1. “Remember who you are, what you are, and who you represent!”
Attributed to David Rocky Rocastle and not to take anything away from him personally but it’s a phrase that Tony Adams says was drilled into the players from a young age by Steve Burtenshaw so it was around the club for a long time. It means that you should know Arsenal are a big club, that we have certain values, and act accordingly. Most of the players at the club follow this. Most of the fans, ehh.
Most clubs sing about how they are famous, how they are the greatest club the world has ever seen, but only Arsenal have the Invincibles, have a record 13 FA Cups, three doubles, and 13 League titles. We also have Herbert Chapman, Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp, David Rocastle, Patrick Vieira, Tony Adams, and one of the greatest steward this clubs has ever seen, the man who won more than any other manager, who build the foundations of Arsenal as one of the biggest clubs in Europe, and who almost literally hand-built the new stadium, Arsene Wenger.
2. We are always looking for the next Vieira/Henry/Bergkamp
That’s the problem with heroes: they never die and can never be replaced. It’s not about these names, specifically. In five years time, people will be saying “Arsenal never properly replaced Aaron Ramsey” or whomever they deem to be a hero/legend. In 10 years time we will have another great Arsenal team and in 20 years the fans will be saying that we never properly replaced them.
3. Same old Arsenal, always trying to walk the ball in
Arsenal are so famous that television shows make jokes about us. The one above is from the IT Crowd and applies just to the very specific Cesc Fabregas/Wengerball era post Invincibles where Wenger banned players from taking shots outside the 18 yard box. Before that, Douglas Adams joked “it would be a lucky escape for the Arsenal” if the earth were to be destroyed before an FA Cup match. “Boring boring” was the chant of the Graham era. “One-nil to the Arsenal” was another. So on. We are the famous Arsenal and people make fun of us for it. Get used to it. It’s better than being Chelsea, who are known just for being racists.
4. Thou shalt win every online poll
If there’s an online poll and it’s even remotely about Arsenal, we will win it.
5. There’s a right way, a wrong way, and the Arsenal way
There’s a rebellious spirit that runs through our history. From the day that we moved from South London to North, from hiring Herbert Chapman to Henry Norris getting one over on the Spurs/ From signing the first contract rebel George Eastham (the man who broke the retain and transfer scheme) to building a team of children on the back of the success of the Invincibles. From building a new stadium to delivering it on time and under budgets. From qualifying for the Champions League for 22 years to never winning that title. A self-sustaining club that built a fortune for the directors. If there’s a right way to win the League (spend a ton of money) and a wrong way to run a club (“pull a Leeds”), Arsenal will always find a way to do it a third way, our way.
6. Thou shalt click the bait
Every Arsenal supporter I know hates Piers Morgan. Yet every day Piers Morgan is retweeted, quote tweeted, or screen grabbed into my timeline. How? Because you swallowed the bait: hook, line, sinker, and copy of Angling Times. The same for the Daily Mail, the Sun, the Telegraph, the Star, all of these papers employ wind-up merchants who write articles that they know Gooners will click. It’s also pretty funny how people get worked up about these people who get them worked up. John Cross, for example. I sussed him out 10 years ago. Had a few DMs with him where I called his reporting into question and he blocked me. And Talksport’s another. I mean come on. Surely by now you know Adrian Durham is just winding you up?
7. Three vows: hope, faith, and poverty
Just say it with me: Arsenal never have any money. Yes, there’s money in the bank but see that’s not money money. Have hope, keep the faith, don’t spend any money. Also, give us your money.
8. Forever in our shadow
It would take 11 consecutive years of winning the Premier League for Tottenham to equal Arsenal’s record. And even then they would have to have an Invincible season and win five more FA Cups. No matter how well run they are, no matter how lucky they get in unearthing gems like Kane and Alli, this all seems improbable. So they will forever be in our shadow.
9. Fourth place is a trophy
People denied it for years. People mocked Arsene Wenger for saying it. But like all oracles, what once was mocked is now accepted as truth. Fourth place is a trophy. I actually like to think of it as relegation and promotion but every time I say that some weirdo vehemently disagrees with me even though you literally play in a different league when you finish top four but hey, I’m a Yank.
10. When in doubt, complain
I actually ran out of ideas and time. Why don’t you suggest a 10th commandment?
Ooh. Nice one Tim.
