AND YOU MAY ASK YOURSELF "WELL...HOW DID I GET HERE?"

Ennui-Sickert

If you have non aspirational ownership, a risk averse board who specialise in flawed strategising, an inexperienced manager and an imbalanced squad then you have the perfect storm that gives you a mid table team.

A part of all those elements has to change in order to change the trajectory of Arsenal Football Club. This is a daunting, some would say, unrealistic task. That’s my concern for the future of our club. We have been on this journey for a number of years, our destination was mid table mediocrity and this season we have arrived.

The way that we do things as a club is littered with unclear thinking and decision making that does not stand up to scrutiny. Take the case of Martinez and Leno; Martinez had been at the club for a decade and when a chance presented itself he stepped up into the number one position and had a superb run in to the season that helped Arsenal win an FA Cup. The decision was made, once Leno was fit, to say to Martinez "so, Emiliano, you've been here ten years and we want to give you the opportunity to play first team football so we will let you go to another club who will be our rivals next season". When what they should have said was "so, Bernd, Remi has been here ten years, he's stepped up magnificently so its now down to you to win back that number one slot as we want to have competition in all positions for the coming season."

This 'mister nice guy' approach is not something a serious club does.

Contracts are mishandled on a regular basis and the club has spent so many years letting players go for peanuts and giving average players fat contracts that its now systemic. Sink the ship for a ha'p'orth of tar should be our motto. Having messed things up with Ozil we seem to have repeated the mistake with Aubameyang.

The appointment of Emery was a mistake (short term thinking based on his record in the Europa League) and Arteta's appointment still seems strange for a so called big club to make , particularly if you consider the availability of Rodgers and Ancelotti at the time.

It seems self evident how we got to where we are; inconsistent, unable to challenge in the league but able to rally and win the odd cup. But how we get to where we want to be can't be guessed as the important people at the club, who are serial incompetents, inspire nothing more than ennui.

Ennui-Niehaus

Comments

Reasons to be cheerful?

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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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