After a day that began so perfectly, Saturday ended up being an agonizing heap of disappointment. I arrived at the pub to see West Ham 2-0 up against a struggling Manchester United side, and genuinely thought that this could be the day that changes everything – sadly, it wasn’t to be.
Forgetting the many controversial decisions made by Lee Mason, you cannot take anything away from the title favourites. With their backs fixed tightly against the wall, they came back and got the all-important 3 points – like any team that should win the league.
I don’t often show public admiration to Man United, but they certainly had something that we didn’t on Saturday. Belief.
I will remain optimistic and still say that we can still win the league. However well (or bad) we play, I will always fight for the title until it’s mathematically impossible for us to win it. But until then, I will not give up. We are Arsenal football club. We’re incredibly lucky to support a team that are genuine title contenders every year. We shouldn’t give up hope when there’s still, a long way to go.
Yes, the odds are against us. And like I’ve stated before, if our form doesn’t improve soon, then we’re going to blow our best chance to win the league, since we last won it in 2004. But there’s no point in giving up now, when we’re in such a good position still.
As a teenager (for a little while longer anyway), I’ve been incredibly fortunate to grow up supporting Arsenal in the club’s most successful period. Sadly, I was too young to remember our early-90 triumphs, but can remember everything from 1998 and onwards. During those years, I’ve seen us win 2 league/cup doubles. I’ve seen us win league titles at Old Trafford and White Hart Lane. I’ve seen our heroic Champions League run in 2006. And of course, I’ve seen us go an entire season unbeaten – a feat that I don’t expect to be repeated.
If people think we’re in “complete downfall” now, I don’t know how fans from previous generations kept supporting Arsenal up and down the country week in, week out. My dad was born in 1955, so he had to wait 16 years to witness Arsenal win something – strangely enough, not that he (or anyone else!) remembers it, but he saw Tottenham win a league championship before Arsenal did!
Of course, real dedicated football fans watch their team, regardless of how successful their team is. I accept that some people come and go, but I don’t respect them in any way at all.
I’ve read some pretty shocking posts on Twitter from so-called fans, who have stated that they will not go to Arsenal again if we fail to win the league. I apologize if any of who disagree with me when I say this, but these people are idiots (or Spurs fans in disguise!)… I hope you understand that there is a slight difference between the two.
Ticket prices are very high and the figures could increase again for next season. Of course, I understand that some sections of The Arsenal faithful have been priced out, and simply cannot afford to go each week now. Additionally, if we don’t win the league, I expect a huge uproar from a large proportion of the Gooner fan-base. I know I won’t agree with all the things that will be said, but I will be fair, and respect the opinions – as long as they’re justified.
So the question is now, do I think we will win the league?
I’ll be honest. At the moment, my answer is no. But that’s only based on our poor recent form.
At the moment, we’re really struggling for goals as well as looking a tad suspect at the back. I’m not totally sure on what caused it, but there seems to be a lack of belief, determination and confidence in the team at the moment. If I recall correctly, I read a tweet posted by Cesc Fabregas yesterday that roughly translated, said this:
(Talking about Novak Djokovic) When you win, you have more confidence and the better player you are. The mental confidence is very important in sport.
A naive eye would just assume that he’s watching the tennis. But if you read between the lines, he was probably aiming the message at his Arsenal teammates. Whether this is true or not, there is a definite problem in the camp, it seems.
But here’s what I know for sure. It’s a very good thing that we don’t have the Champions League – and FA Cup – as distractions to take our focus away from the Premier League. Despite us having a very difficult run in, I believe it’s fair to say that we could gain an advantage here.
We just need to get over this blip, and get back into decent form – before it’s too late.
We certainly don’t want to go into the game against Manchester United, 5 or 6 points behind. Not only will we face a seemingly-impossible task of overcoming the title favourites, but if we did manage to get a result, we’d still have the huge task of playing catch up with only 3 games remaining.
If it’s not in our hands, then let’s keep going until it’s out of reach.
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