Fragile Gunners make fans feel cheated

WITH the Gunners recent tendency to raise our game against top opposition, compared to our inept displays against weaker teams, we could benefit from qualifying for the knockout stages of the Champions League as group runners up.

I could envisage us blowing Barca’s dreams of European glory, only to make an embarrassing exit against the likes of Panathinaikos in the quarterfinals.

But that all too elusive winning habit is of paramount importance so there was certainly no sense of achievement amongst the disconsolate team who trudged off the pitch after losing to Porto last week.

I’m not sure Le Prof approved of Almunia breaking ranks to tell it like it is. But I for one was pleased to hear our keeper’s comments concerning a lack of effort in the heat of his frustration after yet another disappointing display.

Even the most blinkered amongst the Gooner faithful will have sensed the air of disunity, a mood made manifest on the pitch by players who, instead of rallying around one another, are rapidly looking to point the finger of blame.

The façade of sweetness and light would be restored if we could string some results together. But if it’s true that you can best judge a person’s character in adversity, then Wenger’s current squad would appear to be woefully short on character and motivated by self-glorification and the prospect of lining their own pockets!.

It wasn’t so long ago that the privilege of watching Arsène’s Arsenal play live was cheap at any price and worth all the hardship.

However I struggled to find anyone to accompany me to Middlesbrough. Maybe it’s force of habit in my case, or the need to lend some credibility to these musings, but I have to admit that facing a tortuous train journey back from Teeside at 3pm on Saturday, a point seemed a poor reward.

I was questioning the sanity of having blown the best part of £150 to travel to the North-East at the crack of dawn on a wet and depressingly winter’s day, only to be frozen stiff in a half-empty Riverside stadium, for another fragile Arsenal performance. Perhaps the worst thing about Saturday’s failure to secure 3 points against such a patched up Boro side, was the tease of the 15-minute spell prior to Aliadière’s opportunistic equaliser, when we began to pass the ball around with all the one-touch élan of the Arsenal of old.

Our Jekyll & Hyde nature shone through as we demonstrated how competent we can be when everything’s hunky dory but the moment things go awry, there’s no mistaking the complete dearth of a rock around which the rest of the team can rally.

Worse still is that while the likes of Gael Clichy is first in line to be the fall-guy, by at least giving it a go, others seem to think that it’s safer to shirk responsibility. Our keeper’s position on his high horse, for example, didn’t seem so secure. Although he dashed off his line to sweep up on occasion, at other times Almunia preferred to leave his defence do the job, when a commanding keeper would’ve come screaming out.

I can forgive anyone a bad day at the office, but considering the sacrifices we make to support the lads, you can’t help but feel cheated by a lack of graft and fighting spirit.

The sight of Theo Walcott sporting a natty black sling (he might not have splashed out on an Audi R8, but no crap crepe bandage for our Theo) at the Sport’s Personality of the Year awards, only served to remind us how far he is from returning to the fray. I don’t see how Arsène can continue to claim our squad has sufficient depth, when he’s forced to play Diaby and Denilson on the flanks, where both do a feeble impersonation of a winger.

But then neither Scolari nor Benitez appear to have a penchant for playing with natural wide men. Who am I to question the tactics of such luminaries? At least not until Fergie makes fools of them all, when Man Utd win the title?

Meanwhile, I’ve grown positively ancient, waiting in vain for Spurs to do us a favour against Man Utd and it’s ironic that they finally get around to taking points off our nemesis, in the one season when it looks far more likely that we’ll end up worrying about the teams below us.