The Pessimistic Wing of the Arsenal Support

Regular Contributor Ted Harwood gives his take on the pessimistic wing of Arsenal supporters.

Plenty has been written on just about every good Arsenal blog over the past week about the reaction to last Sunday.  I am not planning on rehashing the arguments about the game here; it was disheartening.  The reaction was also disheartening.  What I’m interested in is the idea of faith, the idea of support, and above all, the idea of civility.

Faith, in the broadest sense, is built into sport.  Outcomes are never pre-determined in football and anything is possible.  Even the most bitter, hate-spewing, gutted fan knows this, unconsciously.  In religion, the believer makes his faith manifest through ritual and practice.  In sport, he manifests his faith simply through the act of witnessing.  For the fan, turning on the television or turning up at the ground can only be motivated by the belief that a positive outcome is plausible.  If we are meant to struggle at Chelsea, what were Leeds fans thinking on their way down to Old Trafford in the FA Cup?

It is this sense of possibility, this hope enacted through the watching, that unites the so-called “Doomer” and the most optmistic of the supporters.  The Doomer, the Job of the realm of fandom, sees only persecution and hardship; the most ardent pro-Wenger zealot sees only the hope and sometimes is blind to suffering.

But we are all supporters, and despite all his ranting, Job still saw God in the sky.  (We see him at center midfield, but that’s a different post).  When the Doomer says he sees no hope, his cable box puts paid to that lie.  He sees hope even while damning the earth all around him.

This sectarian turmoil is only magnified by the nature of interaction on the web.  Things are blown all out of proportion, things are said on forums that would never be said down at the pub or in the stands (well, maybe they would, but I can’t imagine they would come rushing down in the same volume).

On the forums, both “sides” of the argument are apparently cunts, and the other human beings know fuck all.  I will grant that after a match like last Sunday, there is probably not a great deal of analysis necessary.  The players played badly at key moments, the goals went in, the match infuriated everyone.  We are only human, after all.  But look what happens in the aftermath: like believers after a disaster, faith is questioned, debate ensues, and everyone starts calling names.

A good and civil debate about tactics and mistakes and success can and should be what this, and any blog, are about.  However, everyone calling each other names whilst simultaneously claiming to have the upper hand in analysis smacks of childish boasting and, frankly, makes the name caller’s case harder to understand.

Players are entitled to have a bad day.  We all have bad days at work. Fortunately for us, we do not stand between the posts for Arsenal.  We are ALL diminished when fans slag off the players and other fans’ integrity, though, much as humanity itself is diminished when one person lays low another.  The men on the pitch are not faultless angels, but they can lift us to the sky if we let them.

Winning, as with everything else, is guaranteed to no supporter, but we read that minute-by-minute every weekend all the same.  The Doomer lets down, if not the players, the other fans, his/her comrades-in-arms; the Doomer betrays his own faith; thus, the Doomer betrays himself.  The zealous supporter betrays his better nature in calling the Doomer names.  Pride and anger ensnare both in the wrong fight, and belief flickers.  We lob insults at each other and at players, and only Tottenham supporters win.  So let’s all turn our televisions on come Sunday and await not a miracle–no!!–but the sheer joy, the sheer emotion, the sheer goddamn humanity of the footballer in motion.

A Catalonian and A Montenegrin Walk Into A Bar…

Arsenal Station would liked to have taken a full week off following the disappointment of Sunday, but, in the interests of regularity, I shall spew some opinion at thee.

Life as an Arsenal supporter is a tough one to lead. Nevermind our horrendous record against Chelsea and United in the last two years. But after every one of these crushing defeats and during every interlull, Barca never fails to take advantage and drive already despairing Gooners to madness.

This morning we are treated to quotes from Barca vice-president Alfons Godall:

Sooner or later Cesc will end up coming back. We are a club that can sign players because we are respected and solvent.

Is this not blatant tapping-up? I mean, we’ve been over this a dozen times before and Peter Hill-Wood even lashed out at the club last month for their incessant efforts at trying to unsettle the player. Have we ever seen a more disgraceful media campaign launched by a club in the hopes of unsettling a player and that persists despite clear statements of intent from the player?

I should also mention Gunnerblog’s piece on Theo Walcott. He concedes the absolutely frustrating nature of the career of a player who seems to promise so much, yet deliver so little. He concludes that the upside is to great to give up n Theo just yet. And I agree with him. Many of us expected him to be much further alone in his development by now. After all, he has been at the club for four years. Yet his injuries in the last two seasons have dealt his progress a real blow.

Despite the many frustrating moments he has given us, the raw talent is there. One only needs to think back to that night in Anfield in 2008 to consider what Theo Walcott is capable of. Besides the injuries, we also have a player who has been forced to play wide despite constantly asserting that his future lies as a striker. This has not helped his development either.

It appears that Arsenal have agreed a deal for Stefan Savic, a young defender from BSK Borca in Montenegro. The source: the player. If it is true, it may mean we have another Andrei Arshavin on our hands. Not in playing (he is a defender, after all), but in talking. He has been quoted as saying:

There were offers from Tottenham and Birmingham, but once a call came from Arsenal, I had no more doubts. Wenger made sure my papers were arranged for me and my work permit extended so I can be at more training sessions.

