HEA7EN KNOWS IT'S MISERABLE NOW

And so, as a preamble to another season of the bloated, overhyped and cash engorged Premier league we were subjected to the Glutton Bowl between the two most avaricious clubs in the country. If ever a game summed up the state if football it was the Russian oligarch's playthings against the Middle Eastern Sheikh's trinkets in the community shield. It was all there; mercenaries, red card challenges, deception, malice, cheating, inflated egos and everything that the Olympics weren't. The lessons we took about sport from the London games are meaningless in the Premier League. So out of step are the clubs and players that they operate above the morality and spirit of sport.

If the community shield between the club that bought the Premier League and the club that bought the Champions League is an indicator of the arrogance of the modern football world then we are in for a bleak season of petulance, greed and rotten core values.

Of course my support for the Arsenal remains as always; and yes, there are Premier league shaped issues at our club, but we still retain some core values, we still feel like a club that has not as yet sold all of its soul; but at what cost? Success, perhaps?

The Arsenal is part of the problem, part of the disease of the Premiership yet it seems that we still retain a 'good guy' status in regard to the Arsenal way. The question is will we become even more like a purely financial institution that doesn't compete at a football level or will we prove (finally) that victory can be achieved without the saturation of cash and uncouth characters?

Our club does not have such loathsome egomaniacs as Jay Tee, Wazza, Tevez, Suarez et al, all consumed by their sins of pride; not yet, and hopefully we never will.

If the tipping point for the modern game is not far off then maybe the football supporter needs a palate cleanser, a club that they can respect and a club that starts to redress the balance in favour of the Corinthian spirit and some sense of idealism; an antidote if you will. And if so; why not us?

Comments

Reasons to be cheerful?

So November arrives with cold weather and grey skies. Arsenal sit in 2 nd place with a great chance to make progress in the Carling Cup with a home draw against wigan Athletic. Poised to win our Champions league group and with six months of the season left have 3 of our five tougher away fixtures out of the way, having taken a respectable 4 from 9. I say respectable as, the Man City away trip aside the draw at Anfield on the occasion of Hodgson’s first game was a good result and the Chelsea game I don’t think anyone can really speak of any injustice. That leaves away games at Old Trafford and Sp*rs (who as we know raise their game for this fixture). With injured players gradually returning and the Polish goalkeepers showing signs of optimism, we’re in relatively good shape. Or so you’d think. Yesterday at the Emirates West Ham were put to the sword late on after some stout defending, a good performance from Robert Green and a couple of missed opportunities. The level of indign...

There's something rotten in the state of Denmark

A number of blogs are pointing out what was evident to me yesterday; as a season ticket holder and Silver member i like thousands of others made plans to purchase an additional ticket for the Barcelona game using the frustrating and irritating online service, but guess what? no joy, just lots of waiting finger tapping and watching the dreaded 'loading' bar (to make matters worse I had asked my missus to do this as I was doing training). But no one got these additional tickets, that is no supporters judging by the general feedback! It seems to me that the additional seats will have probably gone to customers of a corporate nature. Ultimately for such a marquee (to use an American commercialism term) game I suspect that the club where never going to sell to supporters of the club, there is clearly a undercurrent at the Emirates that the club wants to have the stadium full of customers ie; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ognvWIwjKTQ The Emirates of the future? It will be interesti...

PERSONALITY TEST

Played 23, 10 defeats, 4 draws and 9 victories; that's the factual bit out of the way. What does that tell us? I guess it is a set of statistics that reasonably reflect a mid table team. How we got here is something that countless column inches and hours of debate have gone into. How we move forward is the bigger question. Naturally, learning from past mistakes is a key element to moving forward but have Arsenal Football Club done that? Have Arsenal Football Club realised that a clear vision and plan is needed? When you look at the current squad its relatively easy to see where the strenghts are, and the weaknesses. The manager too, has strengths and weaknesses but one thing that is intangible is the personality of the club. Not so much "where are we" as "what are we?" To know what the club is is to know what the upper echelons think, what their plan and philosophy is and how the manager processes that information. We can assume that the club decision makers wa...

ARSENALISM©

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