Tag Archives: trophy

Race for the Title: Can Arsenal stay top of the table?

We’ve reached the halfway point of the season, 19 matches played, 19 left, and Arsenal reached this juncture with 42 points, roughly half of what recent champions have finished with—whether this pace would be enough to stay atop the table is anyone’s guess, but it does look to be shaping up as a three-team race between us, Man City, and Chelsea, with only two points separating first from third.

Of course, other teams could surge forward to complicate the picture even further. Everton, playing attractive, engaging football under Roberto Martinez, have climbed to fourth. Man U is showing signs of recovery after an uneven first half. Liverpool, despite being so shorn of options that they had to throw on a 19-year old defender into the midfield against Chelsea, could explode or implode depending on Suarez’s response to the pressure. I refuse to rule out Spurs despite their struggles. Who knows? Maybe Tim Sherwood actually knows what he’s doing. After all, he is a self-proclaimed Arsenal fan. We’ll see.

Speaking after the win over Newcastle, Arsène was cautiously optimistic as he assessed our status:

Look, we believe in ourselves and we are determined to give our best, absolutely, and to turn back on the season at the end and think we have given our best. I hope it will be enough, of course, but it’s a long way to go. It’s too early to say [that we will finish in first place].We have come out of very difficult games—we have played Everton, we have played Manchester City, Chelsea, at West Ham and Newcastle. We have dropped some points, but I felt it was more down to the heavy schedule and the short recovery time we have had than to the difficulty of the games.

Those dropped points—two at Goodison Park, three at the Ethihad, and two at home to Chelsea—are not fatal, at least not yet. Aside from the opening-day loss to Aston Villa, we’ve done well to minimize dropped-points of the sort that title-challengers shouldn’t drop. It’s really only the draw at West Brom that stands out as a red-mark. However, the down-side to this is that other contenders have been sloppier but remain only a point or two behind. Man City’s form on the road has slowed them down considerably, and Chelsea’s recent goal-drought threatens to slow them as well.

However, we can’t rely on those factors if we’re going to claim the title. We’ve come through a difficult stretch of fixtures, but so too have Chelsea and Man City. Each of us have advanced to the Champions League and the FA Cup, and Man City continues in the Capital One Cup as well. Will Chelsea’s depth and Mourinho’s negative style be enough to see Chelsea trudge to the top? Will Man City find a way to win away from the Etihad? Will someone else among the next five clubs shoulder their way into the conversation?

For now, it looks like we have a crazy competition on our hands, and, dare I say it? Yes, I do. We look to be getting stronger. Theo and Poldi are back, Cazorla’s looking livelier, and the Ox and Sanogo (for what he’s worth will return soon. Even Abou “like a new signing” Diaby (yes, yes, I know) could rejoin the fray in March. In the meantime, there’s a lot of talk of an actual signing or two in January. I don’t see Chelsea or Man City making any moves, in part because of how stocked each of them already is. Then again, they’re bankrolled by some pretty wealthy owners, so anything’s possible.

Looking at schedules, Chelsea might have the most-favorable one going forward, hosting Man U, Everton, Spurs, and us while facing trips to the Etihad and Anfield. Man City looks to have the most-difficult schedule, especially considering their record away from home: trips to White Hart Lane, Old Trafford, the Emirates, Anfield, and Goodison Park. Their only chance to trounce other contenders at home will be Chelsea’s visit. We’re somewhere in the middle, it seems, with visits from Man U and Man City and trips to Anfield, White Hart Lane, Stamford Bridge, and Goodison Park. Of course, there’s a baker’s dozen of other fixtures to consider.

After years of scrabbling for fourth place and hoping for results elsewhere to go our way, it feels good to consider how to hold onto first place. We don’t quite control our destiny yet, but consider that, last year, we had to wait until the second week of February, 26 matches gone, to reach 44 points. With seven matches between now and then, could we reach 60 points? Home versus Cardiff, at Aston Villa, home versus Fulham, at Southampton, home versus Crystal Palace, at Anfield, home versus Man U. Let’s hope so—and let’s see if that puts some distance between us and our rivals.

Next up: that visit from Cardiff. We’ll take a closer look at that one. ‘Til next time, thanks for your visit!

Baby, I'm A Masochist

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Before you go and get too excited, however, let me explain.

