Mr. Abdulmalik Mahdi, is a social crusade, banker, all round good guy and most of all a Gunner, we hope you will enjoy his write up as much as I did. Thanks for the great job, Malik.
Also remember, that the Tactics IQ Soccer Fiesta Season 4 is just 8days away, come with your best baffs, bring your A game, it promises to be the biggest summer party this side of the hemisphere. Venue stills remains The Campus Mini Stadium, Lagos Island, Date is 25th, August, 2012 kick off is 12 noon. There will be many side attractions such as Sports Celebrities versus Entertainment Celebrities, Queens of the Turf will be crowned once again. Gate Fee is N2,000.00; i would not miss it for the world.
ARSENAL - NOT FOR THE FAINT HEARTED
Well well well, there is nowhere to start an Arsenal blog at the moment but with our ex-Captain Robin Van Persie. I guess it is a case of De javu for Arsenal fans. The Club is saying bye to yet another Captain and as has been the case (except for Gallas who left on a Bosman) arguably the best player in the club. The arm band has become some kind of poisoned chalice. This has become a constant source of irritation for Gooners the world over. We have been accused with justification of being a selling club and a feeder team for 'bigger' clubs (Man City and Barcelona being major beneficiaries). Some even allege that because of the Stadium debt we are forced to sell off at least one star player annually to balance the books.
The Club's finances as they relate to our transfer spending are at the heart of the titanic struggle by 2 of the Major Shareholders, Stan Kroenke, the American Sports Billionaire who controls the club and Alisher Usmanov, the Uzbek Steel Magnate who wants a seat at the table for owning close to 30% just a little under Kroenke's. Stan is happy with the club's self-sustaining principle which says the club must live within its means. Generate enough to run the business. Usmanov is a Sugar Daddy willing to bankroll the Club's transfer business and write off the losses a la Abrahmovic at Chelsea. The Manager (an Msc. Economics holder) and the Board of being concerned with being more concerned with making money and have neglected/forfeited trophies.
The RVP transfer saga brought into to sharp relief the battle for the soul of the club. The ex-Captain announced that after meeting the CEO Ivan Garzidis and Arsene Wenger, he would not renew his contract as he disagrees with the plans they had for the future. His public stance was seen by fans as a cheap publicity ploy to force a transfer without handing in a request. RVP essentially became persona non grata at the club. Usmanov tried to gain some mileage by issuing a statement attacking the club and the way the board were running things. This fell flat with fans that saw through it. The Manager told him last Sunday that he was no longer part of our plans even though he was open to staying and may be even signing a new deal after seeing the new recruits. He had burnt his bridges by thinking he was bigger than the club and for daring to dictate to the club. After Juventus dropped their interest and the Sheikh's at East lands didn't bid, it left RVP and Arsenal with a desperate Man United as the only option.
Ordinarily, Arsenal should be congratulated for selling a 29 year old injury prone player with 1 year left on his contract for £24m. However, RVP is no ordinary 29 year old. He is the best player in the EPL who is at the height of his powers. He was our Captain and a fan favourite. Like I said before, this has sadly become a well-trodden path at Arsenal. So what can be done about it? Or to paraphrase 'Why always us'? Can Arsenal stop this worrying pandemic? Losing our best players every season is surely the main reason why we have not won anything in 7 years. To attempt to answer these hypothetical questions we have to look at the Club's recent history.
Arsene Wenger, at the height of his success had just won the EPL unbeaten and secured his dream project of building a big ultra-modern stadium decided to build a team from scratch. He scoured Europe for the best emerging talents of Sendoros, Cesc Fabregas, Robin Van Persie among others. He systematically dismantled the Invincibles who won his last trophy a drab penalty shoot-out win over Manchester United which marked the end of Patrick Vieira’s Arsenal career and signaled the beginning of the Mass Exodus, particularly of our Captains and best players. The Project, which was very dear to Arsene’s heart almost paid dividends in 2007/08 when in March Arsenal were 8 points clear at the summit of the league. We eventually crumbled in what was to become a recurring decimal in the final 3 months of each the subsequent seasons till date. We also lost the 1st of 2 Carling Cup finals of the barren era. We reached the Champions League Final and Semi Final losing painfully to Barcelona in Paris and scandalously to United in 2008. However, the Project never delivered, we came to be known as a soft team. We had our share of injuries and we were always 2-3 signings away from being the finished article. The main problems of the team however remained the same despite changing personnel, defences lapses, failing to turn up when it counted most, brittle bones, under achievement and an infuriating capacity to consistently self-destruct season after season.
The main reason for the failure of Arsene’s crèche policy where players were all grown together and paid similar wages to reduce disparity and encourage camaraderie in the squad was the frequency in which they flew the nest. Beginning with Emmanuel Adebayor, Arsenal consistently lost a star player or two every summer. Even the replacements like Samir Nasri eventually left for bigger wages disguised as a search for silverware. This severely put pressure on the Manager as he consistently had to rebuild the side in the face of brazen disloyalty and ungratefulness from his wards. This in addition to Arsene’s insistence on giving these players a chance even when there were better players that could have been bought ostensibly ‘not to kill’ their careers ensured Arsenal Football Club always ended up short when crunch time. Now these same players instead of staying behind as one to actualize the dream that made them to the stars they are now turn around and accuse the Manager of lack of ambition. This hypocrisy, more than any other thing, is the sole reason why Arsenal fans are accused of hating their ex-players and being sore losers.
