The only emotions that have remained after the game is pure hurt and anger, hurt and anger of having lost to our bitter most rivals at home, hurt and anger of epitomizing all that is good and correct in the world of football but of late, having nothing to show for it, hurt and anger that this wonderful club/team needs a reminder of its MAGNIFICIENT history

Which team CONTRIVES to lose from winning positions? ARSENAL

Which team is 2-0 up and ends up LOSING 3-2 at the end of the game (Wigan last year)? ARSENAL

Which team CONCEDES goals from SET PIECES more often which end up costing the game? ARSENAL

Which team plays apparently the most BEAUTIFUL, ENTERTAINING football but still manages to LOSE spectacularly? ARSENAL

Which team has not yet learnt CLOSING down games in one of the most physical of leagues? ARSENAL

Which team realises the STRENGTHS of the opposition that can HURT big time (Messi, Drogba, Bale etc) but will not do enough to NEUTRALIZE them? ARSENAL

Which team’s weaknesses are most vividly documented, but those responsible have not done enough to REDRESS the same? ARSENAL

Which team has one of the most MODERN stadiums, costing millions of dollars only to have mastered the art of losing at home turf of late? ARSENAL

Which team’s players probably do not understand the MEANING of being at a top club, WEARING the team shirt and losing a DERBY at HOME? ARSENAL

Which team went UNBEATEN a whole season and now is the most likely team to LOSE against its BITTER rivals? ARSENAL

Which team needs reminding of its PROUD and MAGNIFICIENT history? ARSENAL

Now before all the rest of you, go hammer and tongs at me, for criticizing Arsenal after a loss, take a moment to ask yourselves these questions and if the answer screaming back at you is ARSENAL you will be HURT and ANGRY. It should be no comfort that there are other teams also, that answer some of the above.

The only emotions that have remained after the game is pure hurt and anger, hurt and anger of having lost to our bitter most rivals at home, hurt and anger of epitomizing all that is good and correct in the world of football but of late, having nothing to show for it, hurt and anger that this wonderful club/team needs a reminder of its MAGNIFICIENT history.

There will be no game analysis or “coulda, woulda, shoulda”. Monsieur Wenger and the players earn a fortune to deal with this headache and heartache, there are enough blokes to dissect, analyze and drown their sorrows in a glass of beer.

Don’t tell me that Chelsea also lost, we are currently third in the league, have consistently been in the top four for the past few years and made it continuously to the Champions League year in, year out, finished above Spuds in the league and hadn’t been beaten by the Spuds at our home turf in the last 17 years etc etc.

So as long as the above questions remain, and more importantly the answer to each of the above questions remains ARSENAL, I am HURT and ANGRY. Are you Monsieur?

Mean Lean’s Response

I think I should make readers aware that this article was submitted a few hours after the actual game so as with all of us, emotions were running high and that has to be taken into consideration.

Perhaps your feelings are exactly the same on this Monday morning, I do not know. It has been a painful experience for everyone involved in the club. Some of the abuse directed at our manager since then from blogs and forums has been in my opinion, disgusting.

Everyone has a right to question the manager’s ability if they think he is not doing the job sufficiently, I do not agree but that is their right and their own view but the personal, xenophobic insults only show what type of person you are. Proper Arsenal fans do not behave in that manner.

Anyway, apologies I am veering away from this article.

To be honest, the first points in the article are pretty baseless without a direct comparison with other clubs and many of the points can be flipped around.

For example.

“Which team is 2-0 up and ends up LOSING 3-2 at the end of the game (Wigan last year)? ARSENAL”

Which team has gained the most amount of points by scoring in between the 80th-90th minute? ARSENAL

“Which team’s players probably do not understand the MEANING of being at a top club, WEARING the team shirt and losing a DERBY at HOME? ARSENAL”

Which team has only lost twice in the last 17 years against their rivals? The lowest loss percentage for a derby in the Premier League? ARSENAL

Whilst it is easy at a time like this to highlight our flaws, we must not lose sight of our strengths. If we only had flaws then we could be sat two points from the bottom of the league. Instead we are two points from the top. Why are we two points from the top when many fans (like above) have highlighted so many apparent problems?

The answer is simple, we have qualities that many, many teams in world football want to have in their squads. We have some of the most talented personnel in world football.

Whilst our mental weaknesses are visible at times we have to hope that we can see less of that and more of our strong points. It is not one way, both negative or positive.

We are perceived as a weak defensive side where as before the game on Saturday we had the third best defensive record and have probably played the toughest away matches of all our rivals thus far. We are weak on set pieces right? Well Blackburn Rovers away pumped everything they had at us from all over the pitch yet we dealt with everything successfully. The goal they scored came from open play.

Wolves with two good wide men put in plenty of crosses yet ‘Flappy’ was unflappable and the defence won us the game. Manchester City (even with ten men) could not breach us at their own ground so let us not go overboard.

Once again, I am not closing my eyes, covering my ears and shouting ‘NA NA NA NA!’ at our failures. As painful as Saturday was, all we can do is hope that something clicks inside these players because if an outcome like that against Tottenham cannot shake them up then nothing will.

In the meantime, as supporters of the club we love so much. All we can do is hope that we can find positive consistency and show more of our strengths and less of our weaknesses.

If the saying the table doesn’t lie is true, then two points off the top shows that we cannot be as bad as everyone makes out.