The Arsenal saga seems to have taken on a life of its own.
After the humiliating defeat at Bradford, fans are beating their chests and wailing: some have even burnt their shirts and torn up their season tickets in protest!
Interestingly, this is not the first period in Arsenal’s history that the team has gone trophyless. Much of the 1950’s and 60’s saw the club go through a prolonged cup drought.
In 1966, Bertie Mee took over as manager, and Arsenal’s fortunes changed in 1969 culminating in the winning the League/Cup double in 1970-71.
Successes followed in the years thereafter, and in the 1980’s George Graham brought new glory to the club. Wenger also has done the club proud, and despite the lack of confidence in him now, his past successes were quite remarkable.
There is no doubt that at present, Arsenal is a club in crisis, besieged by fans and critics alike. Accusations are rife, some blaming the Board, the Manager and the players in equal doses.
Bad results lead to disgruntled fans. That’s nothing new. However for me, the most frustrating part of what is going on at present is that despite the fiercest criticism, nothing at all is going to change.
Wenger will not be sacked or ‘kicked upstairs’ to make way for a new manager, the tight wage structure at the club will not be relaxed, and expensive players, even if some are available and want to come to Arsenal at this stage (very doubtful) will not be purchased.
Nor will the Board interfere with Wenger’s decision making strategies.
So in short, in my view, fans will have to endure the slump, but as history shows there will come a time when the team’s fortunes are bound to change for the better. History tells us this.
The problem is how many loyal hard working Arsenal fans that spend a lot of money now to support their team, will still be there when it does?
It’s just not fair is it? But then that’s football.
image: © Ronnie Macdonald
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