Arsenal are fourth in the Premier League, have reached the last 16 of the Champions League (and remain in the competition, if only mathematically) and play us in the last 16 of the FA Cup on Saturday. They are a club in profit, have enjoyed an extraordinary run of Champions League qualifications and attract admiration for their style of football throughout the game.
Yet to listen to or read the views of supporters on today’s talk-ins and online forums, they are a club in crisis. Even the calm, eloquent Arsène Wenger talks of the 4-0 hiding in Milan as “shocking`’ and a “disaster”. And plenty of Gooners, even those who once adored him, want Wenger out.
Clemency Burton-Hill, the Arsenal-supporting musician, broadcaster and actress, said it last week, in the Who are You? feature before the Premier game.
This is how she put it:
People talk about where they were when John Lennon got shot; or when Princess Diana died. I can still remember, like it was yesterday, that moment in 1996 when we heard that this completely unknown French guy Arsène Wenger was coming from Grampus Eight to take over. I was 14 and had been a Junior Gunner for about five years and a season ticket holder for three years. I’d only ever really known the sunset of the Georgie Graham era (though I still have extremely fond memories of singing “Georgie Graham’s magic, ‘e wears a magic hat, and when ‘e saw the [insert appropriate cup] ‘e said: I’m ‘aving that!!’) and then life in limbo under Bruce Rioch. I’ve been a Wenger devotee ever since that day: he literally changed the game. It’s been said many times, but he brought intelligence, elegance, humanity and flair not just to Arsenal but to the English Premier League in general, which at that time was not nearly so influenced by foreign footballing styles. But… with a heavy heart, I have to say that I now think it’s time for him to go. It’s scary, because I revere and love him and he feels irreplaceable, but his decision to take off Oxlade-Chamberlain against Man Utd a few weeks ago was the clincher – I was at the Emirates that miserable day and I can’t remember the last time a boo reverberated around the home ground so viciously; it was ominous. So I hate to say it, but yes, I think it’s time for change.
See also: today’s pre-FA Cup Arsenal “Who are You?”. Click anywhere on this paragraph.
I heard the same clamour this morning. Heaven knows what Rupert and Monty think. But one man who did ring into TalkSport said there was no evidence of defensive coaching, no ability to cope with opposing teams’ breakaways and no way that 40 per cent of the squad were even worthy of Arsenal colours. He included Theo Walcott in that damning category.
Join the club, Gooners. Learn, with humility, what it is like to support a team you do NOT blithely expect to win every game. Leave cups in the early rounds, whinge about the teams that represent institutions that are less proper football clubs than global brands. Maybe even have the occasional brush with relegation.
And then, somewhere amid all that unfamiliar misery, rediscover the joys of football.
* With my usual thanks to “Wonker” for his Flickr archive of Arsenal-related photos.
On the whole the Arsenal fans I have met and spoken with don’t see success as a divine right in the way that Man Ure, Chelski come lately or Liverpool fans do. Of the four teams that have ever won the title since it was rebranded “The Premier League”, excluding Blackburn, I have found Gooners the most humble of the three.
Whilst not disagreeing with the gist of your argument, I take more delight in the troubles in SW 6. In my experience those of a Pensioner persuasion display an arrogance that grates on my N.E. sensitivities. I’m sure there must be some decent Chelski fans but I have yet to meet one. Man Ure have more than their fair share of smug, supercilious supporters too.
I have always found the blue half of Manchester OK too, though I suspect things may alter as the countless billions lead them to the belief that they are the only team that matters. I hope not.
I reckon a couple of mid-table finishes would see Chelsea’s gates down to 20,000, can’t stand those basta….er I mean fellows.
In that case, I would lurve to be corrupted!!!!!
I can see nothing harsh about wishing, or being willing, to see “big clubs” endure something of what we have cheerfully borne all our lifetimes.
Of course, I’d love to see proper success at Sunderland. The difference, for me as for others (you included, Malcolm), is that I do not see it as some sort of divine right. They do. I like Arsenal, and unlike many admire Wenger, but that doesn’t change my basic belief. Too much success corrupts.
A tad harsh maybe M. Salut? As Supertramp once said “Crisis – What Crisis?” but surely it is all a matter of relativity. Of course as Sunderland fans we see the Arse’s situation as one to be envied, but surely that is what we hope for and to what the Board should aspire. Fourth place in the Premiership, losing to Inter Milan in the Champions League and defeat in the 5th round of the F.A. Cup is seen as failure.
Surely it is better to be concerned than complacent and as Leeds, Rangers, the Sheffield clubs etc. have demonstrated complacency(or failure to balance the books) can be disasterous.
Wenger is cutting his cloth to suit his purse. Arsenal don’t have Citeh’s resources and he has shown his worth as a coach, but maybe the Gooners are right to be concerned about coaching methods etc. just as many of us were about the Bruce/Black methods.
In my lifetime the successes of SAFC is one F.A. Cup win and a few promotions. As you say supporters of successful clubs are spoiled but should they see 10th place as acceptable? If Wenger does go I know just the man who will see that as the height of ambition!
I long for such a crisis to strike our club.