It's Darkest Before The Dawn

What's going on at Arsenal in these dark hours?

Screen Grab from Arsenal.com

In our world of redlining expectations, human beings prove to be dangerously unreliable. After spending huge sums of silver on players, surely the least we could expect is silverware in return. We’re with the program, right! Now pay up and start winning! This was supposed to be our moment. We’ve been excellent for three seasons, amazing for two, only to see such beautiful potential being stifled by the Oil Barons. And now, even City are choking so it’s time to ´get back to where we belong! All that effort, all the money, and all we get it THIS!!

Except that’s the thing, everything above is a narrative built up in our heads based on nothing more than hopes and whispers and expectation and straw. And that’s the easiest house to blow down in the world, Because as you already know, life doesn’t actually work like that. There is no fate and fairness and getting what you supposedly deserve in life or football. Life is a relentless battering and sometimes you win and most times you don’t.

That's exactly why I'm always harping on here on AW about enjoying each game, loving the drama of the ride, accepting the losses and revelling in the wins as they come. Because if you don't you're left with a feeling of frustrated unfairness based on expectation for a world that just doesn't exist and never will. Life and football is a Greek Tragedy with lots of beauty and pain weaved into it and no matter how much money you spend nothing is going to change that.

For me the question is, what’s up with Arsenal?

There will be those who will talk about Arteta's ceiling. To those folks, let's remember that life is a learning process where people (can and do) mature and develop. Arteta has started his complete refurbishment of Arsenal from the back forward. We are a (mostly) brilliant defensive unit. Time now to work on the front end and develop our attacking flowing play as much as our controlling defensive play.

This means buying a creative midfielder, a winger and of course an attacker. I reckon January might be the time for at least one of these players, let’s wait and see. The Transfer Window Fashion Show is exhausting and I prefer to wait till someone wins.

So the question becomes, has Arteta got it in his psyche to adjust his tendency to wanting to control everything on the pitch and instead become a little more risky and go for more flow? Well, we know he can because that was one of the features of his Arsenal two seasons back when we were flying. So why the somewhat slightly predictable and uninspiring games of late?

Screen shop from Arsenal.com

Let's remember that whether we like it or not referees and injuries make a difference. You can say that Arsenal should be so dominant that refs can't make a difference, but that'd be almost Platonic in its wish for pure forms, in other words quite unrealistic.

You could say that Arteta has brought it on himself with time wasting and so forth, an accumulative effect playing on the minds of referees but that'd be saying that prejudice is acceptable instead of demanding that each and every incident is judged upon it's own merits (which is exactly what we would expect from any authority, right?)

You could say that Arteta is to blame for injuries, but that'd be disregarding the lunatic schedule and the fact that footballers got injured before Arteta and guess what, they will get injured after.

You could say that Arsenal are too reliant on single players like Saka and Ødegaard, but that'd be dismissing the fact that every team ever is reliant on their best players and can't perform to the same level without them.

So how do we explain that Arsenal don't win every game on a inevitable journey to silverware?

Well, firstly and most importantly we need to remember that we humans are subject to cycles and moods and psychological trends as individuals and as teams. I mean, read that question again and realise how lunatic the expectation is in the real smutty, dirty, messy human world and rejoice because if there were a formula for success I wouldn't watch football at all. It'd be like watching a deterministic universe and boy that'd be awful.

And remember, we've still got the second round, and the Champions League, and the Premier League, and the FA cup, and all the joy and drama of every game to come. So chill and enjoy my fellow sufferers. Have a great week, and a belated Happy New Year :)