A Post-Mortem - early promise has led to more pain at our demise.....

I've had a sabbatical from blogging.  Lost my mojo ( some would argue I never had mojo ), I became mired in the negativity that has been crashing upon us, wave after wave of lethargic doom raining down on us from all angles.  I didn't want to write about it.  I didn't want to think about it.  This sand dune looks comfortable for my cranium, I'll just insert it deep ( hrmph ) & all the bad things will simply dissipate & leave an Arsenal rainbow.  I now realise this was futile.  I planned to make my return with a tongue-in-cheek look at Arsenes humble beginnings in Alsace as a kid, but I remembered a few wise words from some pals a while back ( thank you @DBerry & @thedanielcowan ) that timing is everything, so a Wenger biopic right now would be as well received as an invite to a Michael Barrymore pool party.  I decided on catharsis.

I'm viewing this as a purge.  I'm fed up.  It would seem on this I am sharing the mood of everyone.  Every faction of supporter I've previously written about is feeling the burn right now.  It's quite simply not good enough.  The single ray of hope currently is the Cup, but at this rate Uwe Roslers team would show us the true meaning of fluid attack & bum-rape us at Wembley.   Why is this worse than the last few seasons when we had a squad that was more limited, smaller than now?  I'll attempt to pick up the scalpel & investigate the corpse, so put your masks on, this may be material for after the watershed.

As I watched the game against the Toffees, a few revelations hit me whilst I tightened the cicatrice round my thigh.  I was present for the thrashing we doled out to them in the Cup, all components worked well, we negated their attack & our moves were slicker than Disco Stu.  One thing is the absence of Ozil.  A startling stat has come my way this morning thanks to the people who fill my twitter TL, we haven't won in Ozils latest absence.  What's that I hear you say?  Mesut has been shite in the 2nd half of the season?  Well I think that stat spells out how much he adds to our attack.  He will never be the headline-grabber of the ilk of Ronaldo, but rather the Editor who writes the headlines.  I read someones blog ( I think it was either DBerry or @P.I.M.P ) who summed it up so succinctly, he so often was the assister of the assist.  So to wrap up my convoluted point, Ozil being injured is bad times.  Easy get-out clause eh?  There's more.

As my scalpel cuts deeper into the gangrenous wound that caused the fatality of our season, I see that the infection spread to what was previously our strongest asset & the thing that has alarmed me the most about our shocking run.

If you're a fan of the C4 show ' The I.T Crowd ', you'll no doubt have seen the episode where Moss & Roy, the shows two protagonists, attempt to camouflage their natural geeky ways whilst in the pub by talking football.  They know nothing of the noble sport, so start chucking out buzzwords & phrases that are synonymous with the game.  One of the phrases being " Yeah, y'know the fing abaht Arsenal is, they always try & walk it in ".  It's a commonly-known fact that we have always played the most attractive football.  Wenger-ball, tiki-taka, Barcelona-Lite etc.  So what if our trophy cabinets only inhabitant is the Markhus Liebherr trophy ( It's a fucking bear trophy.  A trophy in the shape of a bear.  Love it ), it doesn't matter because we play the game as it's meant to be played.  We gained glowing testimonials from the leading lights of the game due to our insistence of playing lightning-quick, rapier-like football.  That title though, doesn't belong to us.  Not currently.  What has shocked me the most is that we are currently devoid of invention. Our attack is impotent.  Like a Eunuch at Hefners gaff, we are pretty lifeless. 

A team with the mercurial talents of Santi Cazorla & Tomas Rosicky shouldn't struggle so badly with possession & passing.  The last few games they couldn't open a tin of beans armed with a glock.  This pains me to say, as I'm usually the staunchest of optimists, but the displays have been woeful.  Talent doesn't subside, so why are they struggling so badly, why has the magic gone?  the answer has to lie at Arsenes feet.  We've all seen what the 2 aforementioned players are capable of, so why is it not happening?  Wengers teams of the past have never struggled to create chances, they had trouble putting away the chances, but never creating them.  I've never seen so many occasions in a season where I've read that the first chance created in a game occurred late in the 2nd half. 

Is our current fugue down to the treatment table being more over-populated than a One Direction Fan Club meeting?  Partly, yes.  I realise this is a go-to for denial specialists, but ask yourself this; if you take away the four most influential players this season from City ( Silva, Aguero, Toure & Kompany ), Chelski ( Oscar, Hazard, Willian & Cahill ) & Liverpool ( Suarez, Coutinho, Sturridge & Sterling ) for a prolonged period of time, then they would undoubtedly suffer just as much as we have.  Ozil, Rambo, Theo & Jack are huge for us.  Cogs that make our machine operate, that help us play the way we know we can ( goal Vs Norwich, dribble ).  For our team to be without them for so long has hampered us so much.  I know conspiracy theorists have thrown out many different reasons & theories why we have had so many injuries ( it's a fact that we have had twice as many injuries as our nearest competitior ) & I don't have an answer for that, nor do I have an answer for anything really, this blog is more about revelation, realisation & the nadir of my expectations. 

For us to ignore the injury problems would be ridiculous.  Of course they have hit us hard.  The reason I think we have all been hit so hard by this awful run we're on is because we have shown improvement, we were on the summit of the league for 128 days, more than twice as much as Chelsea.  Too often we have been the plucky horse galloping through a tired pack to snatch a podium position, a late runner.  This season has been different.  Our form & position caused even the most stoic of Arsenal haters ( I'm looking at you, all of journalism ) to take stock of their early-season predictions of a mid-table scrap for us & smell the motherfucking coffee.  We've been contenders.  A sage voice on Twitter declared that a return to the battle at the top was all he wanted.  To duke it out with the elite & actually have a chance at grabbing the glory.  Just to contend was a welcome respite of the last few seasons.  Back to where we belong.  Let's admit it, it was fucking lovely.  Looking down on the peasants from our rooftop veranda, as they scrap it out for meagre meals whilst we dined on the finest delicacies.  Especially tottenham, who once more, after the promise of a castle & some new threads were once more reduced to living in a pigpen, wearing a sack & consuming their own waste.  I digress.  For the majority of the season, we dreamed.

For our dream to then vanish so quickly & so painfully has been a slap round the face.  Were we even ready to win it?  Were we capable?  The questions rolled in & the old favourite, Is Wenger past it? 

The style of our play has changed, we look as toothless as a boxer sans gumshield & our plummet from the zenith of the table has made me once more question the man who made it possible in the first place.  In my own humble opinion, he IS the man responsible for our failings, but he is also the man who deserves to be the one to rectify it. How can we doubt he is capable of fashioning a winning team?  Well, it's been a while hasn't it. 

If you haven't stopped reading, then I say this. 

Give the man one more window to plug the gaps in our armour.  Let us see if it really is just stubbornness that rendered January a black hole in regards to additions sorely needed.  Let us see hopefully if a fully-fit squad he alone assembled can march it's way to the summit once more & set down roots.  More importantly, let's see if we can return to the incision-like play we're used to.  Much like the euphemism of the scalpel I've used thus far, we need to return to the sharp play that has wrought us much results in the past.  Who knows though, from the sounds that are emanating from Wenger, who knows if this season will be his last.  I sincerely hope not but change doesn't have to be frightening.  Look at Everton.  Whatever happens, I'm putting down the blade.  I don't think the body is truly dead yet, despite the reports.  Fuck the broken Cannon pictures.

@jokmanafcTell us what you think! If you agree, or have a different view, please leave a comment in the comments section or why not write a response or your own article on YouWrite?

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