He is the man. He has incredible authority at the club, everyone listens to him, assistants lead training sessions and he just supervises. Nothing can escape him.

A pre-contract will be signed on Thursday and then I will return to Belgrade and join BSK for their preparations. I will be staying with BSK until May.

I can’t believe that the Boss or the club would be especially happy with the 19 year-old being so “media-friendly” at this point. But, such is the player, it seems…

Anyway, following Chelsea’s draw to Hull yesterday, we find ourselves six points off the pace. Considering it is the 3rd of February, there is no reason to think that we are out of the title race, despite the United result. A win at Stamford Bridge would bring us to within three points with only the Liverpool and Man City fixtures looking especially hard until the end of the season. Even a draw keeps us in the thick of it.

Wenger needs to get Denilson off the pitch. The young Brazilian has struggled since his collapse and just doesn’t seem able to physically give 100%. Also, he needs to start Bendtner. Without an aerial threat in the box, opposition defenses are not driven to give any attention whatsoever to our wing play. This only congests the middle even more making our usual route to goal even harder. With Arshavin and Eduardo up-top, and more than likely not even in the box, seeing the ball go wide to the full-backs finds me just shaking my head.

Of course, should we go 9 points behind, it would still be mathematically possible to win the league but one would have to think the damage to our confidence should we suffer back-to-back defeats to the two teams above us would be too much to recover from. Then again, this team has bounced back before and Chelsea have suffered poor form as well. The moral of the story: Anything can happen between now and May. So, until Sunday, keep the faith, Gooners!

It’s Not As Bad As It Seems… Yet

Now, having had almost twenty-four hours to cool down, I believe I am ready to assess Sunday’s match with Manchester United in a decidedly non-Arsenal Action-type way. I won’t be calling for Wenger to resign and I also won’t be pronouncing our title challenge dead on arrival. My regular readers will know that I am fully behind and committed to Arsene Wenger and that I am hardcore optimist when it comes to the Arsenal. While others around me lose their heads, I try to be the lone voice of reason… or hope.

Despite some of the stuff I’ve read, I didn’t think we played a terrible match. If the two own goals cancel themselves out, we were beaten by two counterattacks. Two very ugly counterattacks, defensively-speaking, on our part. And here is where I will ask a question of the Boss. The fixture has left me wondering if maybe there is such a thing as “too much attack.”

How many times did we lose possession on the edge of our final third only to find the ball quickly pumped up to Rooney, who then found himself with the opportunity to run at an isolated defender? Almost too many too count. Where is the defense? No one appreciates the club’s footballing ethos more than myself. But I wonder if, in the big matches like this one, we really must find a way to temper our attacking enthusiasm in a bid to protect our already vulnerable defense.

Let’s be honest. Even with the addition of Vermaelen, our defense is a far cry from what it was for most of the 2007-08 season. Clichy is a shell of his former self and so is Sagna, for that matter. Gallas is better than he was for much of that season and Vermaelen is better than Toure was but we still ship goals against quality sides at times.

Our whole approach, at least in the big matches, seems to have an air of naivete′ around it. Do we really think that we can approach United or Chelsea like we would, say, Pompey or Bolton? Even at home? I believe Wenger must realize that we have to begin to compromise-just a bit-when it comes to our tactics against bigger sides.

Opposition does not have to worry when we get the ball into wide areas because they know we have no one in the box capable of scoring with their head. The return of Bendtner is promising but he is obviously far from being anywhere near 100%. The fact that Theo is also far from his best means that, at the moment, we have no extra speed or aerial threat. It makes it much easier for sides to clog the middle and when everyone pushed forward yesterday you got the sense that we were falling for United’s trap.

Don’t get me wrong. I respect the Boss and his footballing philosophy and I certainly don’t think some big overhaul is needed in either management, personnel, or tactics. But, look at what United did to us yesterday. They were content to cede much possession in return for playing most of their game on the counterattack. And it was highly effective. We should learn and take something from that.

On the other hand, we created more than enough chances to win that match. Arshavin alone had enough chances that he should have realistically had at least two goals. Sometimes, the gods punish those who try to do the right thing. We couldn’t take our chances yesterday for whatever reason and the match certainly had that “it’s just not going to go in” vibe about it. But, unlike in the past, it wasn’t for lack of trying. The team came out shooting but they just wouldn’t go in.

I’ve said for years that the thing that distinguishes the current team from the Invincibles is our lack of an effective counterattack. I guess that’s to be expected from a team that dominates possession, even against the other top sides. It has improved recently with the addition of Arshavin, but we play at a far slower pace now than we did in 2004. Having a side willing to go on a fast counterattack is the difference between a draw, or loss, for this side and a win for the 2001-04 side. Yesterday, United looked more like the Invincibles, in that respect, than we did.

Either way, we can make up the ground lost at Chelsea next weekend and be back where we started when this run of fixtures started. It won’t be ideal, but it could be worse. Next Sunday now becomes a sort of acid test for this side. I try to avoid pronouncements like that, but after the Villa draw and the loss yesterday, we can’t see it any other way. We will not be able to make up another double-digit deficit on Chelsea or United at this stage of the season. On Sunday, we will see just how bad we want it and how much Wenger has learned from the two spirit-crushing home defeats.