ARSENALISM©

Its coming up to the end of the year at the Arsenal and, to paraphrase Jimmy Greaves; it’s been a funny old year. That’s putting it mildly, but let’s focus on events at The Emirates. 2020 saw the Arsenal win the FA Cup, again. A record-breaking 14th win in an empty stadium. A game in which we were viewed as underdogs, yet had overcome a very good Manchester City in the Semi Final. The significance of the FA cup seems to depend on who wins it, when we do it’s a case of “its only the FA Cup” but logic dictates that there are only a small number of trophies up for grabs each season. Liverpool, rightly won the League, the billionaires of Manchester City had to settle for the league Cup and we were the only other English club to win anything (giving us qualification to the Europa) not bad for a rookie manager. We also took home the Charity Shield. Again, not a massive deal but two things; you have to win something to compete in it and Liverpool were far and away the best team in the country...

  Have the chickens come home to roost at the Arsenal? Have we let the foxes in the Henhouse too often? Are we simply the headless chickens of the football world? How we came to be in our current predicament is a complex issue and much like the chicken and the egg conundrum, it is hard to explain. Management Under Wenger things began to deteriorate some years ago. A combination of stagnation in the management and coaching positions along with a culture where accountability was seldom at the forefront of thinking. An atmosphere where underachievement was not only tolerated but often celebrated. Unfathomable signings and offloading decent players either too early or on the cheap also punctuated the dark days of Wenger’s decline. Unai Emery was given something of a pig’s ear of a squad and was clearly employed based on his Europa League record. It was clear that once the fans turned against him his days were numbered. This wasn’t helped by his poor communications and erratic selection...

Nothing comes for free and football is no exception, no one should expect to watch it without a cost. In these strange times many people have been struggling with health, mental and otherwise, day to day problems and of course finances. It’s a changed landscape but even so the rich have still got richer and private interest has muscled in on Covid related opportunities to earn. Then there’s The Premier League, and therefore Sky & BT. They have a product that people want and they are cynical having that knowledge. Just when you thought that they had squeezed as much juice as they could out of the beautiful game they come up with new ways to get more money. How far does it go before the fans say “hang on a minute! You’re mugging me off?” The product is not the same, the product lacks the atmosphere and emotion that a crowd brings to the party but the broadcasters want top dollar to watch it. The so called Top Six want to ensure that they never have to face the possibility of being th...

We are on the brink of the FA Cup Final 2020, that oldest and most famous of competitions. Ah, FA Cup Final day. The sun will be shinning, the beers will be flowing and the emotions will be highly charged. The transitional Arsenal take on the Oligarch bolstered Chelsea. It's a fixture that's happened before and the victors on those occasions have been the team in red. This time around Arsenal are viewed as the underdogs (as we were against Manchester City in the Semi-Final) but I like that; I'm more than happy being the underdogs. This FA Cup final will be a unique one for obvious reasons. The lack of supporters is something that we've almost grown accustomed to in the Covid-19 world but there are other noticeable differences referred to on the match day shirts: Black Lives Matter-All players and staff will be taking a knee at the start of the game and lets remember this was not a mandate this was a choice that players made. It's an issue of complexity...