Should Arsenal fans ever hope the team loses?

By Avenell Dave

In this uneventful week of pointless internationals, us Addicts have had plenty of time to get ready for the North London derby.

There was a time when whatever happened, winning bragging rights over your neighbours from the Seven Sisters Road was the highlight of the season and the matches have certainly not lost their resonance.

But it’s always meant a little bit more to the Spuds than to us, simply because we have had bigger fish to fry, bigger games to win and more trophies to enjoy.

Even though T*tt*nh*m have signed some mercurial players in the past, they always seem to do worse than us.

Perhaps my favourite memory from Highbury during the Wenger years was the last game at our old stadium when we came from behind to beat Wigan.

It was a special special day made all the better by the Spuds losing to West Ham and gifting us a Champions League spot.

But the best game I ever saw was at Sh*te H*rt L*ne when we came from behind to win in a replay of the Littlewoods Cup.

Clive Allen had scored, I think, before Rocky and Ian Allinson turned the game on its head and we went on to beat Liverpool, ending Liverpool’s run of never losing when Ian Rush scored. Happy days.

Of course, expectations under Arsene Wenger have risen incredibly.

We can blame it on his early success, the superb teams he has assembled or the price of tickets that now seem to warrant us winning trophies.

We all know things aren’t right at Arsenal.

The team is reliant on about 15 players, some of whom are injured far too much and we are loaded with expensively paid reserves who the club cannot shift.

Our defence is a shambles, our attack sometimes predictable and the shouting, screaming, bully-boy leadership required in the modern game and missing from our dressing room, I would say, since Tony Adams retired.

We have lost our heart and it’s nothing to do with the nationality of the players.

But playing in a derby – and this is Arsenal’s true derby – is what it means to play for The Arsenal and while defeat will provoke unthinkable talk of crisis in this, our worst start for years, victory could well be the fillip we need to push on and turn inconsistency into a run of form necessary to compete at the highest level.

I cannot believe that some “fans” I have seen on Twitter want to see Arsenal lose just to provoke the Board into making a managerial change.

Some fans back Wenger, others think his time is up. We all have and are entitled to our own opinions.

What is essential is that everyone gets behind the team tomorrow –and if we’re losing at half time (heaven forbid) whatever you do don’t boo unless it’s directed at the referee for making an unreasonable decision in the Spuds’ favour.

Being a supporter means just that – supporting the team through thick and thin and if you want us to lose ANY game, quite frankly, you’re not worthy of supporting our great club.

Addict XI

Szczesny

Sagna Koscielny Mertesacker Vermaelen

Cazorla Arteta Wilshere

Walcott/Arshavin Giroud Podolski

Do you have to be mad to still support Arsene Wenger??

By Avenell Dave

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

So are rose-tinted spectacles.

There was a cruel inevitability to Mikel Arteta's penalty miss - he should not have been allowed to take it with Santi Cazorla ripping the ball from him, but at the same time, as vice captain, I can understand why his wishes were folllowed.

If you follow Arsenal debate on Twitter, you would believe that Arsenal only came into existence in 1996 when Arsene Wenger arrived.

And you would forget the years we had when we were miles off the title winners even if we finished second. And that was before the Sheikhs and the Oligarchs started to inflate the market.

Others are talking about the importance of a strong CEO alongside Wenger, such as David Dein during whose reign, we were winning trophies.

But football ahs moved on. Apart from the billionaires, players have started to assert more control on their own destinies than they did in the past.

Even during Dein's reign, C@$hley Cole broke ranks and eventually left because he was insulted the club was trying to negotiate a deal rather than offer him mega bucks as an opening offer.

Would Dein be so much more effective now than Ivan Gazidis? 

I don't think so and that is not because I rate Gazidis highly or Dein less so but because football has become a sport of mercenaries. 

Players for life are as rare as hen's teeth and money talks.

So is it Wenger's fault that we have ahd our worst start for 30 years? 

Of course the manager has to take some blame.

I'd love to see us move to man for man marking again, which would hopefully help to cut out the frankly unforgiveable static excuse for defending we witnessed on Saturday, particularly for the first Fulham goal.

You have to sympathise with Wenger, though, that one of his centre backs is suffering the worst form of his life while one full back has missed most of our recent matches and the other is just coming back after a second leg break in a year.

Add to that a goalkeeper who is simply not good enough and a first choice who has hardly featured and it would be hard for anyone without limitless funds for cash-hungry superstar reserves to do anything about it.

