Do you know what? I’m not sure I even have the energy to muster a full size, normal blog, like I do every morning. I’m genuinely just ‘meh’ about everything to do with Arsenal at the moment. \Later on I’m going to see some family friends. I’m godfather to the lad of our family friends and he and his dad are Liverpool fans. Putting that to one side, he’s 11 and basically obsessed with football. Plays it, plays computer games of it, watches it, lives, eats and breathes it. I can see why. But I am going to go there and the last thing I want to do is have anything to do with a football discussion.
Arsenal Football Club have sucked the desire for anything football from me. Seriously.
I have no interest in watching any football at the moment. Not even games in another country that have no bearing on me. Nothing. All it does is remind me of what a horrible state my own football team is in and how there is very little to like about anything to do with Arsenal at the moment.
The players are chronically underperforming and have no clue how to scrabble together any semblance of a performance.
The coach is a guy who cannot be expected to turn this around with basically zero experience of managing teams in the toughest league in the world.
The football admin team have shown their complete mismanagement of this season by leaving the former manager in his post way beyond his ‘best before’ date and, as a result, this rot that has set in has gotten worse.
The ownership are platitude makers, which is an evolution from their previous incarnation, which was silence, lack of any kind of desire or ambition, willing to do the bare minimum to protect an investment.
The fans in the stadium are as bored as me and have stopped turning up, meaning half empty stadiums that look depressing on TV.
On social media my feed is just one depressing tweet after another. Another stat is broken each week and yesterday it was that this Arsenal team has already conceded as many shots on their goal as the whole of the Invincibles season.
Every single time I think about Arsenal Football Club I think negative thoughts right now. And I have never ever felt like this.
LITERALLY never. I am 37 years old, I first found out about football and Arsenal when I started playing it at 7, and that’s when I got the bug and became excited. And Arsenal has always excited me. Even in seasons when we’ve been poor, never challenged for anything, just been a bit crap or haven’t had any amazing players in the team to get excited about. Arsenal has always been a reason for me to look forward to the weekend ahead.
Not any more. I’m dreading Monday night. I don’t even think I want to watch it. The football will be dire, the players will make the kind of stupid mistakes kids make in the under-11s, there will be little enjoyment from a trip to the London Stadium to play West Ham, a team who are in as dire form as us. Except they’ve at least won a football match in their last six. Arsenal are the only team in the Premier League who have failed to register a win in their last six games. I’ll let that sink in for a second…
There is little to like about the way the club is run. KSE has presided over a gradual decline, been happy to keep Arsenal at arms length for the best part of a decade, happy to chug along under a legacy manager. Then, when there was some real leadership needed, when we needed sound decision making to secure life after Wenger – which was important for the club – they sat on their hands and allowed the parasite that is Ivan Gazidis to continue his nonsense in shaping the club. Like a rat deserting what we now see is a sinking ship, he promptly exited and I’m sure AC Milan fans will be closing their fingers that the damage he will do to them can be salvaged by the time he scuttles out of a side exit in Italy.
What we have now is Raul in place and he’s already shown a lack of decisiveness by not acting sooner to stop the rot that has set in. So we find ourselves in freewill, staring at quite probably a relegation run in, with over-played, underperforming, players who will no doubt look to exit at the first opportunity should things stoop any lower.
Well look at that. I did manage a blog after all. And it hasn’t made me feel any better in any way, shape, or form.
Sorry.
The blame is on many levels. You are right but you exclude one element. We are the worst fans in all the English leagues. No passion. We do not lift the players. We boo and harass our own players. We booed Wenger. We were relentless in our decimation of the club. The club is at a crossroads and the fans do nothing to lift the players at all. 12th man? We are the minus three player fan base. Shit on every level. Horrible. I handed in my season ticket two years ago because of the fans and their perpetual level of shitness. I hate my own fans now. We are responsible as much as any other factor. You ignore this primary fact and it is something every Arsenal fan needs to accept. We might well get relegated because we are that bad but we smash those players week in week out. What do you expect? For them to perform or love the club? Dream on.
I don’t believe we are any worse or any better than any other type of fans.
Spot on. I’ve followed them for over 50 years and this is the worst time I can recall to be a fan. It is the apathy that is the killer, like you I’m beyond caring much anymore. I don’t mind the team losing if they have given everything, it happens, but we are losing to teams who aren’t as good as us but who work harder and are more committed. Unforgivable for a professional football team. Good times will come again but I think it’s several seasons away.