At the beginning of the 2011/12 season, Cesc Fabregas’ long anticipated and dreaded departure to Barcelona and Samir Nasir’s greedy move to Manchester City coupled with the Manger’s desperate attempts to keep the duo thus neglecting to prepare seriously threw the club into crises. Wenger uncharacteristically made a last minute dash to the market and acquired 5 Players some without even a medical. Arsenal by this time languished in 17th place after a humiliating 8-2 defeat at Old Trafford. The Club was at its lowest ebb ever. There was a real danger of missing out on Champions League football for the 1st time in 15 seasons. Yet somehow we pulled through and thanks to RVP’s goals ended up in 3rdplace an improvement on 2010/11 when we finished 4th. That experience was to have a profound effect on the Manager as he sent out most of his precious Project players like Denilson and Bendtner on loan for lack of suitors and benched Almunia as their Arsenal careers came to an end even though they were still at the club. This change in the manager’s policy was to become more apparent in our transfer dealings of 2012/13 season.
This change in policy was apparent in the swift manner Arsenal moved to secure the signings of Podolski and Giroud to replace the goals of RVP. Arsene finally got his man when he signed Santi Cazorla from Malaga, the now cash strapped club that beat Arsenal to his signature last season when he was targeted to replace Cesc Fabregas. These signings represent a real statement of intent from Arsenal as these are all players in their prime with a lot to prove for different reasons. The last time I felt this excited about new signings was when we signed Lauren, Pires and Wiltord. Even with the departure of RVP, we are a better team than last season, significantly so. Of course the shadow of another departure looms large, that of Alex Song, another Wenger creation to Barcelona. This should be concluded before the season kicks off. I have no doubt in my mind that Arsene Wenger has lined up a replacement; I dare say a better player. For all his very impressive work and improvement, Song does not do his primary job of shielding the defence well. If Arsene decides to sell him despite 3 years left on his contract then I support him fully even though I love Soginho.
In fact I support Arsene and Arsenal more than ever before. He is systematically ridding the club with the cancer of failure deeply ingrained over the last 7 years. He is being proactive, selling any player who thinks he is better than Arsenal and replacing them with seasoned pros with a hunger to do well at the club. The recent financial troubles at Malaga, Portsmouth, Rangers and the financial disciple in Milan show that the policy of financial discipline is the way to go. Even UEFA agrees with it and have come with their own set of Financial Fair Play rules to ensure clubs only spend what they earn to bring back some sanity into football, a situation Arsenal are well place to benefit from.
Make no mistake about it Arsenal fans; it is no coincidence that our emptiness occurred during the time of Cesc, RVP, Adebayor, Hleb, Nasri, Song and the rest of the Project. Individually, these guys were given learning period on the job when it was easier to have bought experienced people to fix the situation. Collectively they choked several times when the big prizes were there for the taking. They were like the babies Evra accused them of being. It is not Arsene’s fault, the Club or the fans. The Arsenal players of this period of history will be remembered as failures. They never won anything for Arsenal, hell even Birmingham beat them. Song’s departure will hopefully be the last regular player of that experiment. Diaby and Djourou are not regular players even though I won’t lose sleep if they were to leave tomorrow. It will hopefully be a departure from a failed era and a failed experiment where the main actors blamed their failures on everybody except of course themselves. Yes they may have won trophies elsewhere but they did that as additions to great teams who would have won without them anyway. In their hearts of hearts they will always regret not winning at Arsenal, they copped out and took the easy way out, they don’t deserve our love.
The Club motto is ‘FORWARD’ and that’s what Arsenal fans should be concerned about. Who will Arsene get to replace Song? Once that is sorted, the upcoming season looks very promising. Once again, the pundits have written us off and are predicting we are coming 6th. I say bring it on, we are going for all the prizes. This season we will continue to build on our improvement on last season. With Steve Bould in situ as Assistant Manager and Neil Banfield as 1st team Coach we hope that they will fix the defence, which has been our major achilles heel in the last 7 years of barrenness. These 2 signings may prove to be even more important than that of any of the players. While scoring goals will certainly not be an issue with the array of attacking talent at the club, the defence when fixed will guarantee a trophy finally. As the saying goes, Attacks win you games, Defences win you titles. Let us get behind the Manager, the Verminator and our squad of players that want to play for Arsenal Football Club.
Arsenal badly need a title to get the monkey off our backs; to reward patient and long suffering fans that have not moved to Chelsea or Citeh; to show that there is merit in our self-sustaining model; to prove that in the ultimate battle between good and evil, the good guys win. Yes, we are the good guys Gooners. Supporting Arsenal especially in the 7 years of barrenness is not for the faint hearted. I trust all Arsenal fans by default because staying loyal to this football club despite and in spite of all the goading, jeers and malicious jokes speaks of (to paraphrase Arsene Wenger) ‘mental strength’. Remember, it is always darkest before dawn, our suffering has come to an end, prepare yourselves for the bumper harvest awaiting us in the next 7 years. Let’s get behind our Manager and the players who want to play for Arsenal Football Club, they are the real Gunners (not some guys wearing some other club’s jersey and tweeting that they will always be Gunners). Together we shall overcome and write a new glorious chapter in the illustrious history of our club.
ARSENAL FOR LIFE.
MR. ABUT – Abuja, August 2012.
https://twitter.com/Abdulpires
www.oleole.com/blogs/gunnery
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