Want To NOT Destroy Your Team? Arsene Can Help

Note: If you don’t know what all the hullaballoo is about, click here.

de·stroy

–verb (used with object): to reduce (an object) to useless fragments, a useless form, or remains, as by rending, burning, or dissolving; injure beyond repair or renewal; demolish; ruin; annihilate.

This is hardly the best time for an Arsenal fan to be writing a pro-Wenger article. What with fire sale bells engaging  in enthusiastic pelvic thrusts at the club, and the Gervinho signing expected to be announced sometime in late September, a communal furrowing of eyebrows is what is most noticeable in the gooner world today. But no matter how badly this transfer window goes or how much of a shitstorm next season turns out to be, the one thing Arsene Wenger has NOT done is destroy Arsenal.

I am not an AKB. He has behaved like an eccentric grandpa many times over the last few seasons, having fistfights with his water bottles as Arsenal bottled it in the last minute. I am frustrated and upset and closer to not liking Arsene than ever before, but Siddarth’s article still made me give a wry chuckle. Counter-point article commencing-

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Sid: What the hell has happened in the last 6 years?

A heaving behemoth of a football stadium has happened in the last six years. You think that is comparable to the managerial merry-go-round at Chelsea or United’s transition from Djemba-Djemba to Bebe? Arsenal was popularly known as the biggest medium-scale club in the world, Highbury at her most jam-packed couldn’t fill the coffers that needed to be filled if Arsenal were to compete with the cream of Europe, and a bevy of sacrifices had to be made to get the stadium up and running.

Underwhelming sponsorship deals were signed just because we would get the money up front and could finance some of the loans, a century of history was tearfully said goodbye to, and the fist was tightened as far as transfer money was concerned. The club whose situation is comparable to ours would be Valencia. They won the League at the turn of the decade, built a new stadium and witnessed an alarming downward slide because changing stadiums is not like changing the lightbulb in your home. Valencia are still chock-a-bloc in debt, and Arsenal could get a 128 million pound windfall from the Queensland Road project. (Let’s make a Queensland Road trophy! (No) Let’s! (No) Alright)

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Sid: Wenger’s insistence on selling those who have reached their peak and replacing them with teenagers is going to be his downfall

I would call that a retardified simplified version of what Arsenal did, but I’ve seen loads of better retardified simplified versions. You think Wenger had an ‘experience’ meter next to each player and, as soon as that reached a certain saturation point, threw their boots in their faces and told them to scoot?

We have sold players because they wanted to leave (Vieira: minor falling out, Cashley: cash, Reyes: lack of Sun, Cygan: public welfare) or because they were having too much of a negative influence on the club either on or off the field (Adebayor). I’m not saying all transfers were well-planned, there were mistakes made along the way viz. Flamini.

And I think we would do well to dispel the myth that Arsenal only buys teenagers. In the last few years, we’ve brought Vermaelen, Nasri, Arshavin, Koscielny and Chamakh.

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Sid: Now with Clichy, Fabregas and Nasri leaving, and Arshavin also rumoured to be keen on a new challenge, Wenger has a huge problem on his hands, how to stop his club from going the Liverpool way

I can hear the hacks at The Daily Mail exchanging high fives at another successful dupe. Arsenal are as far from going the Liverpool way as Ben Stiller is from an Oscar.

The Cesc situation is a special one because Barcelona are his home club/there has been a three-season long transfer saga on this already. If Barca come up with the cash, he will go. It seems unlikely that they will. Cesc will not force a transfer because he’s not that kind of guy, and has kept his dignity throughout the charades on show. And if he does leave, Wenger will replace him with a player at his peak and ready to play in midfield for a Champions League team. Arsene may be eccentric, but he’s not insane.

And as for Nasri, Arshavin, Old King Cole and any other rumours you’ve heard, I give a mighty pfft. Arsenal do their business under the carpet and don’t lift their skirts and go ‘HAVE A LOOKSIE’ while conducting their transfers. Who knows, they might be looking for an ‘LB that can actually defend’ as you put it, but Wenger is hardly going to wire you with his name, profile and shoe size.

I will comment on deals as and when they happen, not as and when the newspapers say they are happening. The last public statements from Arshavin and Nasri were both positive, and public statements are all that are (somewhat) believable in today’s world.

I’m not saying that Nasri and Cesc won’t leave. I’m saying that-

- It’s a dark day if people start believing The Sun. (pun!)

- If they leave, we will get able replacements. We have rarely let really important players go without getting proper replacements who can do the job.

- You should refrain from blogging about what Arsenal will do if they leave, before they leave.

-You should refrain from blogging about Arsenal.

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Sid: Well I’m no manager, but common sense dictates that he should splash out on the likes of Modric, Sneijder, Sanchez, etc rather than on players like Gary Cahill, etc. Why go for overpriced and mediocre English players when he might as well buy better like Subotic, Cheillini, etc.

Firstly, quoting Sheila Broflovski…

What sort of demented common sense is that? We need no-nonsense defenders who can put their body on the line; we don’t need more lightweight midfielders. Or were you still continuing with the assumption that Arsenal are holding an Ashburton Grove Garage Sale™?

Secondly, Arsenal don’t conduct 50 million pound transfers, which is what we would need for Sanchez. Let me digress a little…

For some strange reason, my parents have this sense of responsibility towards me, and gave me some money to spend now and then. It was just paper to me, so I put my collar up and spent it. But then I started working at this morgue (not important) and I got my own money, for the first time in my life. I smelt it, I let it flutter across my face, I think I framed a ten buck note on my wall, and I have never thought as hard before buying a packet of chips. Because it was my own money; not my parent’s, not a Russian oligarch’s, there were no endless coffers of glittering gold, and I had every right to fight for each penny.

To put things in perspective, I am fully aware that I have just given the worst analogy since the space-time continuum came into being, but it still makes sense compared to what is written in italics a couple of paras above.

I am not saying that Arsenal don’t have problems currently; we are certainly no longer in a state of transition. Last season was worrying, next season might well be more so. But this post is not the place to talk about those things. When Arsene Wenger leaves the club, he will have given it a new training ground, moved to a new stadium and competed with the best in times of economic recession and transfer window tomfoolery, won trophies (what, when?), helped in transforming Arsenal into a truly worldwide brand while not sending it into administration. He has improved the club; he has also overseen and been partially culpable of the period of stagnation we are witnessing currently, but he has not destroyed the club. Arsene Wenger doesn’t destroy clubs.

As for Harry Redknapp however…

Okay.