I guess we are going to have some Arsenal soon and I will admit several things here:
First, I was wrong. It looks like the Coronavirus might be slightly (read a lot) less deadly and spreadable than I had assumed. So, the argument I made that players wouldn’t want to risk it was wrong.
As were my arguments that players wouldn’t want to go through the hassle of all the measures required to play football again. And so on and so on. The Bundesliga has proven me completely and utterly wrong.
I’m actually glad I was wrong. If I had been right, it meant a lot more people were going to die. And who in their right mind wants that?
So, I welcome the Premier League back and hope that everyone is safe and healthy.
Second, I am enjoying the Bundesliga. Like I casually watch a few games a week and sometimes dip in and out of a match. I’m not new to the Bundesliga, I have watched them for years, but somehow this whole experience is new to me.
I think what’s going on (with me) is that watching Arsenal had become one hell of a drag. Part of the problem was the way we played football. Part of the problem were the results. Part of the problem was an overwhelming sense that this is just how Arsenal are going to be from now on. But the bigger problem is that watching Arsenal is actual work.
To watch Arsenal I had to read the news, check the blogs, argue with people all the time (I actually didn’t HAVE to do this), listen to people literally hate the greatest manager the club has had in the last 40 years and so much more. The atmosphere around Arsenal is just straight up toxic and I feel like the supporters aren’t family in the way that we were 10 years ago. I can’t imagine going to a game right now.
There were always squabbles before but this feels way different. The AKB/WOB stuff is still going on – which is ridiculous because the man is the best manager this club has had in my lifetime – but now what’s taken over is Sanllehi in/Sanllehi out and what’s happening online around that debate is downright ugly. It’s not just that people disagree, that I can deal with, it’s that when someone has a different opinion the response is to call that person an “idiot” for having that opinion.
The recent news that Chelsea are going to sign Timo Werner this summer is blowing that noxious cloud over us again. People are blowing up over this issue and once again sides are being drawn and it’s falling along familiar patterns.
Chelsea have been able to outspend Arsenal for the last 16 years! So, that part’s not news. What’s different, I think, is that a lot of folks who were under the impression that Arsenal were just a few signings away from top four again are suddenly realizing that Arsenal are in danger of becoming a mid-table team.
Yeah, man! It’s going to take sustained investment from the owner to get this club back on track. And I guess we will see if he does it.
But the point here is that all of the culture around Arsenal and Arsenal fandom is draining. When I watch Bundesliga, it’s fun because it’s light and I don’t have to worry about whether Schalke sign someone or not. I don’t have to worry about saying something and have 10k people call me an idiot.
So, while I’m happy that Arsenal are back and soon to be playing some football. And while I’m excited to see what Arteta has in store for us and how he’s got the team playing football. I’m dreading the return of the Arsenal outrage machine.
“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!”
-Michael Corleone, Godfather Part III
hahahah
Great post Tim. Thanks for keeping us entertaining during the football shutdown.
I think almost everyone agrees that Arsene was a great manager at one time. However, I have been reading a lot of the old posts from the last 5- 6 years that are featured on the website and its also very clear from your posts and most of the discussion in the comment section that most believed Arsene stayed several years longer then he should have. The current downward trajectory clearly started in the last few years of Arsene’s tenure and the last year was really bad. The idea that we would have been a lot better off now if Arsene had stayed is almost certainly not accurate. IMO. We needed a new regime and they have certainly made some mistakes especially with Emery. However, it was always going to be tough to reverse the decline quickly. Football fortunes tend to be cyclical unless your team is fortunate enough to have almost unlimited resources and can afford to make a lot of mistakes. Hopefully the current malaise will reverse course sooner rather then later.
I wanted Wenger gone 2-3 years before he was unfortunately forced out. I thought his time as a manager was past him but I still miss him, his personality, his force of character, his decency, his eloquence and his elegance. I would never want him back in his old capacity but I wish he and the club could unite in some way in the future. He is one of very few who transcended his sport.
Tim has hit the nail on the head. Watching Arsenal has become a drag these past few years. I have never expected that Arsenal would win the PL, not even the year that it came somewhat close but Leicester won it, but at least when Arsenal was perennial top 4 and exited CL after the round of 16, there was something akin to hope that we would improve, although not necessarily by a few new signings, because of Kroenke’s lack of investment. Yes, it is the hope that kills you, but when you are mucking about mid-table with no hope of getting back into the top 4 and struggling even to qualify for the Europa League, it is truly a drag. But yet we all keep watching.
The current administration also has no long term plan after hoping against the evidence that Wenger could keep working his magic indefinitely after sustaining Arsenal’s level during the austerity required to build the Emirates stadium. Hence the lengthy and undue delay to identify a successor, only to ditch Arteta and go with Emery for about a season and a half, and when that failed, back to Arteta again in what seems to be a panic move rather than a choice made with a long term plan and after due consideration of the candidates available then.
Which other blogs have you been commenting in Tim? I’d love to get on them & give some support.
I’m really looking forward to the return of Arsenal. The enforced break was actually pretty easy to take, although all sports being shut was a real drag. But no matter the nonsense around Arsenal, it’s a welcome distraction from everything else.
I think the break would have done the players and the team good as well. We’ve had some time to get used to Arteta’s methods (even if remotely) and the players look fit and eager. I’m hoping we can play some good football through the rest of the season.
In the longer term, I’m one of the Sanllehi Out people, and think he is going to be a bigger problem than lack of investment from Kroenke. Because he’ll waste what money we have on his agent buddies’ players. I hope Arteta (and Edu?) can force a few good transfers through, the youngsters can step up and we become a team greater than its parts.
