Sunday 3 April 2011

Wengerists

At no point yesterday did I feel angry or surprised at the teams total lack of drive or urgency. I've slowly lost faith in this side and have been boring Mrs Feverpitch and Son of Feverpitch all season with my 'I'm not sure they are any good' comments. By that I mean special and to win the league you need that special something. We are second so we are not that bad but we are not special. Anyone who's been lucky enough to see us win league titles will know what I mean.

To win a cup you need luck of the draw and performances on the day. Winning the FA Cup or, dare I say it, the Milk Cup does not make you a special side. Winning the league does. Man U this season are not a great team but what they did yesterday smacks of winners. I'm not sure we have that in us. We are more likely to give a 2 goal lead away (or even a 4 goal lead!)

The most frustrating thing is we obviously have the quality and we are beating ourselves. Every time we get down the wing a cross is lumped into the box to nobody. Everyone is so interested in passing that shooting is seen as an opportunity to give away possession. Yesterday was appalling and it followed Sunderland at home which was appalling too. Since sneaking past Stoke on Feb 23rd we have only beaten Orient. Champions anyone?

The staggering thing about a team that has lost at home to WBA, Newcastle and the spuds is that at 5.30pm yesterday the league title was in our own hands. That's how special Man U are. Yet we tossed it away like John Terry and friendship. I feel lower than the ratings of a Katie Price TV show about yesterday and yet I wasn't surprised. I got criticised on Twitter yesterday when I wrote,

'Maybe we should let Blackburn score, get it out the way and show 'character' by snatching a draw.'

I was accused of being cynical! Oh yes! Well I pay an awful lot of money to watch millionaires not give a shit so I'm allowed a bit of cynicism. I didn't boo at the end but I understand the people who did. I was too bored to boo. I'd been beaten down by another lethargic home display. The highlight of the day was that I can walk home although it was more like a trudge home as we tried to work out why these men don't want prizes.

Almunia is no longer a mistake waiting to happen. He's happened. As someone said on twitter 'Almunia's done an Almunia.' Enough said.

Things need to change in the summer. I'm not saying Arsene's time is done as I'm firmly on his side. Apparently fans were physically fighting each other over this in the ground yesterday. We have our own civil war on our hands. I'm on the Wengerists side and we will defeat you with our beautiful attacking formations but if you attack us we may well crumble. It might be too late to win back the AntiArsene Brigade but what the Boss has done for the club as a whole cannot be so easily forgotten. We might not get pots, bottling it might be called 'doing an Arsenal', we might not have a statue to Michael Jackson but look where the club is now in the world compared to say, the spuds. The finances are strong,the future's bright and we must not forget that.

Having said all that we do all live in the now and at the moment I've lost faith in this squad. We need an injection of fresh players. We need to stop all these bargain buys as nothing special has ever been found in Lidl. Since the Carling Cup final can any of us really say we've looked like champions? We just need to play out the season and make sure we get 2nd. We need to get rid of the pointless players and bring in some hungry winners. People who don't walk about the pitch. People who will get furious when things go wrong. We need leaders across the pitch. We need strength and power. We need more players with the Rocastle mentality. More players like Jack.

I grew up having to watch Liverpool dominate everything and I remember Souness saying what made them great was that if a team wanted to play they would play them off the pitch and if they wanted to fight they would fight them to defeat. Special.

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