I’m just going to paste a comment from the previous blog here. It was a response to Doc, but it was about values.
Also, did I inception the IT Crowd in your brain? I think I did. I’m claiming it anyway.
————————————————————————————
Yeah no Doc. Or at least, no thanks. What you need to thrive now is money. That’s basically it. And since we’re not going to get that, what’s the point of losing what sets us apart in other ways. I mean Dortmund aren’t cut-throat like say Bayern or Chelsea. But they do ok. In fact, I think it is because of that that they do ok. If they were to treat players as just mercenaries and expendable assets, that’s a battle they’ll lose sooner or later. Similar applies to us. (And there’s a balance to be reached. I’m not arguing for charity. We never were that)
Read about the Neymar transfer to get a sense of Raul Sanllehi. Not pointing figures about any illegalities, but that this guy is in control of Arsenal, is no cause for celebration for me. I didn’t support Arsenal through sh**storms because all I care about are trophies. There’s nothing archaic about having values.
https://thelab.bleacherreport.com/the-never-ending-neymar-transfer-scandal/
And note that it was also under his watch that Neymar’s buyout clause could be activated by PSG. Might even be why he’s not there anymore.
Your 10 is perfect and it has served me just fine.
Suggestion for #10. Similar.
Victoria Concordia Crescit is meant ironically
I often wonder whenever B Dortmund are being praised by Arsenal fans how they would do in the PL over a period of one season and not just when facing one English club over two legs in the CL.
Is this the part when you descend from the mountain to find us all worshipping a gold cow?
10. Number 10s Will Divide Opinion
Have a look at the below list of Arsenal 10s, going back to my birth year. What do you notice?
Mesut Ozil (18/19 – Present), Jack Wilshere (12/13 – 17/18), Robin van Persie (10/11 – 11/12), William Gallas (06/07 – 09/10), Dennis Bergkamp (95/96 – 05/06), Paul Merson (88/89 – 94/95), Kevin Campbell (91/92), Anders Limpar (90/91), Gus Caesar (89/90), Perry Groves (86/87 – 89/90), Steve Bould (88/89), Charlie Nicholas (83/84 – 86/87).
The less said about Ozil the better for now. You have to go back to Dennis Bergkamp – 12 years! – to find one who didn’t come with a vague-but-irrepressible whiff of sh!t to them. As you go further back the specifics tend to fade and into the fuzzy warmth of legend, but the pattern is there.
OK, I admit, I just wanted to say something about number 10s for number 10.
Yes! This is extremely on point.
My suggestion was “The Less a Player Starts, The Better He Gets”.
Jack Wilshere was probably the best example of this, but it mainly applies to attacking players and no 10s.. We criticise their performances, and when they get dropped, we criticise their absence from the team. It’s the circle of life.
#10 Thou shalt preach other supporters
We are the club whose fans constantly preach other fans on how to behave. Constantly talking about the right way to voice out the opinion. It’s so idealistic that it doesn’t exist in any other forms of our society yet we want Arsenal fans to uphold to those standards after each game.
Would you abuse the player if you were to meet him and say to his face?? Well I also ask those… would you start preaching about his behavior or do you quietly walk away ignoring him???
HA!
I liked this what you have written about the two types of Gooners. I bet it can be somehow converted into a commandment.
10. There is no ball but Wengerball.
This not a suggestion for a commandment. It’s just the way I way I feel watching dreadful football under Emery as on right now vs. Bate Borisov. 30 minutes into the 1st half and I want to scratch my eyes out.
Not the we didn’t serve up more than our share of stinkers under AW but my word, this is just dreadful.
10. Thou shall get rid of the wrong players. We had an ageing, ineffective Gilberto; an up and coming Flamini; and the best of lot, Lassana Diarra, a tremendously defensive midfielder, close to being a generational talent. What did we do? We managed to all three; Diarra (who we got on the cheap from Chelsea) most egregiously. We thus ushered in the Denilson era.
This time last year if you asked anyone with any analytical ability who out of Xhaka, Ozil and Ramsey would we get rid of and replace, we know what the consensus would have been. Does Xhaka have compromising photos of his managers, or are we biding our time till the summer? Discuss.
Typos. Ugh.
11. Never do anything in a hurry… particularly on Valentine Day.
Number 11 – Play like absolute crap in the EL game against a terrible team that hadn’t played in months. Everyone bar perhaps Kos was terrible. I suspect our under 23 team would have looked like more of an offensive threat.
