When Andy Carroll nodded in the third goal with some help from Gabriel Paulista, I actually shrugged. It was an odd reaction to an otherwise gut-wrenching moment, but a reaction almost every Arsenal fan can relate with.
I can begin with plunging into our frail mentality, our bad defending and so many other things, but every other blog and news outlet have captured those elements so thoroughly and so repetitively that I don’t feel like boring my readers, or boring myself.
After all, when was the last time we didn’t make a footballing irrelevance look like this generation’s Zinedine Zidane? We’ve allowed Cuco Martina score a worldie at St. Mary’s. Gave the media a chance to thoroughly blow Marcus Rashford’s talent out of proportion. Made Fraser Forster and Eldin Jakupovic feel like Oliver Kahn. And today, help delude the striker’s version of Marouane Fellaini into thinking he’s any good. I’m actually jealous of the days when Wayne Rooney and Didier Drogba were our scourges. At least we had higher standards.
The levels of failures we reach, considering the wealth and resources we’ve possessed for three years, are incredible. Everyone hates losing, but since supporting Arsenal I’ve developed a particular distaste to losing dramatically. Because that’s what we do. It’s never failing whilst trying hard to succeed, or losing with some pride to show. It will always be the most unreal Shakespearean levels of bollix you have ever seen from a team who religiously manage to grab defeat from the jaws of victory.
We don’t lose the normal way, we lose the Arsenal way. To be honest, it would have been fantastic comedy were we not Arsenal supporters. What’s not to laugh about? You have a bumbling manager with world-beaters in his team who simply cannot get it together, despite his competitors sinking to unimaginable new lows. You have a fanbase only too willing to watch the show because they’re too scared of seeing change. I swear, if the life of an Arsenal fan over the last decade would be a sitcom, it’d fare better than Modern Family.
I’ve heard supporters call this a neat microcosm of our season. I’d argue it’s been a ‘nice’ representation of the past decade. We’ve almost chosen to fail when succeeding seemed easy. Lost to Birmingham, collapsed at Newcastle, threw it away against Wigan, bottled it at Blackburn… the examples are endless, and these were genuinely off the top of my head. Regardless of who we buy or how we approach things, we’ve always underachieved.
Funny, isn’t it? Laugh, will you.
I’ve heard a few feeble claims that the referee was at fault. I’d be surprised if even they believe what they’re saying. A fairer referee would have given West Ham the lead early on. A fairer referee would have given a lot of half-fouls West Ham’s way. I actually thought the referee was more Arsenal-biased on the day. It was an irrelevant observation anyway, as we still managed to Arsenal things up.
There were so many complaints toward players like Gabriel, Alexis, Monreal and Ospina. They’re all valid, but at some point there really comes a time when the blame must shift from the players. Remember Chelsea in the first half of the season? Something fundamental in the club just cracked and suddenly, regardless of the caliber of the players, everyone started tanking. It didn’t matter how they tried or what they did, everything they did simply backfired.
To an extent, it’s the same with us. Whenever things don’t go according to plan (in this case, West Ham making it 2-1), everything goes south. The team reaches a moment of flux when you can’t really judge a player’s overall capacity, because regardless of how they can play, they’ll still fail. Mesut Ozil and Alex Iwobi were amazing in the first half. When everything went wrong, they were anonymous – just like the entire team.
It’s a bit unfair to berate someone like Sanchez when really, the system is such that players lose all belief when the opposition does something to distort that equilibrium. It’s no big secret that Wengerball is entirely confidence-based. One shot to that confidence, and it won’t matter if the player is Mohammed Elneny or Mesut Ozil. They’ll both cower.
In some ways it makes me question – will buying new players in the summer really fix this systemic problem? We’ve bought so many decent players who would have kicked on at other clubs. Players like Mertesacker, Ospina and Gabriel aren’t as bad as we make them out to be. Indeed, they were all good players when we signed them. They could have been great, but failed.
If we can’t improve our own players, what’s the point in buying new ones? Regardless of who we buy, won’t they just stoop to the fourth-place-mediocrity level over time?
You know when you’re at work, you screw up and you’re afraid of how your boss will react? And when you finally manage to communicate your error to your superior, you get some calm words of encouragement instead of a telling off? At first, it feels like a godsend – a second chance you badly needed. But over time, as you keep making mistakes that aren’t punished, complacency sets in. You realize that you don’t need to work that hard to receive the same salary. You (along with your colleagues) become lackadaisical and ultimately, output falls.
It’s not difficult to shoehorn that analogy into the functioning of Arsenal Football Club.
Where’s the push for good players like Welbeck and Walcott to become great ones? Where’s the scolding or the anger from the manager, forcing his players to work harder? Initially, players like Iwobi, Elneny and Joel Campbell perform well not only because of their talent and because opponents don’t know how they play. Ultimately, they play well because they work hard. They fully appreciate the chance that Wenger has given them, and they look to repay that faith.
But over time, when they realize how lenient their manager is, I’ll bet top dollar they will start becoming lackadaisical. It’s not a prediction as much as it is a logical guess. This same thing happened to Wojciech Szczesny and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. This same thing I fear will happen to Jack Wilshere.
No one’s a fan of Alexis buffering in front of goal. Yesterday, the Chilean found himself through on goal but foolishly tried cutting in before having a shot. It failed. It’s a habit most Arsenal fans could do without, but you can guarantee that it won’t stop. Why? Not because it’s an irreparable flaw. But because there will never come a time when Wenger calls Sanchez in his office and says “Alexis? I hated that you didn’t take the shot right away. If you don’t stop that habit you’ll find yourself out of the starting XI.”
Why would Wenger say that? He’s too nice. He’s not really ambitious enough to goad his team to victory. And ultimately, that’s how his Arsenal teams become. Too nice, and not ambitious enough to goad themselves to victory. In India we call it the chalta hai attitude, and suffice to say it’s the root of most of our country’s problems.
What’s worse is that ultimately, Wenger himself does not have that pressure thrust upon him. That ultimately, it’s the board’s chalta hai attitude that allows Wenger to not really fight for first. Sure, it’d be nice to win things, but not really a disaster to fail, right?
Except the fact of the matter is, it will be a disaster for the fans. Almost everything that has happened this season has been a disaster, compounded by how easy it was to avoid it. If this season has proven anything, it’s that regardless of how well the odds may be stacked in our favour, the absence of a system of accountability means that Arsenal will always fail.
“♫ And it’s super bottlers. Super Bottlers FC.”
-Santi [Follow me on Twitter @ArsenalBlogz ]
Comments