Broken Records

So a fairly traumatic week following The Arsenal has passed and quite frankly we're deep in the mire.

With the defeats in Milan and at Sunderland yesterday our season is over and as Arse2Mouse says we're going to hear a lot of tripe coming from the club regarding 4th place being and achievement, 15 years of consistency etc etc. What’s the point of qualifying for the Champions League if we aren’t going to try and win it?

Flying out to Milan I knew we wouldn’t win the competition, and as such I said to my mates that if we lost in Milan we'd lose at Sunderland. I said that because the way this team deals with pressure and defeats is akin to a child running to their room and crying after being told off by their dad. When the going gets tough Arsenal get beat. I don't like knowing that, but it's sat there in my brain 24/7. You could hear the excuses for yesterdays defeat before the game kicked off...scheduling....pitch....injuries

When we went 1-0 down I wasn't the least bit surprised, nor was I surprised that the 2 'culprits' of the goal were Djourou and Squillaci. Time and time again Djourou has brain farts where he does needless things that lead to goals (yesterday's freekick wide out on the right), whilst Squillaci just has no luck at all wearing the red & white (of Arsenal). That's not to say that I think either is a useless player, but I don't think the correct course of action is rewarding either with a fancy new contract (as has just happened with Djourou).

This Sunderland match really has shown the gulf between the current Arsenal squad and those previous, and as many have said this Arsenal team doesn't need a few tweaks here and there it needs to be reconstructed from scratch. 

We have a nucleus of players we should fight tooth and nail to keep - Wilshere, Ramsey, Chamberlain, Van Persie & Sagna.

Whilst all the others simply aren't good enough to get this team back to the top of the premier league, there are some very good players who can have very good runs of form, but if they were good enough we wouldn't be getting beat by Sunderland, Fulham, Blackburn, Swansea et al. with our season done and dusted February 19th.

I think there will be a large turnover of players this summer, but the biggest changes of all need to happen at the board level. We've been in the Emirates for 6 years now and let’s face it we've cruised through those years, making the Champions League every year, making profit and occasionally challenging for honours. To think that we had a player as good as Cesc Fabregas in our side and we didn't win the league; it beggars belief and verges on being criminal.

Why weren't the obvious flaws corrected? We've heard from Hill-Wood or Gazidis that Arsene has had oodles of money to spend and he's unearthed some rough diamonds along the way, but the strategy,started after Flamini left, of handing out big money contracts has backfired dramatically. How can we have the 4th biggest wage bill in the league yet have Sp*rs managed by Harry Redknapp who’s won 1 FA Cup above us in the league? Ultimately they've got better players than us who are earning less money, meaning their players have to fight for greater rewards.

Our players cruise, knowing that when they get to 2 years remain on their contract if they've done ok, they'll get an extension and a pay rise. It really shouldn't work like that. A case in point is Carlos Vela, a decent football player who showed much promise, but a player who's done nothing of real note for Arsenal. This year he's out on loan and has publicly stated that he doesn't want to come back to Arsenal. This is a young player who Wenger publically stated was the replacement for Adebayor back in 2009, yet no longer features in his plans. He was rewarded with a new contract in the summer 2010, and is paid handsomely no doubt, yet has given the square root of zilch back to the club. Adebayor has never been replaced, meaning we’ve currently got 1 striker and we had to resort to having Thierry Henry for 6 weeks to try and galvanise the squad and get us to the 5^th round of the FA Cup.

The club needs to assume a much more 'cut-throat' attitude to its employees, and demand excellence, not just talent. I can demonstrate all the talent in the world in my work, yet if I'm a lazy prick and show no development I'll never get promoted or get a pay rise.

Sadly I think don't think Arsene can do this for us, it needs to come from the board and the owners, and they should be demanding trophies, not healthy bank balances. 4th place isn't an achievement it's failure; we've had 7 years of failures. We also need to face facts, we're simply not that good anymore; I don’t expect success, but as a fan of The Arsenal I expect the players to fight for the badge. This group of players doesn’t.

I still think Arsene is one of the best a mangers around, and we’ve had some terrible luck with injuries, yet he needs his hand forced here. I think he deserves one more summer to put right the wrongs and get the club going in the right direction again. Sadly I don't think the current owner-board structure is good enough to right all the wrongs, and give him the backing he desperately needs.

This season has been a right off since Cesc was sold last summer and the players brought in on deadline day were simply Arsene filling the gaps. They weren't the players he wanted, but then we never seem to get the players he wants. For his sake and ours, I sincerely hope he’s able to get the players he wants and needs to bring this club back to life, or I’m afraid his legendary status with the club will continue to spiral downwards and out of control.

RC