While I’d be tempted to say this season couldn’t end soon enough, I genuinely worry that the illusion of a ‘fresh start’ in a couple of months won’t be enough time for these players to recover from what happened to them this season.
I look at how things are handled at Chelsea and I laugh to myself; Ancelotti wins them the double in his first season, finishes 2nd this year, and gets sacked. It’s a sad state of affairs, not so much for the fans, who will be happy as long as the team is successful, but for the game – the once beautiful game, now controlled by power-mad billionaire owners.
And yet, while I don’t condone how things are done at Stamford Bridge, it hasn’t exactly stopped them winning things, has it? Avram Grant came close to winning the league, and even closer to winning the Champions League, Hiddink won the FA Cup in only six months in charge, and Ancelotti delivered success in his first season. While they could perhaps benefit from more stability, the message is clear: win, or you’re out.
And I think while we pride ourselves at the stability at Arsenal, it has slowly become more and more of a hinderance. The club has adopted a losing mentality. Wenger says he wants to win trophies, but then calls 3rd place the equivalent of a trophy. Then he finishes 4th. He keeps moving the goalposts and making excuses, justifying the team’s lack of silverware by saying we were never expected to win anything by anyone. That might be the case, but if he expected it, as he was saying earlier in the season, then he shouldn’t make excuses for his players when it doesn’t happen.
We have stability at Arsenal, but that’s all we have right now. As long as we have Champions League football, nothing will change. The club should change its motto to ‘it’s taking part the counts’.
Wenger can (and will) put it any way he likes, but the players and fans are different. For the players, it used to be that losing would be a lesson on what not to do next time, but the more it keeps happening, the more one feels it will become habit; playing at Arsenal from a young age, at a club where losing is okay, what else will they know?
As for the fans, the feeling I’m getting from blogs and forums everywhere is that this has been a very tiring season. Most of us are just glad it’s over. The more I think about it, how much are we even looking forward to it all starting again? Reliving the same disappointments every season?
I fear this might be the final straw. After a season that promised so much ended up delivering nothing once again, with the players’ and fan’s belief wrecked, how do we recover?
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