Has the Time Come for Arsenal to Accept They Are Not an Elite-Level Team?
When Arsenal take to the vast Camp Nou pitch for Wednesday’s Champions League tie against Barcelona, they will be faced with the mortality of their season.
With a 2-0 deficit to overturn against the best team in Europe, the 2015/16 campaign could essentially come to a close in Catalonia for Arsene Wenger’s side.
Indeed, the Gunners’ season—which for so long looked promising—has seemingly fizzled out, although the FA Cup exit to Watford struck with considerably more force.
Nothing fizzled out at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday, instead Arsenal were blown to pieces. Not even the Death Star exploded so violently.
So with the FA Cup gone, and the Champions League surely set to vanish into the Catalonian air on Wednesday night, Arsenal have two months of the season left to play with pride their only motivation.
Eleven points adrift of Leicester City at the top of the Premier League, a late title challenge would appear to be beyond them, so Wenger must ponder—once again—where it all went wrong.
But perhaps Arsenal’s existential crisis is unnecessary. There’s something tediously tragic about the perpetual inquest being carried out at the club, whether it be through fan demonstrations in the stands, on Internet forums or screeched on fan-run YouTube channels outside the Emirates
Arsenal are a club in a toxic cycle from which they simply can’t escape.
It doesn’t need to be this way, though. Arsenal are still weighed down by their achievements of yesteryear, chaining them to the collective expectations still held by the club’s support.
It would be better for everyone if that burden could be released. Maybe it’s time Arsenal were accepted—by the media, by their own fans—for what they are, rather than what they are not.
At present, Arsenal are not the elite team they so badly want to be. They might play with a Champions League star-ball on their sleeve every so often, but in European football’s premier club competition they are a second-tier team. At the continent’s top table they are peering over the shoulders of those who have a seat.
It’s not much different domestically either. Arsenal have found themselves on the peripheries of the title race for the past decade, sometimes showing promise but never managing a breakthrough into the true throes of the contest.
This season should have been their season, with Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United all enduring dismal campaigns, and yet the Gunners have still failed to make any progress.
With Wenger at the helm, it seems unlikely that Arsenal will ever accept the club they are now rather than the one they used to be, but they might not achieve real development until they do. Until then, unrealistic objectives will be held against the north London club, only serving to frustrate and infuriate when such targets are missed.
Their supporters might like to think differently, but Arsenal over the past few years have been no different to Spurs. Or Liverpool, or more recently, United.
They have been pushed to the side, forced to observe from the outside in. It might not be City and Chelsea they are peering their face against the glass to watch this season, but nonetheless, the Gunners have been sidelined.
Some deep thought is needed at Arsenal to address this. They cannot surely still view themselves as an elite club having now gone 11 (soon to be 12) years without winning the Premier League.
It’s been five (soon to be six) years since they made it past the last 16 of the Champions League, too, yet Gooners still hold their team to the same standards as Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and the likes.
Such criteria is simply not applicable. Arsenal must forget what they once were and focus on what they are now.
It’s for this reason that sacking Wenger might be the best move for Arsenal. It’s understandable that they should fear life after the Frenchman, given the dynasty he has built at the club, but the Gunners need a recalibration and that won’t happen with their current boss still in the dugout.
Wenger is the embodiment of the team Arsenal used to be. Like a musical artist still forced to play their greatest hits of decades ago every time they take to the stage, the French coach is still expected to reproduce achievements of the late 1990s and early 2000s simply because of who he is and what he has done before.
Replacing Wenger would allow Arsenal to redirect itself as a club. Of course, the Frenchman will go down as the most influential figure in their history, effectively constructing the club as it is now in the mould of his own personality. But that personality now appears to be holding Arsenal back. It might be time for a separation of individual character and club.
Whether it is down to Wenger or not, Arsenal have grown stagnant in recent years. There was something different about them earlier in the campaign, stringing together an impressive run over the first half of the campaign, but when winter arrived so did a familiar air of discontent.
And thus the cycle will repeat for all eternity. There’s a term used in Scottish football that references Hibernian’s perpetual failure to fulfill their potential, whether that be in cup finals or title races. The phrase "Hibsed it" is currently under consideration for a place in the Oxford English Dictionary following a petition for it to be included. Perhaps they should also include "Arsenaled it" as well.
Of course, there’s the distinct possibility that Arsenal’s shareholders don’t care about whether the club is truly top tier or not. Consider that majority shareholder Stan Kroenke was paid £3 million by the club last season, per the London Evening Standard, for unspecified "strategic and advisory services."
Is the American really bothered by the Gunners’ existential crisis when his pockets are being lined so generously? Kroenke seems fairly happy with the way things are—and that might not be the worst ethos for Arsenal to adopt.
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