No, it’s not me.I still have truckloads of Arsenal passion in me. Even though I know that the ship of Arsenal is going to sink regardless of whether we win the FA Cup or not, my pure love for the club means that I’ll always be there.However, Arsenal Truth, a blogger that has been saying the absolute reality of the situation for around six years, has withdrawn his support for the club, exiting after yet another unnervingly accurate post.
Let me get this straight – I have no affiliation whatsoever with Arsenal Truth. I haven’t the slightest clue about his life, nor does he care about mine. I seriously doubt he’ll ever read this post. However, his exit from blogging genuinely took me aback, which made me spill my thoughts on the Internet.
Arsenal Truth, by the way, is the reason I’ve become enlightened to the ugly truths surrounding Arsenal Football Club, also the reason why I started this blog. His critical analysis and predictions, that are nearly always right, has made me wise to the depths of incompetence of Arsene Wenger. Even though I’ve never met him, I have respect for the anonymous guy who ran the site.
A note to the Arsene fan base: Instead of arguing over what will happen next season, why don’t you go to the Arsenal Truth archives instead? The evidence of Wenger’s incompetence and his regularly accurate predictions written there are so true, it’s scary.
Here’s an extract from Arsenal Truth. Who could possibly disagree with this?
“If this season ends up potless and Arsenal uncompetitive, for obvious reasons, somebody quite simply HAS to be made accountable! I am also leaning further and further towards wanting David Dein back at the club, even if it means having his sidekick Usmanov with him. Dein would be at the forefront, the beached whale would be peripheral, and his vulgar money is really no different to Kroenke’s.
They’re all in it for the prestige and the profit – but at least we know Dein cares passionately about Arsenal, and has the ruthless, naked ambition that the rest of the Arsenal board evidently lacks. Dein sacked Terry Neill and brought George Graham to Arsenal, they didn’t even get on, but Dein sat it out because George was a legend and a winner. And Arsenal need that now, not a board full of corporates and a manager that even alongside Dein, best friends as they are, wouldn’t be allowed to get away with this ludicrous incompetence.”
Many would assume that this post was written around the 6-0 Chelsea game, or maybe the 5-1 Anfield demolition. Wrong, it was actually written in September 2010, approximately one week after we thumped Blackpool 6-0. 4 years later, barely anything has changed.
Arsenal Truth is one of the few Arsenal blogs that I’ve seen, which speaks with absolute conviction and truth regardless of the final scoreline on Matchday. It’s the first Arsenal blog I had come across that took such a violent and aggressive turn from other Arsenal blogs, yet was bang on the money in the long run.
Arsenal Truth, as you would expect, is anti-Wenger, but speaks with reason. While I believe Le Grove is better than Truth, AT was the first blog I had found, hence I followed it more.
Not anymore. Now that Arsenal Truth has called it quits, I’m left seething over Wenger, because he was mostly responsible for a loyal supporter turning his back. I hope I won’t end up his way under Wenger stewardship.
I genuinely understand why Arsene’s supporters are angry with the Wenger Out section. After all, I was one of them around 2 years ago. However, whichever way you look at it, the Wenger Out crew has always been right. The truth may be bitter, or it may be what you don’t want to hear, but it remains the truth. Wenger remains a con man, a procrastinator, a tactical joke, a poor motivator, an excuse-hunter, a dictator, a miser and a two-faced fallen philosopher. Loads of evidence, and archival match reports from Le Grove, Arsenal Truth (and indeed, this blog) suggests the same.
For five whole years, everything has stayed the same. The only change has been an increase in our bank balance, which was down to Mr Gazidis, not Arsene Wenger. Anyone who thinks that a football manager was responsible in striking deals with PUMA and Emirates are off their rocker, frankly.
Every year, it’s the same mistakes. Under Wenger, those mistakes are certain to continue. We won’t compete for the Champions League nor win the Premier League EVER. We’ll always find supporters – desperate to not see their fallen hero being blamed – lambasting injuries and refereeing decisions instead. We might pick up some cups along the way, but let’s face it, they’d be a poor substitute for our proud history.
In fact, I can make 10 bold predictions for the next season. If Wenger stays, regardless of what happens in the FA Cup, the following will happen in 2014/15. I guarantee it.
1. In the transfer market, Arsenal will not do even half their business early (before the World Cup). Even though there is a possibility of needing to buy around 8 players to have a complete squad for the next season, I’m sure we’ll make a circus of it.
2. Arsenal will fall short of players. There will be at least one panic purchase on deadline day, and in the end we’ll lack in depth in at least one area. Whether it’s goalkeeper, defence, midfield or forward, I don’t know. Whatever happens, fans will come out with their excuses. Stuff like Wenger wasn’t allowed to spend by the board, World Cup was an unnecessary distraction or clubs deliberately didn’t sell their players to Arsenal, will be doing the rounds.