Whether too much faith was placed on the fitness of Abou Diaby in the summer or not, the absence of our perma-crock has certainly had an impact on our midfield effectiveness.

I know people who wrote off Olivier Giroud after half a dozen games and disagreed with my assessment that he would come good.

Four goals in as many games suggests he's not doing too badly, especially with the assists thrown in. He won virtually everything in the air on Saturday and made a real menace of himself.

He may not be or ever be as effective as RvP but given that we got hardly anything from the Dutchman for six and a half of his eight year stay, I wouldn't be surprised if he proves to be just as decent a signing in the long run.  

Wenger signed Giroud and Cazorla and Podolski and while some of them have only performed in fits and starts, I still believe that what we're really missing now is some fresh legs.

A lot of being asked of Aaron Ramsey when players like Diaby and Rosicky coming off the bench would perhaps bring more experience, and who knows whether it's down to Wenger refusing to give up on them (which I wanted him to do with RvP and look how that turned out 18 months ago) or just the inability to sign replacements until they're off the books?

Whatever is going wrong at Arsenal, it could be a lot worse.

I still have faith that the core of the team, when fit, are a match for anyone and that we will turn things around once we get players fit and some confidence back.

Those who think I am mad are entitled to their view.

I don;t think Wenger is perfect but I do wonder who under the financial constraints we work with, anyone else could do much more.

Arsenal need lionhearts if we're to compete for trophies again

By Avenell Dave

A few weeks ago, a home visit from Fulham would have been seen as a regulation win to cement our place in the top four and assert our belief that we could challenge for the title.

Notwithstanding our terrible form most Novembers, we're now in a position where anything but a win on Saturday will provoke claims of another crisis and give the media and glory-hunting fairweathers a field day.

We can't let that happen.

What's been most concerning in the past few games has been our lack of creativity, or 'offensive efficiency' as Arsene Wenger would call it.

Add that to some shambolic defending and it doesn’t take long for our confidence to crack.

People talk about the need for leaders, the need for people to show some steely resilience and the fact is, we could do with a couple of never-say-die shouters.

Thomas Vermaelen, for all the plaudits he receives for scoring late goals, doesn’t seem to be a monster in the way an Adams or a Vieira.

I think back to the ‘Battle of Old Trafford’ and the number of Lionhearts on show that day.

Is the absence of them purely down to players seeing Arsenal as a job, as the likes of Na$ri and others clearly do?

We saw the other day, much as it was predictable, avoidable and stupid of Jack Wilshere to get sent off – and only the previous week I wondered if his pulling back from making stupid tackles meant he’d learnt that having Paul Scholes as a tackling role model was probably not ideal – but at least it showed he wanted to battle, he wanted to fight for the shirt and give every last drop of energy for the cause.

There’s an argument that, much as his actions were petulant, he should be made captain just as Tony Adams was at the age of 21, and if TV5 leaves, it would make sense to have our leader a real figurehead, someone who has shown that even through his recovery, he has real fight about him.

His absence on Saturday will be stark, especially with so many other midfielders – Ramsey, Diaby, Rosicky, the Ox – injured or with question marks about their fitness.

I suspect that will mean another game for Francis Coquelin and I have no problems with that. He is ahead of Emmanuel Frimpong in terms of development and it means Mikel Arteta can get forward a bit more, so we shouldn’t be much weaker.

What we need to do is score early, move the ball around and suffocate Fulham to stop them playing.

We need to be disciplined and focused and not take the game lightly because Fulham are not a big club – playing the might of M*nure last weekend hardly seemed to rouse the team, after all.

Just a word on that idiot Piers Morgan. He wants Wenger out, as I know a fair few Addicts do too.

But it makes me laugh when he says we would win trophies if we had Song, RvP, Na$ri and Fabregas. Make no mistake, I’d have RvP and Cesc in my team every day, but while we can all dispute the virtues or not of each and every one of our recent departees, the fact is we had that group for a few years and we still won nothing.

We need a stronger squad of course. But what we’ve lacked for too many years are winners. Players who will die for the shirt. Jack Wilshere may be the only one we have.

Addict XI

Mannone

Sagna Mertesacker Koscielny Vermaelen

Cazorla Arteta Coquelin

Walcott Giroud Podolski

What do you think? Who should start against Fulham on Saturday?