Sometimes you've got to speculate to accumulate. And allow me to speculate that Arsenal will accumulate if they speculate, rather than spending some fahkin' money leading to financial armageddon. Let's get this straight, financial armageddon is not fun. Arsenal don't want to find themselves doing a Leeds, dropping through the divisions, losing Gervinho, Marouane Chamakh and Andre Santos, before finally ending up with Ken Bates as their chairman. No, Arsenal definitely don't want that. No one wants that. Yet it's surely an insult to the intelligence of supporters for Wenger, Ivan Gazidis and the rest of the board to insist that Arsenal are heading in the right direction simply because they are financially prudent because while the accounts might look rosy, that might well not be the case if, say, they don't finish in the top four this season.
Spending money doesn't automatically lead to success although it sure helps - here's looking at you, Chelsea and Manchester City, two clubs whose riches have gone some way to provoking this crisis in confidence about whether Wenger's methods still work. Of course, Arsenal's faith in youth should be admired and every season there are neutrals who hope that they can finally win something; think of the greatest sides in history, the ones that make you go misty-eyed and weak at the knees, and you think of teams that have grown up together, Ajax's Total Football pioneers, say, or this current Barcelona side. It would be fantastic if such a vision was realised at Arsenal. But at the moment they are a side that loses to League Two Bradford City in the Carling Cup.
Clearly this can't go on and while the solution is not to go out and spend £200m in one summer on a batch of superstars, the half-measures are no longer enough. It is not acceptable to receive so much money for Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri and then replace them with Mikel Arteta and Gervinho on the cheap, or assume that Lukas Podolski and Olivier Giroud combined can compensate for the loss of Robin van Persie. Good players, sure, but Lukas Podolski + Olivier Giroud ? Robin van Persie, who dragged Arsenal kicking and screaming into the Champions League on his own last season. None of the players mentioned are useless – they just don't quite cut it at the very highest level, which is where Arsenal aspire to be. Ultimately there's a reason other big clubs weren't interested.
Still Arsenal should be reasonably confident of getting back on track against Reading this evening, on a ground where they have a 100% record. Brian McDermott's side are in a pick-pick-pickle, their form so bad that they're even below QPR. Which means that they're bottom of the league, having only won one of 16 league matches this season. This shouldn't really come as a surprise to anyone, because this always felt like a promotion that came too early for Reading, who came from nowhere to win the Championship on the back of an absurd run of form which featured a lot of late victories. There's plenty of perspiration there but not much inspiration, a hard-working side without the necessary quality or experience to survive in the Premier League. Or so it seems, anyway. Speculate, accumulate.
There, we got all this way without even mentioning the 7-5. D'oh!
Reading: Federici; Cummings, Gorkss, Mariappa, Shorey; Kebe, Leigertwood, Tabb, McAnuff; Hunt, Pogrebnyak. Subs: Taylor, Gunter,
Pearce, Le Fondre, McCleary, Robson-Kanu, Harte.
Arsenal: Szczesny; Sagna, Mertesacker, Vermaelen, Gibbs; Arteta, Wilshere, Cazorla; Oxlade-Chamberlain, Walcott, Podolski. Subs: Mannone, Koscielny, Rosicky, Giroud, Ramsey, Coquelin, Gervinho.
Referee: Anthony Taylor (Cheshire)
Kick-off: 8pm.
No comments:
Post a Comment