Tuesday, January 11th, 2011 « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger in all he does

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By Tony Attwood

It was while we were standing outside the Auld Triangle mingling with the Leeds fans before the match on saturday that Ian reminded me of the last time we watched Arsenal / Leeds.  We were challenging to win the league with three games to go: 4 May 2003.   Unexpectedly, bizarrely, with a team containing Pires, Bergkamp, Edu, Henry, Wiltord… we lost 2-3, and so lost the chance of another championship.

I must admit to feeling extremely down and really wondered what could be done with the team to help take us up that final step.

But, of course I was back for the next match – home to Southampton who we were also meeting in the FA Cup final a little later.   We won 6-1, including not only a Pires hat trick, but also concluding with the most audacious lob I have ever seen in a match.

We won the cup; some compensation, and settled down for a new season, not knowing something rather important.  Arsenal v Leeds was the last defeat.  Arsenal v Southampton was the start of the 49.

I mention this because Leeds (a Champs League semi-final team at the time) since then has been, if not exactly in the Conference North, then certainly in the lower leagues.  The memory shows to me how easy it is for big clubs to fall.  No one has the right to stay at the top (as Man U and Liverpool with their occasional visitations into the second division will testify).

On this site we started talking about the demise of certain clubs with non-sustainable policies several years back: Liverpool and Man U for financial reasons, Chelsea because their youth policy was based on quicksand, and later we added Man City because it will ultimately face the same problem as Chelsea.  (Tottenham is a different kettle of dirty washing up water, because it looks to me as if as soon as the stadium is stored the owner will sell, and then, who knows what will happen.)

But to return to Man U, it must seem strange to predict their demise while they are sitting on top of the league.  Yet there is a problem there because the situation of the club cannot be sustained.  The waiting list for tickets has gone, the owners are no closer to solving their problems, and it is their losses that the financial fair play regs were set up to deal with.

(Actually Man U reminds me of the scenario in which a business is broke, and those owed money are howling at the gates demanding a meeting with the boss.  He turns up in a Rolls packed with bottles of champagne, and wearing a broad smile.  The shareholders and creditors are outraged and demand an explanation.  The owner says, “I don’t know about you but I am hear to celebrate the greatest moment in our company’s history” and spreads a yarn about a new development for the company.   So entranced is everyone they not only forget that they are there to get their money back they end up giving the boss even more of their funds.  He has just bought himself another six months).

Which leads me to my point: a club can stay on and on at or near the top for a long time while the financial inside of the club rots away.  And then suddenly it just drops.  Just like Leeds.

Which brings me to Liverpool: a club hardly in the best of spirits.  It is only recently that any journalists have picked up the lead of Untold in pointing out that 21 years after winning the league for the last time, the club can hardly be called  a major force.   But they’ve been in the top four until recently, and not many people really thought  it would all fall apart this quickly.  There seemed to be a simple notion that you could just get rid of the American owners and replace them with, oh, I don’t know, say American owners, and all would be ok.

But it’s not, and in my view, it can only get worse.   Arsenal in the top four have suffered years of media talk about players leaving, and mindless jibes from the AAA that “Arsenal is a selling club”.   Can you imagine what is going to happen in the summer over Reina, Kuyt and Torres?  And dear old S Gerrard?  The point is, once the rot starts, it is hard to stop.

Of course players leave all clubs (something we hardly need reminding about with Vieira at City and Henry now training with us again).  But Liverpool don’t have a decent youth policy or the money to provide anyone amazing to step into the gap, and with the club in clear trouble, the prices taken will be much lower than they would have been a year ago.  There is still no move on a new ground, and there is a decline in the income as fans start to stay away.

(Actually Leeds are partly to blame for the problem Liverpool have.  Until Leeds banks and financiers would always lend to big clubs on the grounds that “big clubs never go bust.”  Leeds showed that was untrue.)

I could continue going around clubs that appear to be falling from grace – and if I stayed in the EPL the next on the list would be Villa, whose demise is simple to understand: the owner has stopped lending (that is lending, not giving) the club money.   When that happens you know things are not good.

But let’s look at another strange case. In England I still maintain Man U are in trouble, despite being top of the league.   And curiously I have the same view of Scotland.   Rangers have won the league the last couple of years, and are still top – and yet…  the club has no control over its own affairs.  Just recently in fact Walter Smith, the manager, made it clear that Lloyds Banking Group is the organisation running the club (“dictating policy” was how Smith put it).  Things are so bad at Rangers they can’t even afford to sign a loan player during the transfer window.

Of course any sympathy one might have for a big club falling on hard times disappears when the boss says the situation is “a bit unfair” as Smith did, and that the club deserves better (a reference back to a campaign by supporters some little while ago.)   He also said the club needs “a wee bit of help.”

What Mr Smith is complaining about is that the bank has only a short-term perspective in terms of wanting its money back – exactly as Liverpool found when those awfully nice people at RBS demanded more and more and more money in default payments from Liverpool so they could do their bit to pay the £17bn in bonuses that is being lashed out on bankers this year.  (Yes, it is £17 billion in the UK, that is not a typo.  If you are not a citizen of the UK, then it’s not your fault.  But if you voted for the Coalition government, then the government is letting them do it in your name).  (I don’t normally let my political views enter the fray on this site – but I am still fuming so much about the banks – perhaps because I chair a company – I can’t help myself.  Sorry).

In fact (and lowering my blood pressure a little by moving away from the subject of bankers) Rangers cannot move in any transfer issue unless they sell first – and even then the manager has admitted that he might not get all the money from the sale.  It all depends on the wages.

So could Man U get into that situation?   I retain my belief that they are running out of places to get money for transfers, and they too are in a situation where money cannot be invested until it has been saved elsewhere.   With an old squad they have a problem, unless there is a Jack Wilshere lurking in their somewhere.

Meanwhile our situation is a little different, with the money rolling in, the new ground built, the 10 year waiting list for season tickets having survived an insane attack by the AAA’s rumour masters, and Arsène Wenger being awarded world coach of the decade by the International Federation of Football History & Statistics.

That last is a great honour of course, and it is a reflection of the success of a long term strategy of Mr Wenger and the club.  It is also a reflection of a view that knows that the long term survival of the club in the top level of football is more important than winning a trophy.   Of course trophies are wonderful and I sing and shout as much as the next man when it happens (and unlike some of the AAA I was there when we beat Leicester to complete the Unbeaten Season – I know what it feels like to watch something beyond belief).

But I also know how quickly success can fade away.  We’ve seen it with Leeds, we are seeing it with Liverpool, and I suspect Man U is not far behind.

Want more ranting and raging, plus some funny bits.  Try Making the Arsenal.