Who is deluding who? some facts ahead of the Villa game « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager

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By Walter Broeckx

Whenever we lose a game some of our supporters go into “worst ever” mode. The manager has to be sacked, the players are useless. Well we all know how they go around the internet with their slogans.

And let us just take a look at the situation in the EPL  ahead of the Villa game.

1	Chelsea	14	9	1	4	28	9	19	28
2	Manchester United	14	7	7	0	28	15	13	28
3	Arsenal	14	8	2	4	28	15	13	26
4	Manchester City	14	7	4	3	19	11	8	25
5	Bolton Wanderers	14	5	7	2	26	20	6	22
6	Tottenham Hotspur	14	6	4	4	21	19	2	22

So apart from finding this the worst thing that ever happened to Arsenal under the worst manager we ever had at Arsenal I really cannot say that I feel bad about the current league position we find ourselves in. On Saturday morning we are 2 points behind the leaders. How on earth can this be the worst team ever? How on earth can this be the worst players ever. How on earth can this be done with a manager who “has lost it”?

Maybe some supporters should take a look at how we were finding ourselves in the same weekend last year. And yes I have the league table from that period and just take a look at it and just to let you know you will also find the total points in the last column :

1	Chelsea	14	12	0	2	36	8	+28	36
2	Manchester United	14	10	1	3	30	13	+17	31
3	Tottenham Hotspur	14	8	2	4	33	19	+14	26
4	Arsenal	13	8	1	4	36	18	+18	25
5	Liverpool	14	7	2	5	31	20	+11	23
6	Aston Villa	14	6	5	3	22	14	+8	23

Now you just take a look and another look and another look. Last year on this day we were 11 (eleven) points behind the leader who also was Chelsea. We were 6 points behind Manchester United. And disaster upon disaster, last year we were one point behind Tottenham.

Now I don’t know if my mathematics are still spot on as it has been a while since I left school so it could well be that nowadays being 2 points behind is far worse than being 11 points behind. But I can assure you that in my days at school being 2 points behind the leader is much, much better than being 11 points behind.

Now the most clever members of the congregation will have noticed that last year we played not as many games as the others. It was the Bolton game which only was played in January and when we went to the top of the table after winning it in fact. So if I want to change it with the hindsight (what a popular word for the moment) I have now but we didn’t have then one could say that we have 28 points and would be in front of Tottenham on that day one year ago. Feels better already.

But then again it means that we were still 8 (eight) whole points behind league leaders Chelsea.  And again in my book being only 2 points behind is way better than being 8 points behind.

Losing a game is never a nice feeling. Losing two games is always a bad feeling. After all we love Arsenal to win every game. But no supporter can really believe we will win every game. Defeats are as normal in football as snow in the winter at the North Pole (or traffic jams in England on a friday night with 1mm of snow on the ground- ed). Hard to take, but an essential part of football. Winning every game is impossible unless Wenger proves me wrong at some stage in the next few seasons of course.

And yes I can understand being disappointed after a defeat and some defeats hurt more than others but why do we have to throw everything away after losing a game? Why do we pain ourselves that way? Wouldn’t it be more supportive to say: “F*ck, the ref cost us the game (as he did on Tuesday) come on lads better next time. “ Instead of the hysteria we see now from different supporters who cannot see anything good anymore in the whole team. The hysteria that once again is calling the heads of every player, even the ones that didn’t play. The calling for new players and if we would buy them all we never would comply with the 25 players rule by the way.

The calling for Suarez from Ajax and the pointing at his great goal scoring record for Ajax. And yes he has scored 35 goals last season in the Dutch league. But to think that if he would come to Arsenal all our problems would disappear is a bit short sighted I would say. We would be facing a lot of problems with the fact that Suarez is a very blatant diver. This will work against us in the EPL. After a few dives we will have to deal with defenders kicking his legs to pieces without the refs giving penalties. We have seen it before after what happened when Eduardo (who was not a diver at all)  was prosecuted by the media last season and we didn’t get any penalties at all for a big part of the season. And after his biting incident last weekend he will be facing a difficult time I think.

And when it comes to players from Holland we must keep in mind that the game in Holland is a very open game and based on skill and technical ability. Players have room to express themselves and are very well protected by the refs.

And maybe we should remember another player who came from Holland a few years ago with a goal scoring reputation even better than Suarez. I am talking about Alfonso Alvez. Remember him? He scored 45 goals in 39 games in Holland before coming to the EPL and to Middlesbrough. They paid £20M  for him. And he scored 10 goals in 42 games before being sold to the biggest team in the world:  Al-Sadd. Never heard of them? Neither did I untill today. But this just to show you that it doesn’t mean a thing how many goals you score in Holland. I could have mentioned Huntelaar also who never really made it in Madrid, an in Milan and now Schalke after tormenting the Dutch league with his goals. People who think that they will just do it in the same way in the EPL are just deluding themselves.

As they are deluding themselves when saying this is the worst thing ever. Just look again at the two league tables in this article and then tell me we are worse of than last year. Look at it again and tell me we were in a better position last year.  Because we were not.

And a final note: the league has changed. Maybe you were watching but didn’t realise it but the league has changed.

Stop worrying, by someone an Xmas present

There’s told told’s, told untold’s, untold told’s and untold untold’s.

Is Arsenal well and truly going down hill?

Want to argue against Wenger and his philosophy? Then you must read this first, or your comment may not be published