Were Arsenal Arrogant? By Dan Smith
Any long-term readers will know this isn’t me using the benefit of hindsight. I have long maintained we are not a good enough team to be putting our noses up to any cup competitions.
They are, and have been for years, our only chance of any kind of happiness.
I was shocked by our line-up which clearly spelt out that Tuesday was our priority. How arrogant of our manager to not recognise that of all the fixtures in the next week this was the most important.
Lose in midweek, you still have another 18 games to retrieve points, you knew losing this weekend would end your most realistic chance of a trophy.
Let me paraphrase a message I read from a Gooner on BBC website, ‘Who cares about only winning a cup, we are not Spurs. The League is our priority’.
That’s why rival supporters laugh at us.
We are 10th in January. That means League-wise, the season is done. We are not getting relegated; we are not finishing top 4. Even more reason to make this Cup a priority. Arteta seemed to understand that last year.
Even from a financial point of view, it’s a route into Europe which our owners base their transfer policy.
When you are making 55 redundancies, asking the squad for pay cuts, slashing the wage bill and can only afford loans, can we be throwing away the chance for match day revenue?
Where possible we should have kept to the line-up who beat Newcastle. Those players had earnt the baton and deserved to run with it until they dropped it.
There’s zero evidence that resting Partey, Lacazette. Tierney, Saka, Smith Rowe, etc will make it more likely we do better at Saint Mary’s in a few days’ time. If anything the Saints now have more momentum and confidence while it increases the pressure on us to win.
But let’s say we do win. Why does that make this okay? Would that justify this result?
If we win we would go to the dizzy heights of 8th! Why would I care about that more than lifting a trophy?
We are Arsenal!
Where’s our standards?
We used to mock Mr Wenger for viewing the top 4 above silverware.
How have we not gone backwards when we are resting players for a match where 8th is on the line?
Anyone saying we are only 7 points behind 4th is deluded. What have you seen to make you think we can go on the type of run needed for that to happen?
Because we have recently beaten 3 of the worst sides in the division? Because our Billionaire owner is doing ‘what?’ to help our lack of creativity?
The only positive of no more domestic cup games is that the fringe players have ran out of chances (we will go strong against Benfica).
I wouldn’t be shocked if Eddie Nketiah doesn’t start another game for us this season. He, Nelson, Willock and Niles have had enough chances. Elneny wasn’t good enough years ago and still isn’t.
It’s ironic.
Many say winning the FA Cup kept Arteta in his job. I just wonder if in the summer he will see this as the moment he lost a lot of goodwill.
It’ okay though, we are saving money by slashing the wage bill. For Arsenal that represents a good week!
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Dan