UNTOLD ARSENAL

So, its 9 weeks until the transfer window, so the stories are starting to go around that Cesc is off to Barca, Adebayor is off somewhere else, and 62 year old Bob Dylan is going to play at right back tomorrow.

OK so I made that last one up, but it might as well be a story going round, given the current state of things.   The team were booed again on Wednesday, and according to the fanatical right wing Telegraph the club has agreed to install extra security to protect Sir Alex F-Word from abuse from the crowd, but the Bankrupts have refused to accede to Arsenal’s request for a similar situation at Very Old Trafford.

The Fanatical Telegraph also keeps running stories that Arsenal are going to lose their top four status - a story that seems to have no relationship to past history or the current situation.

So if the papers want to disrupt the club, lower league clubs like Stoke want to cripple the players, the overseas clubs want to disrupt Cesc, and even some of Arsenal’s own supporters want to disrupt everything by booing the team, what next?

It must be the FA’s turn.  At any moment I suspect there will be an announcement saying that they are so upset that none of the four English clubs in Europe could win this week, that they have decided to take urgent action.  Sir Hardly Anyone of the FA will state tomorrow that the only solution must be for the clubs to have more English players, and the English players must get more European experience.  Therefore the number of internationals will be greatly increased, and from this point on, England will play an international every Wednesday.

Mostly against San Marino.

The one real benefit for Arsenal would then be that then the supporters who booed the team on Wednesday will no longer have anything to boo on future Wednesdays.   Trouble is I wouldn’t have midweek Euro football to watch, and I quite enjoy it.  In fact although I was disappointed by the result, I thought the team played well - solid defense, millions of opportunities, swift passing.  It was just the final element of luck wasn’t there.

On the journey home on Wednesday we contemplated how other supporters were feeling.  CSKA Fulham with their scouting system torn up, defeat to a very average Italian team, and losing at home to the Insolvents.  And the Insolvents, losing to the bottom club in the EPL, and then once again having to rely on the bribed ref to give them a penalty in the 183rd minute to scrape the regular Euro draw.

Of course being Arsenal we always turn in on ourselves.   But sometimes I just wish we didn’t.

I suppose in the end it is a matter of one’s perspective over time.

The media aided by the PR machines of Manchester, Liverpool and Chelsea, and supported by a number of Arsenal blogs, have suggested that we must win something this season otherwise it is all some sort of unspecified disaster.

Who knows - we may well do.  When the current period in which shots, which at any other time in the season would go in, but now suddenly hit the bar or a defender’s leg, comes to an end soon, and is not repeated, we might well win something.   We’ve certainly come from much father behind much later in the season in the past.   And although it is not dead certain it is possible that other teams will have their usual blips too.  (I say not dead certain, because during the Unbeaten Season we didn’t have a blip - but I don’t see anyone being that good this season.)

But let’s assume, just for a moment, that we don’t win anything.   Will that be the proof that wholesale changes should have been made this season, and because they were not, should be made in the close season next year?

For Chelsea supporters one blip means mega-crisis.   Losing their long running home record and losing in Europe has sparked all sorts of gnashing of teeth, the scouting system is being junked, and people are being asked to account for their actions.

I don’t like that style.    Clubs should not think of only one season - even if it comes on the back of 3 bad seasons (and our last three were hardly bad).   What should also be taken into account at this time is also the financial situation.

It is most likely that something dramatic will happen with Manchester and Liverpool over the next two or three years.   Before the credit crisis began, they could not pay the interest on their debts.   That is still the same, but now it is worse because other sources of money are drying up and the obvious plan of building the club up and then selling it on with all the debts inside it,  is clearly not on.

Only a few Russian oligarchs and Arab royal families have the money  to bail out a club any more - and interestingly they are not circling around the likes of Manchester  or Liverpool.  They have started to look at smaller clubs - and it is the likes of QPR and Charlton who are getting makeovers, along of course with the odd case of Manchester City.

Arsenal, as we all know are stable.  Their interest rates are fixed, the bulk of the property has sold, and the clubs finances don’t depend in any way on further property sales.

So the overall question is, should Arsenal venture into the world of Liverpool and Manchester with its total debt crisis, or stay where it is.  I’d go with the latter even if it means no trophies for several years.  I intend to be supporting this club for quite a few more years to come, and I don’t really want to have to support them in a lower division, after they’ve gone bust.

Of course Wenger could have brought in more players - and the injury crisis of today suggests he should have done that.

Except… supposing he did have top players ready to slip into the positions where players are injured.   What would these top players have been doing all season?  Sitting there happily waiting their time?

I doubt it.

Of course I left the Ems on wednesday saddened by the draw, rather than a victory - but most seasons have blips - and for Arsenal they are often around this time.  I’ll be there again tomorrow, doing my bit for the team, but perhaps more than anything I want to make sure that my club is still there in five years time and not blown away by a credit disaster.

I absolutely have not given up on this season, but even  if it didn’t work out this time around I know that, unlike the media who need a story a day, I can afford to bide my time.