By most teams’ standards, we’re in fine shape. Of course, we’re not most teams. We’re Arsenal (I hope you were sitting down so that that stunner didn’t floor you). By our standards, it’s been a bit of a rough patch. However, I don’t mind it. In fact, a part of me actually enjoys it. Well, “enjoy” might be a bit strong. To help explain what I mean, I want to bring you back to the late 1980s and the Chicago Bulls. Year after year, the Bulls would put on a strong showing and make it through a round or two of the playoffs. Then, they’d run up against the Detroit Pistons–think of Stoke City but with an actual offense. They’d dump us out of the playoffs. Then, in one glorious year, we swept them, winning the best-of-seven series 4-0. This led to the Bulls’ first-ever NBA championship, which became three in a championships in a row. Michael Jordan retired, tried his hand at baseball, and came back to help the team win a second set of three championships in a row. In that final, sixth championship, the Bulls won a ridiculous 72 out of 82 games, a feat of near-invincibility that perhaps even the Invincibles would struggle to match.. It was a wild ride. However, by the end of it all–maybe as early as the 4th or 5th championship, I was bored. Even our nemeses, teams like the New York Knicks or whoever we’d meet in the championship, didn’t seem to offer much resistance, and there certainly wasn’t as much passion around winning as there once had been. The Shot–his 1989 game-winner against the Cleveland Cavaliers–was one of the most ecstatic sporting moments of my life. By the time he hit the game-winning shot in to win the 1997 championship, the thrill was gone. We won, and, yes, it was enjoyable…but not exciting. Is it my fault for getting jaded? For letting myself get spoiled? To an extent, yes, it is.

That’s a feeling we’re all guilty of.

Now, I’m not arguing that teams should go out of their way to have miserable seasons just to enhance the joy of the splendid ones. I’m just reminding myself and anyone else who cares to listen that the occasional dry patch (even if this so-called dry patch is one that hundreds of other clubs would gladly trade for) may actually be a good thing. In those moments, of course, it’s easy to get lost in the apparent misery of it all and question why one even bothers to watch a match for two hours or pin one’s emotional well-being to a squad of strangers who just happen to be wearing a particular jersey. In those moments, it’s hard to remember how glorious and exquisite and–yes, I’ll say it–orgasmic those moments of triumph will be when they do see fit to find us.

I’ll admit that my timing, if not my actual message, might come with a small dose of envy as I look at who’s above us in the league standings. I’ll also admit that these words may end up feeling hollow and may offer cold comfort if we do drop out of the top four this year. However, I don’t root for Arsenal because I want something inevitable. If I want that, I’ll root for death or gravity or the sacking of Chelsea’s manager. I don’t root for Arsenal simply because it’s been two decades and countless hours that I’ve put into watching and hoping.

I root for Arsenal because the club has gifted me so many moments of glory, yes, but also because I believe that similar moments of glory will come. Will they come as quickly as I hope? Probably not, but they will come, and when they do, the shouts will resound more loudly, the tears will flow more sweetly, and the glory will seep more deeply into our marrow.

Sorry for the poetic flippity-floo there at the end.

West Ham 2-3 Spurs: Bale's Brace rescues Spurs

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After last week’s tribulations, it’s hard to imagine things going a whole lot better than they have this week: we won, Chelsea lost, Everton lost, and Spurs, well Spurs ended up winning on a goal from Bale in the 90th minute. Tough break for West Ham Oh well. If we’re going to climb the table, it’ll have to come down to us, not other teams doing us favors.

For all of the hand-wringing we have subjected ourselves to, and for all of the plaudits Spurs have garnered for how spectacular their form has been–yes, yes, Gareth Bale can run fast and score goals when he remains upright rather than falling all over himself when a defender exhales too loudly–isn’t it nice to see that, after today’s match at West Ham, our lovely London neighbors are still only a few points ahead of us? While they seem to be more consistent than they were last year at this point, and we can’t count on them stumbling as they did under Redknapp, the fact remains that a mere four points separate us with eleven games to play, including a key head-to-head match on Sunday.

I’m going to avoid the venom that sometimes poisons the Spurs-Arsenal debate. We all know the history and the rivalry and all of that, and I’ll celebrate a good St. Totteringham’s Day with the best of them, but I just don’t buy into the rather-pathetic vitriol that goes back and forth. They’re rivals and the derbies matter, but, frankly, beating them is just as satisfying as beating Man U or Newcastle or Wigan.

See? 4th place trophies do exist!

