Well, it’s been a busy, busy day for Arsene Wenger. Yesterday, my time, he went to an unusual measure and did a pre-match press conference, on a Thursday. I was wondering why he did that and was fully prepared to give my analysis of that presser when lo and behold the atom bomb of atom bombs went off. It turns out Wenger gave a Thursday presser because after that he met with shareholders…
uhh….
It’s really hard to know what to say because I haven’t seen the actual interview and given my deep, deep distrust of the British press, I’m not willing to just read what they say and go with it. This season is such a touchy issue and from what I gather the supporters he met with were very pointed in their questions and him in his responses. Thus, I think I need to see the whole interview myself to understand what happened.
One thing I do know is that I have been as guilty as many others in taking Wenger and the players to task; just last week I posted a huge screed about Silvestre. But does that make me less of a supporter?
Maybe.
Maybe, rather than saying “Silvestre is garbage” we should be removing the person from his actions and saying what my shrink once told me to say, like “Silvestre played like garbage” or “Silvestre had a nightmare game” or “Silvestre has had a nightmare season.” Because while Silvestre may have had a nightmare season, and I certainly think that as a defender if nearly every game you play in results in getting scored on two or more times would qualify as a nightmare, as my shrink would say, “It doesn’t mean that Silvestre is fundamentally broken” and thus saying “Silvestre is crap” is unfair. He just had a nightmare season.
Basically, it’s a shift away from being negative about the person and instead being negative about the person’s actions. Which now that I type it and re-read it… sounds kinda crazy.
Maybe that’s what Wenger is looking for from us supporters and maybe we can give him that. Maybe we can give the whole team that, at least, and at most maybe we can all find something really positive to say about this team?
That last idea came to me as I was reading this article by some guy named Matt Hughes. After reading all the criticism of Arsene and with my own seemingly schizophrenic love/hate of this team along comes this a writer for The Times Online who has an enormous respect for what Wenger has done for this club. Going so far as to say that Arsenal would likely drop into a 30 year rebuilding plan (the way Man U did) if Wenger were to leave. It’s pretty amazing stuff.
In light of that, what I want to do today is have everyone make a positive contribution in the forum. I want all of my frequent commenters to make one positive remark about the team and the club. I know some of you will be tempted to say 30 positive things, but let’s keep it to one, just the one favorite thing about this season, the one favorite player, the favorite game, anything. But just one, because I want everyone to have a chance to say their favorite thing without feeling like it’s already been taken.
So, what is the one positive thing you can say about Arsenal this year?
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