Who Cares For Arsenal? Une Petit Petition?

Arsenal fans ( perhaps like most other clubs?) have a bit of a history of scapegoating players, managers, and now a section of the fans have moved onto its owner. This is primarily spurred on by the fear of not potentially achieving. I am a culprit here as am not that convinced by Mr. Emery. But I do want him to succeed and hope it works out well.

Many Arsenal fans feel quite threatened by our seemingly lack of activity in the transfer market while they watched green-eyed at other teams pulling off big money deals as it were monopoly money. Not only are they well aware that Arsenal cannot compete with last year’s top two (based on projecting the form of last year onto this year) but top four maybe a struggle. We now see clubs directly under Arsenal sweeping by from the supermarket and the fear of dropping down into the top ten becomes a greater paranoia.

So as a response to all this is a petition has been formed and is promptly been signed by many. How many of these are actually Arsenal fans no-one will ever know. How many bots are now signing on the site will shall also not ever known, unless the analytics become public.

The petition is pretty simplistic in its manifesto, but mostly expresses the wish that Stan spends his own money to buy players as a solution to Arsenal’s current problem playing in the Europa League and not making the PL top four.  All seems simplistic enough doesn’t it?

Who are the proponents

Then take a look at the proponents who are pushing it, and promoting its “cause”. Mostly the same people who blamed Wenger (ironically the man who probably brought them to the club in the first place) for ruining their day. Now Stan is on the list;

“Oi Stan, spend yer cash on us. I’ll be yer best mate”.

No you won’t. These people only sing when they are winning.

But these are the same people who have chanted and attacked Chelsea and Man City for buying everything and now want Arsenal to buy everything too. This is no longer about sport, or at least it is but only at a low level; this is about identity, this is about wanting to be superior, yet by their fears and criticism of a Euro Super league they flounder on hypocrisy. They find the EL tedious ( looking down on other “inferior” clubs from cities they had not heard of until that moment ) but long for the CL. But everyone knows it’s the elitist league in the world.

Now flux will always enable us to look hypocritical at some point but why write a petition when you don’t know what you want? But we do they say. “we want to win everything and people like you are in our way!”

Money is not everything

But there’s a factor they are missing, Wenger failed many times with this, but mostly he succeeded; it’s not just about buying players, it’s about which players fit in together personality-wise and sometimes this goes beyond analytics. This can only come from actually knowing the game and how players operate. It seems abstract until we look and see the concrete and repeated examples.

How many years have we seen a club spend a load of cash but not get much out of it? Ok Wolves beat us and so did Leicester and Watford. Some will say they are teams that spent some ‘effin’ money. But what for? It didn’t get them anywhere beyond mid-table. They might go higher next season but it is equally likely they might go down. They are called yo-yo clubs for a reason.

Then take the example of ManUre. Look at their spending on players and managers and see the 1+1=2 formula doesn’t work. It needs the eye of a Pep, Klopp, Weng and Ferg. It takes a lot of effort to psychologically bring a team to full power like Klopp or Pep’s teams. Liverpool will boast they got it done spending less money than City or United, for that matter.

The money thing is tricky. I understand that players are attracted to high wages. But it’s also about players wanting to come to the club. The negativity from the fans as seen from outside the UK may well be a problem. In Britain it feels as if the outside world is far away, while outside Britain everything is easy to observe and seems close especially in football. Don’t you think players gossip. Even Vardy said some disparaging things about Arsenal and why he wouldn’t come. Do you think “foreign players” aren’t watching and talking? One thing is for sure; to them they aren’t “foreign”, instead Britain is foreign.

The Spuds didn’t spend anything last year but still handled their way to the CL final, much to our displeasure, so what does that indicate?

