Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger in all he does » Is it all over? (I hear no singing)
Is it all over ?
By Walter Broeckx
If you look at what some people say, it is all over .
Even worse because we dropped points against Birmingham in the last minutes we are doomed for the rest of the season. We will be out of the CL on wednesday, in fact why even bother playing it? We are finished, the manager has lost if for the 954th time this season, the players are again rubbish. This is the end of The Arsenal.
Do I share this so called ‘realistic’ vision? No, I don’t, it is just the way I am. I only give up when it really is over. I will not give up until we are mathematically and complete out of it.
After all, every time when we have a setback and I don’t deny the fact that it was a major blow to give away such a strange goal in injury time but as we know this is part of football. So I try to take a look that goes a bit further than these final minutes.
If we lose the title it won’t be in Birmingham we lost it. In fact we have done over there just the same as our main rival contenders for the title. In fact without the deflected clearance goal we would have done better than Chelsea and United. Chelsea played 0-0 and United did the same as we and they were lucky to earn a 1-1 at the end. So yes I’m still unhappy that we conceded the late goal but it gave us the same amount of points as the others got in Birmingham. So considering points gained or lost no difference there between us and the other two.
If you want to look even further I suggest you try to remember what they have been saying about us before the season. Remember the pundits proclaiming the title would go to Liverpool. Well that was the Liverpool based pundits. The rest of the pundits said Chelsea and United would be close to win the league. I think only one brave pundit dare to stick his head out and said that it could be that Arsenal could be involved in the title race. And yes I still think and feel that we are in the title race.
But for most of the pundits it was clear: Arsenal was the team that would drop out of the top four. We were doomed and should consider ourselves lucky if we would even qualify for the Europa League. Big money spender Manchester City was the team that would throw us out and if not them than it would be Aston Villa, Tottenham or Everton.
Many of the people who write us off now once again believed the pundits and since the start of the season they have questioned anyone and everything involved in Arsenal. From the manager until the team mascot, all were not good enough. But the results forced them to shut up for a while. But whenever we had a defeat they came out like a rabbit out of the magician’s head. And every time the team silenced them with another great run of results. Until we lost again and the whole scenario took place once again.
Now we don’t even need a defeat to see them come above water. No, playing 1-1 at Birmingham is enough to once again call for the sacking of Wenger, give away half of the team, sell the rest apart from Cesc who once again will be leaving anyway to Barcelona even after Cesc saying for the 17,425th time that he is not going to leave Arsenal.
Until the 90th minute of the Birmingham game when we had a hard fought advantage in our hands we were okay but since that fluke goal we are again rubbish.
I really wish they could make up their minds: are we rubbish or not? I bet the next thing they will come up with is the: this was “the worst season ever” mantra like last year.
To me we are not rubbish. We have a great young team, a manager who cares, a good financial basis to work for the future, we are in the quarter finals of the Champions League, we are 3rd in the League and still in the race for the title. We still could be the third dog running away with the title at the end.
We have lost what was supposed to be our Rooney or Drogba in Van Persie for most of the season. We played without our normal centre back’s against Birmingham, we had a lot of injured players during the season, we had again a fair number of strange referee decisions, we had to face the horror of leg breaking tackles once again….. and still we are in it with a chance. How could we have done this with a crap team and a crap manager ?
Am I blind? No, I know we still can end up with empty hands. This is part of football, there is only one winner at the end and the rest can try again next season. Even Chelsea could end up losing the title, just as Manchester United can. In fact one of them at least will lose the title and maybe both of them. Nothing is done yet and we don’t have things in our own hands for the moment. We have to rely on United and Chelsea losing points at some stage. But as this season has shown they also can lose points where you don’t expect them to do so.
But you won’t hear me saying: crap players, crap manager, crap board. Not now and even not even in case when we would win nothing. I loved the season so far and I think I will enjoy the rest of the season. I even will be out there on may 9th and hope I can applaud the new champions in the EPL. But even when we would not win the title on that day, I will be there –thanks to some good and dear friends – and I will be applauding the players when they do a lap of honour after the final game.
They have given us great moments and also disappointing moments. But this is part of being a supporter. And for those who cant stand the disappointment after the hope I can only suggest that you might stay out of the kitchen if you really can’t stand the heat.
Apart from us over here living in a fantasy world, who would have thought that at the end of March we would be fighting for the title ? So let’s keep it up and remember like I wrote over here after the two defeats against MU and Chelsea: it isn’t over till its over.
Well, it isn’t over yet.
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