Bullish from the dismantling of Spurs, Arsene Wenger has chosen to ‘go public’ on his thoughts towards the league title battle and his teams chances.
Arsenal are well known in recent years as being impressive in patches as drawing their elegant swords across the necks of such giants as Birmingham, Portsmouth and the injury decimated Everton – and frankly it has always been a surprise to us here at BlueTinted that on the back of such imperious supremacy over the league’s flotsam they haven’t won more since their dethroning in 2004/05…
"It's frustrating when players get injured. In England, you get the injuries in November - it is unbelievable when you look at the stats.”
“Normally, in December, you can win or lose the championship, so you want your players to be available.”
“Over this period the pitches can become difficult, your players have played international games and you also have the end of the Champions League group stages.”
“Players will have completed 20 games.”
“The only team who have had less injuries than the others at the moment are Chelsea.”
“They are top of the league but they are not really dominating. They are two points ahead if we win our game in hand. “
“Chelsea have shown they can lose. For us, it is more important to show consistency than speculate on Chelsea having injuries.”
“To lose Bendtner is a blow. I played him against Spurs because he is strong in the air.”
“I would say we can be a danger at free-kicks but we lose the capability to change a game if Nicklas is not there.”
“But we also have Eduardo, Van Persie, Rosicky, Fabregas, Nasri and Arshavin. Offensively, we are still strong.”
Arsene as usual is bang on the money. We have shown we can lose. Away defeats to Wigan and Villa reflect poorly on our opening 3rd of the season, however wins against Spurs, Liverpool at home and Sunderland, Fulham and Stoke on their own grounds tell another story. We’ve stood toe-to-toe with rivals and beaten them comfortably. Going into this weekend we have a chance to bloody the nose of our REAL title rivals and go 5 points clear of them, would you bet against it?
Joking aside of course, he is playing mind games. November is the month in which we play United at home and Arsenal away and as such can stamp our authority on the league, or leave it hanging in the balance.
Consecutive away games from November 25th to Saturday 5th of December against FC Porto, Arsenal, Blackburn and Man City (across three competitions) will give a bearing on how our season will pan out.
The reality for Arsenal is somewhat different. We’ve seen it every year for the last few, Arsenal are the darlings of football media for their exploits and football when challenged by less compact opposition with less technical ability – this is what’s known as ‘flat track bullying’ and their fans seem content with a few hammerings of poor opposition to keep their lovely red and white shirts all nice and shiny as they puff out their chests in pride over their youth’s dismantling of a lower league club in a cup competition.
But come the end of the season they categorically will not be contesting the league title, and here is the reason; bottle.
Manager, players, fans, board – Arsenal Football Club has systematically had its true ability to compete as men stripped away. On the pitch it manifest in the form of selling Vieira, Henry, Pires, Toure and even Adebayor. The result is a mix of youth and low ambition, petulant when given an obstacle and ultimately too weak mentally or physically when it comes to contesting a match or competition against real opposition.
Off the pitch the clubs unwavering faith in a manager that has overseen their fall from an unbeaten league season to the equivalent of a sweety-wrapper bobbing along on the current of a river (looks nice but you still want to catch a big fish instead) has long since undermined their credibility as one of footballs dominant powers.
And the fans, sigh, the fans. What kind of individual does flat-tracking breed in terms of a football supporter? Let’s throw up some words, as they pop into our heads, that describe Arsenal fans – Smug? Yes…good one. Fickle? Of course..of course. Content with media fawning but ultimate failure? YES. (ok, more than one word that one)
The crux of it is big players with real ambition want to leave Arsenal after their period of ego stroking and non-achievement. That’s fact. The reason behind it is the Arsenal board pander to their manager after he won a title 5 years ago – because they lack the bottle to back a new man to do anything more with the players they’re willing to invest in. Arsenal, frankly, are scared of having to paddle back down the river they’ve gone far too far up. The reality is this youth system all hailed isn’t actually producing enough to win them honours. Arsenal have a worse than 1 in 6 young players who appear for the first team remaining at the club over 18 months into the future.
So when it comes back to this season, this league title, this set of challenges – what we see in Arsene Wenger’s posturing Is self indulgence on his part. We’re all prone to it, but the unforgiveable thing is the acceptance of those around us when it comes to listening to it.
A 2 point lead at the top of the table may not be ‘dominant’ at this point, but by the end of May we should assess that gap again and see just how things pan out. The six points we’ll take from Arsenal will add to it handily.
But as I said, we’re all prone to self indulgence – as is the Chelsea supporters folly when it comes to pointing out just what a pretentious, flat-track, ego-masturbating group surround Arsenal FC.
But back to the real world, the real challenge, the real rivals…let’s hope a game of men vs men comes up in our favour on Sunday, and that our fans can celebrate our very real chances of a novel act in Woolwich…*cough*….Islington: winning something.
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