CONTEXT AND CONTENT

Liverpool and Manchester CXV are the ones to beat in this season's chase for the Premier League title. One, a club grown organically, the other created in an Oil State laboratory. Having taken 4 points from Liverpool and 3 points from Manchester CXV so far, you would think that our status in the challenge would be reasonably good. But there is an underdog mentality among many and a defeatist attitude from some. A lot of this is directly influenced by those voices of wisdom, the media pundits. The likes of Chris (Heaven knows I'm miserable now) Sutton, Gary (Man of the people) Neville, Jamie (Sour grapes) Carragher and Robbie (I'm a character I am) Savage set the agenda for many a football fan. The reality that it's all about creating content often gets lost on people, but it shouldn't. It's important to view comments, analysis, think pieces and the like in that context.

Can the Arsenal win the league? Yes. Will the Arsenal win the league? I don't know. It's really that simple and nobody is an expert on these maters, nor is predicting the future (Nostradammus aside) a reality so it's better to go by what you see with your own eyes, it's better to look at outcomes and performances then draw a conclusion...for now. That's the key. We cannot keep making judgements on a game by game basis. A loss is greeted with hysteria and a win is lauded to the roof tops. Context again.

Punditry around the Champions League is different and in a lot of cases less hyperbolic. It seems more based on what is actually happening on the pitch in each tie and less about knee-jerkism, as it should be for club football's elite competition. Can the Arsenal win the Champions League? Yes. Will the Arsenal win the Champions League? I don't know. This tournament being head to head should create a different outlook. Beat what's in front of us needs to be the mantra and you never know. A Champions League final at Wembley is a great incentive.

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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