As unlikely as it seems, I want Arsenal to target the title in 2022. It’s partly symbolic. 18 years is the longest we’ve gone without a title since we won it. But as Wenger said, it is not a humiliation to have a high target and fail. I’d like the people at the club that I do trust, to give it all they have. Could be this generation’s Fever Pitch moment. (and not the stolen valour of Red Sox/Liverpool’s fever pitch)
1Nil
Arsene’s force of character, eloquence and elegance certainly helped him to develop a loyal following and a very strong emotional attachment from a segment of the fan base. However basing decisions for a sports club on emotion rarely gives good results. Things have not gone as well as we hoped since Arsene left but that does not change the fact that the club needed to move away from Arsene. Unfortunately he was not going to step down without being forced out which made for a messy breakup.
Bill, I agree. Wenger is a great man but great men do not necessarily, always and consistently make great managers. He lost the plot in those last year’s but I think us in those CL places year after year despite right to spending and unending injury woes was an unappreciated achievement by many (Tim excepted)
Bill, football from a supporter’s perspective is rooted purely in emotion. The reason I love Arsene is because he is an Arsenal supporter as well as a manager, he sees football as more than just a business where grinding out results is the most important, or in someone like Mourinho’s case, the only important thing. Obviously we all want Arsenal to win, and we all want to see Arsenal create flowing, magical football. But with money driving success in the game these days, it’s very hard for a team to fulfill both these ideals without huge investment from the owner. I don’t see us getting that right now, and I’m not sure I even want it as a battle of the check books is effing boring, so our reality is that we will probably not win the EPL for the forseeable future (Mikel, prove me wrong, please!). In which case, I would far rather see us play exciting, attractive football and go down fighting than have us play conservative, rigid systems (Emeryball) that make me turn off the computer and go pull weeds in the garden for amusement. In the end, I don’t think football should be all about results, especially when trophies these days are mostly just bought and sold.
Agree with your article mate,
Our fan base has split in to 3 section 1 has become incredibly toxic another arrogant and the final section the realist socialists. Some proportions of our fan base feel we should be spending 200m a season on players alla Man City, Utd, Chelsea and Now to an extent Liverpool. The other have no sense of where we belong as a club at the moment which on the face of it with Emerys failing were right where we should be. Then the rest of us know whats wrong realise we can’t throw money at the issue and accept it will take time.
Quite simply, we are not that club, we never were and never will be. We havnt got owners who cheat the financial records to spend beyond their means. Nor do the Kronkes want to spend their own money on buying 200m of players. We have chosen a model of spend what we earn. Thats not a problem if you use the correct “business” model.
Gazidis was a cock and created the gooner civil war. Bad contract management, bad sales and bad player investments over Gazidis entire tenure has put us in this position. It happened to Liverpool, look at them now they have reinvented their club (with the help of a few fortunate overpriced sales).
We have just started this period of reinvention, its going to take time. We have to do what Wenger did when he first arrived, find gems and make them stars. That Model should never have changed, we wrongly tried to compete with big spenders. We ended up with at 45m, Ozil a mercurial talent who didn’t seem to care anymore since being sold by the biggest club in the world and a 35m Mustafi.
We have to realise that the club has and will continue to change. We need to sensible with transfers and have the future in mind. We need to give Arteta the time needed and a few Martinelli Torriera Guendouzi type signings, merged with youth team talent. Then things will change when we bring back the Arsenal way on and off the field. Things will then change with the fan base, nothing creates togetherness like winning.
It’s one of McCartney’s worst songs but what the heck, “Listen to What the Man Said”:
https://theathletic.com/1859699/2020/06/09/arsene-wenger-fifa-arsenal-coronavirus-premier-league-fans-racism-ffp/
(Excellent interview by Amy Lawrence)
i can imagine the relief of simply enjoying a game…not being on edge, hoping your team doesn’t blow the game or monitoring player performances/statistics.
tim, i remember you saying a while back that you didn’t rate the bundesliga. i was surprised as i enjoy it quite a bit…i lived two stints in germany; bavaria and rhineland-pfalz. i learned how to play proper football in germany. the highest level i ever played was in a league called the landesliga; nothing like the bundesliga…it’s like the german 5th division but significantly higher than anything i’ve ever seen stateside. the rules were the same but it’s like i was playing a completely different sport.
i used to go to vfb stuttgart games in the late 90s…so many beautiful women in stuttgart so i went there to party, too. however, i’ve been a huge bvb fan for about 25 years. dortmund blew it in the game against bayern the other day.
i’m looking forward to seeing arsenal back in action. although it’s tough to work on the strategic stuff or even tactical stuff virtually, it’ll be interesting if the players really beat arteta’s concepts down throughout the pandemic. mikey has had months to strategize for this game. likewise, so has pep. i have an affinity for the arsenal players so i’m hopeful. we’ll see.
I can’t remember saying I don’t rate the Bundesliga, I think my position would be better described as “It’s not a great league to watch because Bayern Munich just win every year”.
Fire up the Arsenal outrage machine!
It’s been on idle this whole time.
… with the handbrake on?
;¬)
Hi Tim. This post really resonated with me. For some reason I was really disappointed when the return of the PL was announced last month. Those couple of months of zero football to discuss was a revelation to me. I felt as if I finally came out of an abusive relationship. I love football and the passion of the Arsenal fans, but it all got a bit much in the recent few years. The toxicity in the Arsenal fan base was just one issue for me. The other was the constant discourse. We used to get a bit of a break from football over the summer. But as the game got richer, that gap was filled with tournaments, friendlies, kit launches and other PR related crap. It’s like having Christmas every day. The excitement wears off and it all becomes a drag. I wish we had an enforced 2 month break every season. With zero football and chatter. Because missing something makes you appreciate it more when it’s back. Something we’ve forgotten how to do in this modern world. Not having something you want can be good for you.