Following the excitement of Friday evening and the signing of Marouane Chamakh, which I covered in Saturday's blog, I resolved to enjoy the rest of the weekend in the sunshine and not think too much about football. Which I did on Saturday afternoon, but following what might be termed as a bit of a session in the gym on Sunday afternoon, I was in no state to sit baking under the London sun. I reckon that, as Alan Davies suggested a few weeks back, sitting in the park drinking cider might be the best way to spend the few weekends between now and the World Cup, thinking about Arsenal will only drive you nuts.
As if to prove that point, two articles have appeared on this website since José Mourinho's latest Champions League success, with vastly differing viewpoints on Mourinho and his acheivements. In the blue corner, Mark Brus says that he hates Mourinho but would love the success that comes with him. Fighting out of the red corner, Asser Ghozlan reckons that it is an affront to the man who has changed so much about our football club to suggest replacing him with the Portuguese egotist, er sorry, manager. I'm sure it won't come as a surprise to anyone reading this, who has read my ramblings, that I find myself sympathising with Asser's view far more than I do Mark's.
You see, there seems to be a belief amongst a section of Arsenal fans that success is a birthright, that we should win trophy after trophy, year after year. But that isn't the case. Whilst that period of success at the beginning of the last decade, just to recap; the 2002 double followed by the FA Cup, followed by the league title, followed by the FA Cup again and all in the period of four seasons might have heightened expectations that Arsenal were set to dominate the next decade, it came as Arsenal put in place plans to build their new stadium. It came, more importantly, just at the time when a man called Roman Abramovich came and changed the football landscape forever. He won't be at Chelsea for ever, that's for sure, but his arrival has triggered a shift to a model of ownership that will see Arsenal fighting with billionaire run clubs for the forseeable future. I've digressed slightly, I began this paragraph wanting to reiterate the fact that whilst we have won more league Championships than any club outside of Liverpool and Manchester United, we have won only four in the last twenty years. Or five in 21, if you prefer. Only five (and, by extension only a further eight in 103 years of Arsenal history). God, there is only one club in the country who could laugh at that record and it's that Manchester club. For anyone else, they could only look at it and dream. What's my point again? Well, my point is that we don't actually have the right to win the league every season and, when you look at the clubs we are up against, it's not really that surprising that we haven't won more. Manchester United are good enough to have played in two Champions League finals in the last three years, whilst Chelsea made an appearance in 2008. These clubs have got there through spending money, money that Arsène Wenger could only dream of having available.
And look at Manchester United now, trophyless and debt laden. Ok, so Chelsea have done the double, but even they came unstuck against their former manager (how I love it that Chelsea are the only team he's not managed to European glory), and us? Well, we seem to be floating along, content only to pay off the stadium debt and qualify for the Champions League. What's that, you say? Does anyone think that Champions League qualification is the summit of Arsenal's ambition? Honestly? Compare the scenes at the Grove on May 9th as we guaranteed third spot, to those that greeted Tottenham's victory at Manchester City. It was chalk and cheese, despair and delight. Yes, we have differing expectations and a lot of the apathy on display on the final Sunday of the season was a direct result of our April collapse. But to not win a league match for over a month and still finish third? Doesn't that tell us something about what might have been, had we not lost the spine of our side in the space of two weeks?
I do believe the man in charge should be given a little more credit. Yes, I have moaned this season gone; moaned at familiar defensive frailties, at goalkeeping Groundhog days. But in reality, what Arsène Wenger acheived this season, a title challenge that nobody expected, despite the constant background of injuries to key players should be, if not celebrated, then certainly acknowledged. David Dein once said that the financial situation put Arsène in a situation akin to boxing with one hand tied behind his back. It could be argued this season, that due to circumstances beyond his control, that Arsène had both hands tied behind his back. And we still finished third, still made the last 8 in Europe. I know it's not as good as we wanted, but it's still better than most.
What's more he's acheived that without spending millions and millions ala City (where did they finish again?), Tottenham, Chelsea and United. Even Liverpool spent £20m on Aquilani. Taking the billionaire projects out of the equation, look at the debt mountains built by Liverpool to try and get back to where they once were and by Manchester United to try and sustain their position at the top of the table. is that really what you want?
Do we really, going back to the starting point of this article, want a man like Mourinho to come in? I'll be honest and say that in nearly two years of writing about Arsenal on a daily basis (most of the time), it's only recently that I've begun to understand and appreciate the financial constraints that the manager has not just been put under, but placed himself under to get our stadium built. It's only now I appreciate the size of his acheivement in keeping us competitive at the top end of the table, whilst keeping us honest.Could Mourinho have done that? If it is true that this squad is, as some say, the worst he's ever had, then he did a bloody good job challenging for the title and all but tying up third spot with a month of the season to spare, didn't he? I'm sure I've asked this question before, but do you honestly believe that Arsène dismantled the Invincibles as some sort of hare-brained plan to show that he could do it just as well with kids?
Or did he do it out of neccessity?
No comments:
Post a Comment