#TeamLeicester
It’s time. It’s over. It’s done. We blew it. Hats well and truly off to Leicester for being where they are but every other team in the league need a slap for allowing it to be the case. Rather them than Sp*rs so I’m firmly #TeamLeicester now. We would need them to lose 3 and draw 1 or lose 2 and draw 2 of their next 5 for us to win it, based on the fact that we win all our remaining games. Not going to happen I’m afraid. I’m ever the optimist but just can’t see it. I just can’t believe that it’s come to this. Maybe it will mean that we see Wenger change his ways and invest? Who knows. All I know is that a season that promised so much looks to be ending with very little but a rather sour taste. I think that more and more fans are moving over to the Arsene out brigade and I can’t really blame them. I don’t quite see who the hell we could replace him with which is why I still remain dubious of any change there but what I absolutely want to see change is the amount of control he has. We are desperate for a David Dein but I’ve discussed this and read it repeatedly infinitum. It’s boring and unchangeable, which is the bigger concern. The game itself this weekend as many have written, was a microcosm of our season; Started well, threw it away, Came back into it but just not quite enough. For all our brilliance in creating 2 goals we gave away far too much space to allow the crosses to come in from wide areas. Andy Carroll will beat most people in the air so it’s the supply you have to stop. I’m not going to go into the analysis of the game as we all bloody well know what happened.
Results aside one of my deepest frustrations this season has been an increased stubbornness as well as arrogance and a quite frankly patronising demeanour on view from Wenger. I love the man. I firmly feel that there isn’t anyone better out there who’s available at the moment so there’s nothing we can do on this front. But he knows that fact and I feel that it’s because of this that we hear the same stuff week in week out, whether it’s pre game, post game or any sort of Sky Sports/BT Sport puff piece. This week it was “We looked at Payet, but we didn’t get him”. I mean what in the hell does that achieve? Who gains anything from hearing that? Does his press manager or PR man not hear this and think “Shut up you t*#t”? Considering that we are a club who over the last 7/8 years have been crying out for appropriate investment to continually state that you made a decision not to buy a world class player is hideous lack of tact. Football 365 contrived to write a whole article on the players we ‘could’ have signed. These people are the most objective football analysts out there and they are laughing at us, the rest of the league does the same two gold because of these types of interviews. The players listed on the F365 article were: Cech (earlier than now), Pique, Kompany, Varane, Yaya Toure, Pogba, Makelele, Ronaldo, Messi, Lukaku, Ibrahimovic. Not to mention other times where he’s mentioned Drogba, a player who’s traumatised us! What fans want to hear these mistakes? Yes there are a couple on the list which would have meant not signing other greats that we have but to continue to speak in this way breeds contempt in an already swaying fan base. It’s patronising. We don’t want to hear it. I understand that there are elements that you have to respond to as a manager but there isn’t anyone writing an article of the nearly signed men for Sam Alardyce or Claudio Ranieri or even Louis Van Gaal. No, it’s Arsene that they’ve written about and the reason is plain arrogance. He still seems to think that we live in a world without mobile phones and the Internet and that everything he says is gospel. The interviews are growing more and more tiresome with each week. The second thing about him that has irked me this season, and it’s not something that is just this season, is his continued mantra of 'mental strength’. Every week whether we win, lose or draw that sodding phrase gets chucked into an interview. If we had any semblance of it this season we would be top of the league and wouldn’t feel sorry for ourselves for 2/3 games before we rectified error strewn performances. It’s a trait that we seem to distinctly lack, which is why the continued drum beating of it winds me and many others up. He needs to go on a PR course or something to better manage his media time and to come across less like a target for the football world.
A sobering fact to end this quite depressing post is that even if we had won every single game since Welbeck’s winner v Leicester we would be 3 points behind them with a game in hand. So at best we would be second at this moment. Now this is not to say that our wins may have put pressure on them and they could have dropped points etc etc but they simply haven’t and for that, they have to be applauded. Where we lost the title was from the Boxing Day debacle onwards (13 points from 30) leading up to the Leicester game. Poor decision making from the manager regarding team selection and mistrust in the very players he bought in (Elneny & Campbell who have performed excellently when called upon). This season is no doubt an opportunity missed and Lord knows the usual suspects will strengthen appropriately for next season, apart from us of course. We will no doubt buy 1, potentially 2 players and let ¾ go to continue the mismanagement off the squad and the season we’ve just seen will occur all over again. It sounds depressing to hear and deeply so, however unless we change our policy at the top, and by change I mean actually giving a fishes tit, we won’t progress. This involves more than buying. It means making ruthless decisions about letting players go, about picking the best team available and not clinging to superstition, it means better in game management projected to the players, better in game management from the leader on the pitch. A lot needs to happen and it feels like too much needs to change when you write it all down like that but we can all see and feel that there’s not too dramatic an amount of change required. Little decisions we’ve made or could have made this season were the difference. It’s that they’ve repeated themselves over and over, which is the issue. Who knows what will happen but for this season at least, it looks to be well and truly over barring a monumental miracle. That’s why I’m firmly #TeamLeicester from here on in. I think 2 more wins will do it as I don’t think Sp*rs will win all their remaining games. Frustrating but ultimately you have to feel happy for Ranieri.
That’s all for this post. Have a great week folks.
Follow me on Twitter @MiteshLakhani1.