Success is the best revenge
Criticism is nothing new, we used to be criticised
for getting too many red cards, criticised for being arrogant, criticised for
being bad losers, criticised for being too French and our answer? Shut it!
Here’s the Double! Naff Off! Here’s an unbeaten season! Button it! Here’s some
scintillating football! Do one! Here’s some of the best players in the world!
What’s frustrating about the here and now is that
we have no answer to the critics circa 2014, in fact we have had no answer for
a while. All the clichés about our perennial collapse, underperforming when it
matters and not winning anything have no retort that carries any meaning: “yes
but we’ve qualified for The Champions League X amount of times in a row” is an
answer but it’s not THE answer. Success is the answer.
Arsenal have always been put upon: George Graham
countered accusations of dull football with Cups, Herbert Chapman silenced the
Northern centric press by winning big.
It is hypocrisy and spite of the highest order when
the voluble anti Arsenal brigade cite the FA Cup: that trophy that has been
prized since 1871 and is the oldest association football
competition in the world, as merely a bauble. Let’s be clear there are four trophies up for grabs
each season and it is astonishing that reaching the final having beaten
Liverpool, Everton and Spurs is viewed as no big deal. Some want it both ways:
criticise for having not won a trophy in nine years and criticise for
celebrating reaching a final that may give the opportunity to end that drought.
The media are busy drooling over all things
Liverpool (and good luck to them if they win the title by being better than the
other teams) but they are still finding ample time to denigrate the Arsenal.
Naturally the name of Talksport crops up time and
again when it comes to anti Arsenal bias. I often wonder why Arsenal supporters
would listen to the station as their agenda is all about ‘hits’ and traffic to
encourage advertisers and nothing sells better than controversy, Many delight
in prodding away at the Arsenal, the reason they keep prodding is because they
keep getting a reaction from fans but no answer from the club in the trophy
cabinet. Adrian Durham is good at provoking a reaction: then again so was
Bernard Matthews.
Winning games of football is literally the name of
the game and we need to be winning as we have done against West Ham when we play Hull, Newcastle, WBA and
Norwich, that is not about anything other than being the Arsenal and winning
games: by doing so we give ourselves the chance to finish as high as we can in
a League that we will not be winning. If you can’t finish first finish second
if you can’t finish second finish third etc.
Thoughts of next season are already flitting around
and I know what I want to see happen in the summer but right now we have
created an opportunity for success.
Winning the FA Cup does not make everything right,
as I believe there are problems at our club which I have banged on about in the
past, but winning the FA Cup is the answer for now: Never Mind The Bollocks
Here’s The FA Cup!
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so I said...