Arsenal – and the Fickle Few

Carefully edited reports of the views of a handful of Arsenal shareholders leaving the annual meeting at Highbury gave a false impression of widespread dissatisfaction, highlighted in remarks like “Arsenal shouldn’t be in 8th place, behind the likes of Wigan” and “It was stage managed from start to finish”. So what exactly is it that’s making this minority group so disgruntled?

Perhaps it’s Arsenal’s record since Arsene Wenger arrived in 1996. Premiership Champions three times (and never lower than second place). FA Cup winners four times. Double winners twice. Four Charity Shield victories. UEFA Cup finalists.


Or possibly it’s the ‘arrivals and departures’ policy. The recruitment of players like Henry, Toure, Gilberto, Campbell, Pires, Edu and exciting youngsters like Reyes, Van Persie, Clichy and Fabregas – often at bargain prices. Signings which more than compensate for the loss of the experienced Anelka, Petit and Overmars, for instance – none of whom subsequently distinguished themselves with their new clubs.

Ah, but what about Vieira? Look how much he’s been missed. Well that’s what the papers say and according to many of them, Thierry Henry agrees. Evidently the fact that Arsenal have lost three games and, in the words of one report are “languishing in 8th place, 14 points behind Chelsea”, is all down to Arsene’s ‘mistake’ in selling Vieira.

Let’s think about that for a moment. Consider for a start the 8 premiership games played so far – games in which Arsenal’s football has matched that of previous campaigns, with enough chances created to have won comfortably every time. And but for the fact that several goalkeepers – most notably Taylor and Kirkland – have chosen the Arsenal fixture to turn in the performance of their careers, that’s exactly what would have happened. Add to that a very impressive start in Europe, with qualification for the knock-out phase virtually assured at this early stage. And then bear in mind that all this has been achieved against the background of an unprecedented injury list from which Thierry Henry has only just, spectacularly, returned and which currently includes Cole, Hleb, Ljungberg, Reyes and Campbell – almost half a team.

It is time for the grumpy, unreasonable and unthinking minority to revel in the quality of football that Arsenal play - even in the most difficult of circumstances - to rejoice in the fact that they have arguably the best manager in world football and they will soon move to a fabulous new stadium that will provide a fitting stage for their remarkable talents.

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