ConigliarosPotential said:
In all seriousness, I'm questioning why I should keep supporting Arsenal. I've been a fan since the Bruce Rioch era, have seen maybe 30-40 matches at Highbury (not counting the match I played there myself or the Champions League group game I saw at the old Wembley), know the history of the club back to Herbert Chapman and Bertie Mee, can recite whole passages of Fever Pitch, etc. etc. - my support for Arsenal is as deep as my support for any team in any other sport. But the fact is, I have other American sports teams I care about just as much as Arsenal, and none of those teams or the leagues they play in are anything like as dysfunctional as Arsenal and the Premier League are (unless you count the NCAA, but that's another story). I mean, if an NFL or MLB team went an entire offseason without making a trade or signing more than one minimum-salaried free agent, it would become a candidate for contraction or relocation. Meanwhile, I've heard several pundits describe the 2013-14 Premier League season as "the most wide open in years", which I guess means that as many as three teams can realistically win the title instead of only one or two. Even if Arsenal had bought normally over the last two months, their range of likely outcomes for the season - 3rd-6th in the league, maybe a domestic cup final or semifinal, Champions League mediocrity - is so narrow as to be almost suspense-less except on a week-to-week basis. The on-field product of the Premier League remains gripping, but it increasingly lacks any kind of meaningful context over the course of a full season; meanwhile, financial inequality means the haves and have-nots will likely remain unchanged for the forseeable future, while financial immorality amongst agents looking for higher fees, players looking to change clubs and clubs looking to destabilize players makes every transfer window seem increasingly tawdry.
Arsenal remains a well-off club, and it can still (for now, at least) pretend to dream of Premiership and European success - which I know is much more than most clubs can dream of. But in every other professional sport I follow, I believe that if my team is well run and the breaks fall its way, it will have a chance to compete for a championship. In theory, no NFL or MLB team is more than 2-3 years away from playoff contention at any given point. Can that be said of Arsenal? Even if Arsenal were well run, which it transparently isn't, I'm not sure I believe that any more...and given that Arsenal has finished in the top four every year for several decades, how damning an indictment is that of the Premier League itself? At least in Ligue 1 or the Bundesliga you get the occasional Montpellier or Wolfsburg sneak through to win the title. (And in baseball, the Giants can win the World Series one year and be relegation candidates the next year...but I digress.)
I don't mind supporting bad teams - I grew up in Atlanta in the 1980s - but this summer I've gone from being stupefied at Arsenal's stupidity to wondering why it even matters. That's much worse than the initial stupefaction...maybe Silent Stan knew something we didn't all along?
This is a rather funny bout of self pitying and excuse making.
I mean, holy fucking fuck,
Arsenal fans are complaining about financial inequality and the hopelessness of competition in the league? Basically only four teams have won the Premier League since its inception and Arsenal is one of those teams. Do you think fans of other teams enjoyed watching "the Invincibles" run riot through the league? (some did, of course, but you know what I mean). From 97 to 04, Arsenal were a fucking freight train. When Wenger showed up at Arsenal, he spent immediately to bring in a few players, among them Viera and Overmars. It was a significant sum at the time. They've spent a fair amount of money since, and have only been overrun in recent years, but it's not because of the competitive climate and agents fees, but because they've chosen to pocket a fantastic amount of money:
30m for Fabregas
25m for Adebayor
23m for Anelka
25m for Overmars! 20m profit!
23m for RvP
20m for Nasri
Arsenal chose to try to diversify and sign bunches of mid premium players as opposed to massive stars, but they've clearly had enough money to buy the massive stars. This is a tactical choice by your manager and board, not a symptom of a league that Arsenal can't compete in. Had Arsenal just reinvested the RvP and Nasri money at any point, the 40m could have bought them several players who have transferred over the past 3/4 windows and absolutely could have had Arsenal in the pre season conversation for who will win the league. Arsenal also choice to vote FOR the Financial Fair Play rules that are going to hamstring them and everyone else in terms of spending more money to succeed. When Arsenal finally does get a new ownership, maybe one that is willing to spend to get Arsenal back into the top tier, they're not going to be able to, because FFP supposedly will prevent them (as soon as Platini gets over the inconvenient fact that his family members are employed by PSG, the team that seems to find FFPR irrelevant).
The league has always been haves versus have nots, at least in its modern incarnation. I recognize that it sucks to be in the "have nots" category, but this is entirely of their own doing and honestly the squad is not far enough away from competing for the league for your lament to even seem reasonable. Simply having been able to retain RvP and brought in another player or two would have Arsenal challenging for the title. Finding a striker in that stratosphere has certainly gotten expensive, but it isn't impossible (and Giroud looks worlds better this season from what I've seen in pre season and the first match). Nonetheless, this IS likely to be one of the most wide open league campaigns in recent memory, because a bunch of teams, including Arsenal, are completely viable for both the top 4 and even the first spot. I can't believe I'm giving a "stop being a nancy" pep talk to a fucking Gooner, but one bad result at the weekend and the continued toxic environment doesn't relegate Arsenal to 2nd or 3rd tier status. And, honestly, it's not like it's only about money. Laudrup is making that Swansea side into a Europa contender. Given the disparity between Arsenal and Swansea's payroll, is it too much to ask Wenger to coach the team up a little above its level? There are PL teams doing this year in and year out. Hell, even MUFC have been at a relative talent disparity (imo) at times during Whiskeynose's recent reign (shoot me now), but he's had that team at the top of the table year in and year out, spending big when necessary and working to identify talent (BEBE!) on the cheap as well. It's not that it isn't doable--it's that Arsenal hasn't done it.
From a bigger picture (and uninformed outsider's) perspective, I think Arsenal really went off the rails years ago, when they failed to turn their wave of success into a sustainable product. When you see what Barcelona was able to setup with La Masia and their general complex around the stadium, and what City is trying to setup with the massive youth complex and tons of commercial investments, I can't help but feel like Arsenal didn't maximize their opportunity when they were at the very pinnacle. I think there was a time there where Arsenal could have become THE alternative to MUFC, had players wanting to play for them because of simply who they are, and driven tons of revenue with partnerships and serious investment in the youth system. I'm sure much, if not all of this, was done to some extent, but somehow it didn't bear enough fruit to keep the Arsenal engine firing on all cylinders as inevitably change occurred and a few mistakes were made. That Arsenal somehow ended up too poor to buy to strengthen as RvP finally turned into a peach is the real turning point for this club. They arrived with a few youth products and enough juice to have been a destination for some really good players. There's an alternate world Arsenal where they're probably last season's champions and they're challenging for the CL, they probably just needed to have 50-60m to invest 2 seasons ago. It's sort of amazing that that money wasn't there.
To come back to your original post, though, I think you're just being way way way overdramatic. Imagine reading your post as a fan of Villa, Norwich, Hull, etc. These teams actually can't compete because FFPR basically won't ever let them spend the sums necessary to do so. Arsenal still has this capability, they just need to find a way to exercise it. I still think Wenger is a good manager, and they've made some fantastic buys in recent times that would be league changers if they were able to supplement with a few of the expensive ones as well. It's hard to say what is really driving their transfer policy, and if it is Wenger then he's cutting off his nose to spite his face, and he should be forced out. If he really desperately wants to spend, then the ownership is the problem and there's no manager that can do much more. In either case, Arsenal is hardly the only club, current or past, who has been unable to compete due to poor leadership. That's pretty much par for the course for any club these days.