I never usually do New Year’s resolutions, but this year I decided to give myself a six week break off alcohol, and I’m starting to regret it already as Arsenal have already given me a couple of reasons to drown my sorrows. Our first visit to Swansea in 30 odd years and a new ground for all of us to tick off the 92 list (I’m now on 39).
The day started brightly enough, a traffic free run down to South Wales in Doughboy’s new Corsa, a delicious array of snacks provided by myself and a lovely homemade apple pie made by West Sussex’s finest new baker, Mr Bryder. Our pre-match haunt looked like something straight out of Shameless or This is England, men who looked like shrivelled prunes stood outside smoking rollups, inside young men in Fred Perry polo shirts caked in tattoos played pool whilst the barman handed over his ale in cans instead of on draught. For one minute I thought I’d gone back through a time portal to 1986.
That evenings raffle was £1 entry, win £25’s worth of lager, nearly enough to tempt me to stay for the draw after Arsenal’s tussle with the Swans. Unfortunately like many identi-kit stadiums these days they all look the same, and the Liberty Stadium was no exception with the standard fast food outlets nearby. I am much looking forward to 11th Feb when as part of a stag-do weekend I’ll be watching Oxford United away at Accrington Stanley, rubbish football, crumbling terrace, disgusting tea and awful toilets. Heaven.
I won’t draw on the match too much, Arsenal were poor again, the penalty should have never been (even I could see that from the back of the stand), the usual suspects not up to it again, the same frailties exposed again and another bad away day. More interestingly is the pressure being put on Arsene Wenger and the attacks coming from supporters. He has been the subject of much criticism from fans on blogs, in fanzines and on the phone ins and the occasional away game and now the away support is starting on it too.
At the end of the game myself and Doughboy looked at each other shrugged our shoulders and said “we’ll that was rubbish” and started to leave, the bloke a few seats to our right who had been shouting abuse at anything and everything during the match got on top of his seat and stood there giving the players the v-sign with both hands whilst shouting obscenities that I don’t think I can repeat. Whilst I’m sure the player’s couldn’t see or hear him from the back of the stand (we were in the back row) many others were repeating similar actions further down towards the pitch and a couple of these caught the attention of Thierry Henry who had come over to clap the fans for their support.
Now I do understand fans frustrations that we are no longer the force we were, losing to a promoted team and the fact that Tottenham are above us in the league for the first time since I was in school but childish name calling isn’t going to help, and oh look now we have the story in the biggest selling newspaper daily in the country. My personal stance on the whole situation is this, the first 11 can mix it with anyone, unfortunately our squad players who come in are just not good enough for a team who want to challenge for domestic and European honours.
Arsene Wenger needs to realise this fast and act in this transfer window, or at the very latest this summer or we could be left behind. We pay the highest prices in world football to go and watch the team and simply blaming the referee or something else each time we lose isn’t cutting it anymore. If you want to charge top end prices to watch our team then you need to bring in top end players.
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