Monkey Business of being a football fan

Note: The following post was actually written on 04Dec06 - before the recent winning run

Its tough being a football fan. Especially at these times, when the team is losing more often than it should, the manager looks as if he could hang himself anytime and the team frequently seems completely lost. Any thoughts of winning silverware would be better off being flushed down the toilet.

But voluntering to become a fan of a club is a one-way ticket; which is not a fact that one recognises at the outset. There are no comebacks; one has to get on with it, live with what happens and attempt to remain optimistic. Pretty much like life.

So what does one do in such a scenario? Can one objectively criticise everything thats wrong and hope that all the wrongs would be corrected overnight - i.e. buy more established players, bringing back Viera, flushing some US$ 100mn on a couple of over-the-hill yesterday's stars? I dont think thats realistic, and therefore a waste of time. Nothing can be done but to watch how things develop.

There is no doubt, the club is in crisis. But the positive is that its something that can be controlled.

The problems as I see are:

a) The captain and manager's recent blow-up
While Thiery Henry wants us to believe it was about his fitness, I think it was more a heated argument about the direction the club is taking. Buy big names in January, was Henry's view on their recent troubles.

But thats essentially questioning the intelligence of the manager - as in, buying young and not-so established names has been the route adopted by the manager the last couple of years and which he ferociously defends each time hes given an opportunity. Its a fact that Arsenal has limited funds; but I dont think even if he did have the money, he would adopt any other route.

Its not only Henry who has difficulty fully supporting (and to understand the rationale) the method adopted by Wenger. Its completely unchartered territory when a manager of a 'big' club puts out a team of raw, talented bunch of youngsters. The manager himself has recently questioned the maturity of the team in recent weeks - how the fuck can he expect them to demonstrate maturity, when they are so inexperienced. Maturity to deal with a situation day-in-day-out only comes with time. So it is a bit surprising, and rather stupid, that the manager doesn't see it clearly enough. Or isnt honest enough, if he does see it.

(Am not getting to whether the captain is indeed the best person to be the captain of this team)

Which brings me to the next point:

b) Lack of balance in the team
With experience, comes the maturity & mentality to hang in every game no matter what the situation of the game is; and obviously a higher salary structure. One needs the balance if you are seriously targeting silverware.

c) Lack of expectation setting
This is where the team is suffering - everyone from the fans to the players to the manager expects the team to have a go at the Premiership title this year - when its obvious that its fucking unrealistic.

The manager has to be realistic and put out an earnings outlook: i.e. we will not challenge for the premiership, we will not win the champions league. We have a realistic chance of getting Champions league position in d league and possibly a good shot at the F A Cup. But obviously, this would be not be forthcoming on account of sponsorships, 30k additional seats to fill and pissing off the handful of established stars in the team.

Therefore, I dont see this season to transpire in a way any different from the last one. If we manage to win the FA Cup and get into the Champions League final, then that would be a coup of sorts. If the side does manage to hold the No. 3 position from today until the end of the season, I would think we would have a fair chance at the premiership next year. But this year, we should think long-term!