What if Stan bung Emery a load of wad

What good will come out of the petition even if Stan bungs Emery a load of wad to splash about. Will Emery (and our middle management) know who to buy? What he did to the team last year wasn’t too hot, at least in the sense of playing creative football. But the people involved with the petition are the ones who crooned at Fulham “we’ve got our Arsenal back” only to then see they hadn’t and what it was more like a hybrid Wenger team playing George Graham football for the rest of the season why we clung onto the 22 game unbeaten run. And it didn’t really work. These are the people that want Auba sold to make funds for Zaha. Plus they are convinced by the idea of Arsenal DNA.

Yet Wenger wasn’t Arsenal DNA, nor was Henry, or many of the other fabulous ball players we’ve had in. What does Arsenal DNA actually mean? Gus Cesar? John Hawley? Jon Kosmina? Viera, Adams and Henry have all so far not proved to be successful.

If Henry was bought in now, in the state he was before he came into Arsenal, I suggest he would not have developed into the player he became. Why? Because the atmosphere is wrong there’s no space to grow. There hasn’t been for years, certainly not in the way Wenger wanted.

I’m all for a boot room, but last season the people involved have destroyed that potential. Rather than continuity, we instead got broken down; the team not functioning on a high level, the fans way too critical even when the stats prove them wrong, and too many people who were doing a good job cleaned out by the new management. ManUre had the same problem and still stalling, also with angry fans and with a much quieter stadium.

Marginalized or angry

The petition also states that they feel marginalized; this is when we know we are in the area of Julius Streicher.  Total bullshit. In no other time in the history of football can fans be so vocal, affluent enough to make banners and commission planes to fly over, ordering the most successful Arsenal manager ever to go.

It all seems to smell of populist sentiment, but always underlying that is a highly manipulating false sense of victimhood. They are not marginalized, they are angry that they are not in control. So by that it will always be someone else’s fault. This will go on and on even if a EPL or CL win happens. They are feeling less powerful, less meaningful in the hierarchy of club football on a European field.

To sign the petition would mean siding with a lot of blogs whose Politik and psychological stance I don’t agree with. They went from being the 12^th man/person to be 5^th columnists imo. Mob rule, bullying(?) and endless parasitical narcissists(?) pushing the club this way and that isn’t my idea of how a club should be supported.

Time for deeper thinking

This moment in time needs deeper, canny thinking, the likes of which Arsène had? Everyone’s frustrated and wants to get back to how it was, but that can’t be can it? If it’s going to change its coming from left field, unseen. Or it needs someone who can inspire on the field. That’s our main hope. But it needs to breathe and grow. That’s not going to happen with negative football. Race horses die pulling carts and cart horses die in the steeplechase.

In my opinion some sort of revolution at AFC run by AFTV or Le Grove, is going to mean the end of the club. How can it not be? But I also worry how things will turn out when there is no visible end. Who has the foresight to look into the un-written future?

Keep in mind that many of these petitioners are professional fans, paid to have an opinion, sometimes gaining more attention and influence than a daily newspaper. They are not amateurs nor are they our friends.  Why should their opinion be more insightful than anyone else’s? They have an agenda which usually has nothing to do with best interest of the club, unlike most regular fans.

What if Stan pumps a load of cash in, and the analytics say this and that guy are great but the team doesn’t fit or play well? What then? Onto the next scapegoat and the next? Then what if it all works? How to then stay in that position? This is a never ending pit of suffering and unfulfillment. That’s how football/sport functions. It’s a vessel for all possibilities and possible permutations. So what then? How do you fill a hole that can’t be filled either by players, managers or owners? When will they make peace?

Part of the solution or adding to the problem

Am not saying I am 100% right, just trying to find a way through. Am as frustrated as many of these people, but I don’t want the club to just turn into another shallow “shooting-tigers-in-a-cage” outfit. Wenger in his farewell speech seemed to know what was going to happen or at least could well happen. Alternate voices are always needed as they are also part of the picture. That’s what I hope this is.

Feel at ease to criticize. This isn’t a final statement, more trying to see what’s going on. Maybe you can add more in the areas I am unable to see. How much are we also part of the problem?  Is the petition part of the solution or simply adding to the problem?

Contributed by: Lady Europa