And this is basically going to be the story without Rambo and Ozil.
@STEVEINSLC
Did you see the pitch condition today?
Dude, this was not a game for Ozil to thrive in , or any Arsenal player really.
I’d be hard pressed to find a better pitch to play on than the Ems’ and this was a flattened out potato field.
That, and the long flight, longer than usual coach drive from the airport and almost freezing conditions that make the ball too hard to pass accurately( I believe it’s all in his contract )
Ok, now I’m just Mezzing with you .
Apparently Citeh have several training pitches of varying quality so that their players can get used to the idea of passing the ball on something below the ‘carpet’ level they are used to. Does anyone know if Arsenal have a similar set up at London Colney?
Laca-who? Any one of ex-Arsenal strikers that could have scored today and at least have had the club come away with a draw:
1. Chamakh
2. Gervinho
3. Sanogo
and of course,
4. TGSTEL
Sanogo would’ve dislocated both his ankles on this pitch or worse.
The man could barely stay upright in ideal conditions.
The Mourinhofication of Unai Emery
Alienate your biggest star? Check
Freeze him out in favour of inferior players? Check
Ugly football? Check
Tactically incoherent? Check
A preference for ugly, workmanlike players over creative ones? Check
Bad results that don’t reflect the ability of the squad? Check
Yeah, that’s brutal. But I dont feel like spreading love today.
Yeah, give him time in fairness, I guess. Sigh.
Mourinho was in a third season with pretty much the players he wanted.
Emery is in his first.
The Pogba/ Ozil thing isn’t the same either.
Man U brass and management brought Pogba in at a great cost so freezing him out for whatever reason by the same people who brought him in speaks to lack of foresight or mismanagement.
None of the people who brought Ozil in are at the club now and there’s a consensus Ozil’s last deal was a mistake.
We don’t even know if keeping Ozil’s minutes down hasn’t come from the very top do we.
Good points, except the last, which is a frankly terrible one.
A board decision not to play a player in order to save money somehow makes it better?
I for one am glad we lost. It is a nice wake up call. Hope we lose the 2nd leg too! Maybe the owner will invest and start anew with a new coach, who can eschew his pride and leverage the talent we have. Urgh.
Never, ever going to happen, I’m afraid. KSE will never invest a single penny into this team, no matter how bad it gets.
The year: 2034. Arsenal’s record of longest consecutive years in the top flight is under threat. They have 700m in the bank which the club says can be used now that the stadium is paid off. In a huge splurge they spend all of it to buy a CB and a young winger. They still need a DM and there’s literally the next Vieira available who wants to come to Arsenal. KSE assert their commitment to the last of the values remaining in Arsenal’s mission statement. Self sustainability.
The End.
Nothing like undermining the team to make your point is there! Is this the way it works for distant supporters then?
I would imagine you’re one of those Wenger ‘wagon jumpers’ I regularly disdain on this very blog.
Emery is just a bit…garbage. Embarrassing.
how many people think it’s a good idea to ride with this unai emery cat now? it’s funny that claudeivan compares him to mourinho. i did that months ago but arsenal were unbeaten for x-amount of games so i had to be nuts, right?
wrong. WRONG! tim’s stats confirmed what i was saying. time always tells.
do you know that just over a year ago, arsenal dismantled this same bate borisov team with the reserves? players that left the club during the january window were part of the side that smashed these guys 10-2 on aggregate. players like giroud, theo, debuchy, coquelin, nelson, willock, ospina, and mertesacker to name a few. players that weren’t considered good enough for the arsenal first team absolutely smashed this team playing wengerball but our best side loses 1-0 playing emeryball. i tell you, i’d kill to have frank coquelin and mathieu debuchy right about now.
look at the red card. it’s born of frustration. the first straight red card of lacazette’s career. he’s used to winning and came to arsenal to play a higher level of football but he’s stuck playing emeryball. he’s a natural goal scorer but the cutting edge of his game has been dulled because emery want him to be a playmaker and still be a goal scorer. the coach’s strategy means he’s working way too hard, doing something he’s not very good at and is getting no service. for crying out loud, arsenal have a fit ramey and ozil that they left sitting on the couch. boys, i’ve seen enough. it could take arsenal a decade or more to recover from this guy if they don’t do something soon.
arsenal have lost four of their last 8. in the last two, they got outplayed by the worst team in the premier league and have just lost to a belarusian team that hasn’t played since way before christmas. sure, arsenal has a few injuries but there’s still plenty of talent to make light work of teams like huddersfield and bate borisov. emery’s approach has arsenal looking very weak. even if kronke gave arsenal money for transfers, what top player would want to come to arsenal and play this kind of football? a team that’s playing like trash but mesut can’t get into the side because the coach is trying to prove a point?
sorry for the rant but i’m more than disappointed with the result. i can imagine how the fans that traveled from london must feel.
