide, as a number 10 and even deputise for Fabregas if he was injured and did a marvellous job, then realises although through his efforts, he isn’t going to win trophies with Arsenal and it’s not like the wage is anything special (In a footballing sense, I would love to be sitting on £70,000+ a week) then the assurgency of City as major players in the league, with ambition and the funding to achieve it is a massive attraction to leave. I’m not saying Arsenal don’t have ambition, of course we do, just we don’t have to tools to achieve it in my opinion. United went 26 years without winning a league title, the footballing world does come full circle, well I hope it does from an Arsenal fans sake, anyway. Like I said, I’m not self-hating, just lowered my expectations…for the time being.
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