Back to the matter at hand. Perhaps it’s revealing of each club’s ambitions or status that such similar positions in the table provoke such different responses from pundits and fans. Arsenal has been one of the Big Four along with Chelsea, Liverpol, and Man U, for what that’s worth, and a top-four finish has been one of our hallmarks for most of the last twenty years. Check arsenalist for a history of tables. Yes, it has been some time now since we hoisted a trophy, but Spurs’ trophy case is hardly overflowing–they have a League Cup trophy from 2008, yes, but we have to travel all the way back to 1991 to find their next one, the FA Cup. I don’t remember whom they beat to get to that final. Honestly. This year has seen Villas-Boas lauded for steering Spurs so well while Wenger is raked mercilessly over the coals. If they’re doing so great–and it’s true that they haven’t lost a Prem game since December 9th–why are they only four ahead of us?

Sunday’s trip to White Hart Lane will of course be huge. Win, and we’re back to a one-point difference. There’s a long week ahead, with only a midweek FA Cup match for Chelsea against Middlesboro to distract us. Time to catch up on some thumb-twiddlin’, it would seem.

Trophies vs. Legends

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If only to give myself a break from the garment-rending fallout of a 5th-round FA Cup loss to Blackburn, and perhaps also to lay the issue to rest once and for all, I’d like to visit an issue that has been on my mind since the departure of Van Persie and others. Van Persie claimed that he left to win more trophies. When he left, I was reminded of Lebron James’s departure from Cleveland in order to, as he so classlessly put it, “take [his] trophies to South Beach” to play alongside Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh, and ten cardboard cut-outs. Of course, they have gone on to win the championship that had so cruelly eluded James up until that point. James had slogged and played through seven years of frustration, never getting closer with Cleveland than a four-game sweep at the hands of the San Antonio Spurs in 2007. James receives favorable comparisons to Michael Jordan. On a statistical basis, I’m inclined to agree. Where I demur is on philosophy. What I mean is this–Jordan, like Lebron, carried his team as its best player for seven long years without touching the championship. Here’s where the difference in philosophy comes in–unlike Lebron, and unlike Van Persie, Jordan forced and inspired players around him to get better. With the possible exception of Dennis Rodman, no other player that Jordan played alongside had a chance to become a Hall of Fame-caliber player. Scottie Pippen, as good as a player as he became, owed all of that to Jordan’s tutelage. Granted, Jordan may not have had the Bosman rule or transfer windows to blackmail his owners the same way that European footballers have. However, that’s window dressing around the issue–Jordan looked around, and he decided that he would have to make the players around him better, whether this was chewing them out, staring them down, working with them in practice, putting the ball in their hands at key moments and praying, trusting, believing that the ball would go in. Ultimately, the proof came out in two separate three-peats, six championships in eight years. Talk about vindication. Talk about legend. Jordan, perhaps more than any other athlete, is Chicago’s own. Never mind his years “playing” for Washington or owning the Bobcats. It’s not for nothing we put a statue in front of the new Chicago Stadium and emblazoned that statue with the following quote from one of my favorite novellas:

“At that moment I knew, surely and clearly, that I was witnessing perfection. He stood before us, suspended above the earth, free from all its laws like a work of art, and I knew, just as surely and clearly, that life is not a work of art, and that the moment could not last.”

— “A River Runs Through It”, Norman Maclean

For as many championships Lebron wins, there will always come with them the sense that he has somehow taken the easy way out. To whom among his current teammates or former teammates can he point and say, “I helped him to become the best that he could be and, together, we achieved epic feats”? Wade? Bosh? Ray Allen? No, even in admitting that all athletes are mercenaries (not a criticism), Lebron’s “Decision” as well as Van Persie’s, will always smack of rank opportunism: “I can stay and fight, or I can get while the getting’s good.” Each of these jocks–and I deliberately declined to use other epithets, for good or evil–looked around and said, “winning things is hard. I want to go where winning is easy.” I’m sure Van Persie will go on to win many things with Man U, and it will feel good to him. How much more could it have meant if, instead of looking at established players like Carrick, Rooney, Scholes, Giggs, Vidic, and others, he could look at Wilshere, Walcott, Ox, Ramsey, Gibbs and also feel that he has made some among them into greater players–protégés who would also look to him as a source of their greatness? What kind of statue would stand outside the Emirates then?

This brings be me back to Maclean’s description above. Life is not a work of art, and the moments of perfection we’re lucky enough to witness could not last. It’s just a shame that a potential moment of perfection was shunned so soon before its inception. However, in the words of advice I may have to share with my daughter sooner than I’d like, if he doesn’t love you, don’t waste your heart loving him. We may feel like emotional wrecks right now, having crashed out too early, but we’ll recover. We are Arsenal