Completely agree on the red card. Laca and Auba came to play with the likes of Ozil. Not spend the whole game trying to participate in the build up.
For the first time, I felt like the players don’t want to play for him. And it’s understandable. They didn’t sign up to play this style of football. Which is why we keep hearing about needing all new players.
If the fans are questioning the setup, leaving out Ozil, letting Ramsey go, no way the players aren’t wondering either, And once the results start going down, faith can go quickly.
I will keep saying that I think the problem is also higher up with Raul taking over. I don’t trust him.
“For the first time, I felt like the players don’t want to play for him. And it’s understandable. “
Ridiculous statement.
Great counter argument.
Some statements don’t need counter arguments to show how silly the might be.
Trump has a very big brain and is a stable genius.
How many well thought out , well written paragraphs does one need to debunk that one?
Ok so you reject the premise of players not wanting to play for a manager? Could never happen?
As an aside, it’s interesting how often your mind goes to Trump.
My mind goes to Trump more often than it does to Arsenal.
Nothing Arsenal do can alter anything in my life as opposed to what Trump is doing.
If you think Arsenal are embarrassing as a football club,
Trump is ten times more embarrassing as a President.
Wouldn’t argue with that.
I’m not rejecting it out of hand per se, but I am rejecting it for this group of players 8 months into the season.
Ozil is the only one who can afford the lexury of not wanting to play for Emery.
He’s already quit the German NT and is sitting on a guaranteed gold mine and is moody as hell so who knows.
99% of professional players would give their left one to extend their career even for one more season ,so they won’t jeopardize their playing time because their new managers vision isn’t exactly what theirs might be.
You’re focusing on the ‘play’ part of the not wanting to play, when I was focusing on the ‘want’.
Of course they want to play. It just feels like they don’t want to play this way, and by now they might be concluding that the coach isn’t going to change. A loss of motivation and belief.
They try hard on the field. They’re not actively sabotaging the club with the Mourinho effect. But I don’t think they are happy with the style of football nor would I expect them to be happy at the treatment on Ozil, as footballers and as teammates.
Josh
I’m surprised a little cat this oming from a coach.
No two teams are ever the same and one year makes a difference.
Even if you ignore the pitch condition which whenever Arsenal are involved is even more of a factor , because we have players who are not the greatest technicians but used to playing on best surface there is, Bate side was not the side from last season.
Only three players: keeper, right back and left attacking midfielder kept their place from last season’s line up.
As for Arsenal’s “reserves “ as you put it , if I remember correctly Wenger played two teams the whole season.
One in Europe and a different team in the PL.
So those Arsenal “ reserves”were all familiar with each other and not just a bunch of random players thrown in together.
Should Arsenal be beating the likes of Bate under any circumstances?
Sure , but let’s not get histerical here and look at some of nuances.
A year ago, Bate was dead last in the group stages.
It was a different team save three players.
The game was in September, in what looked like perfect weather on a perfect ( for Belarus ) pitch.
Not the same.
When did Bate change their coach?
Tom, this whole thread of you defending hard to defend stuff is amusing.
When did you turn into Sarah Huckabee Sanders
If Sarah Huckabee Sanders said
“ Sure, Trump isn’t doing too well but only because you expected too much of him “ then yea, I’m just like her.
Managerially, Arsenal have been a sh1t show these past months, and that, as happens often, is manifesting itself ON the field. I think that Emery is close to losing that dressing room.
And look, I don’t care what Mesut makes. His treatment is shocking and worse, it’s not football related. If you want to claim that (1) he’s not one of the best 18 footballers at AFC (2) that he represents ZERO options coming off the bench there or in other games when he didnt make the squad when fully fit, go right ahead.