3. Arsenal might buy one world-class player, but he would be bought due to fan pressure, not out of some master plan. It’ll be synonymous to the £42.5m splash on Ozil. This one would possibly be on deadline day too.
4. Arsenal will not win the EPL, nor will they come close to winning the Champions League. We might win the FA Cup or the Capital One, but we won’t win trophies a club of Arsenal’s stature should win.
5. 90% of the mistakes that I’ve mentioned about Wenger (to see them together, click here) will recur. Whether they are unnoticed by deluded supporters or are spoken by the mainstream media remains to be seen.
6. There will be negative, Villa-ish results at least thrice next season. Boos ringing around the stadium are certain to follow, if these matches happen at home.
7. Even though lack of transfers will have a huge impact, Wenger’s insane tactical approach, and his clear inability to motivate his team during the crunch clashes will prove decisive in us not competing. Of course, Wenger’s apologists will instead blame injuries and refereeing decisions.
8. There will be an injury crisis, somewhere after the Christmas schedule.
NOTE: This isn’t because fate, luck and destiny loathe Arsenal, it’s because Wenger overplays his key players until they can barely walk, and then overrules his medical staff advice like the dictator he is. It’s not a coincidence that Arsenal have topped the injury list for the past five years.
9. Mesut Ozil will not be as successful as people think. A lot have got it wrong with Ozil, they think this season is his adaptation period. If so, shouldn’t he have a bad first half of the season and then a good second half of the season? Why is it the other way around?
Fact is, Ozil never was good with Arsenal once he learnt the Wenger way. Sure, he started his season brilliantly, but once Wenger started to impose his tactical approach on Ozil, the guy faded. Wenger also overplayed him throughout the Christmas schedule and heaped pressure on him. He surrounded Ozil with weak and slow people which exposed his flaws even more. Ozil’s injury was predictable, really.
Of course, there is every chance Ozil can resist Wenger’s suicidal man management. World class players like Cesc and Robin did. However, if Ozil manages to set the league alight next season, it would be inspite of Wenger’s management, not because of him.
I fear Ozil will go the way of Arshavin.
10. The season, as the past ten, will end up as ‘not good enough’. A majority of Arsenal’s fan base, to not heap pressure on their beloved philosopher, will instead glorify what he will ‘achieve’ throughout the following season, make themselves believe that better days are set to arrive and continue their futile exercise of hoping that Arsenal, under a zombie manager, will put things right the eleventh time around.
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While I can’t guarantee that all of these will happen next season, certainly around 8 of these points will transpire under Arsene Wenger. Most of them happened this season, they happened last season, and also the season before. If you don’t want to believe that it’s happening, tough, but it’ll happen anyways, and you’d better deal with it then.
Frankly, it’s embarrassing that a blogger from India can predict the impending disaster with such certainty, before one of football’s supposed greatest managers can do anything about it, or even know it. I’m in no way suggesting that I could be a better manager than Wenger, for I have zero footballing managerial experience. But if me, Le Grove and AT can see what’s coming, why can’t Wenger?
It doesn’t take anyone to be a football manager to realize that Arsenal needed a bloody striker for two seasons. You don’t need to win the Premier League to have an opinion on Wenger’s laughable tactics. If people loathe Hitler for killing millions of Jews, did any German retort by saying, “Well, you haven’t been a dictator, you don’t know how hard it is!”
In honesty, I feel sorry for Arsenal fans, I really do. The Arsenal fanbase is, in my opinion, one of the most loyal and patient ever. However, Wenger destroying his own legacy is having an adverse effect on these fans, who are now filled with self-doubt, false belief and are forced to accept mediocrity from time to time. Wenger is killing the club, feeding Gooners with the poison of hope, destroying their passion and trust and in return, delivering nothing.
How do you describe this situation? One word – fraud.
Don’t let a 3-0 win against a disinterested Newcastle, or penalty shootout relief against a Championship side fool you; Arsenal is a mess. The backroom staff don’t get a say under Wenger, the rotten system – flawed on ALL levels – will not change, players will get fed up and leave, Wenger will pick up his salary, the clueless board will not challenge him, and Arsenal will remain godawful under his dictatorial reign. On every level, the club remains hamstrung.
Hopefully if Wenger leaves in the summer, all the madness will stop and fans will be fed with genuine optimism. I have always supported Arsenal, but today it is more out of loyalty than pure passion. If Wenger is to leave, that passion will return.
Otherwise, if the chaos continues, years from now, I might end up like Arsenal Truth.
-Santi [Follow me on Twitter @ArsenalBlogz ]
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