Why Bust A Gut For Glory
On our travels again, off to see the Third of the big boys and BOOM! We implode, again. The Arsenal prove they are ‘The Team of Extremes’ again. Can’t blame jet lag this time, not really going to fly the couple of miles to Stamford Bridge.
So who can we blame?
The manager?
The board?
The players?
The ref?
The government?
The weather?
Many theories have been put forward on why we can’t ‘do the business’ against the big boys on our travels. Well for what it’s worth here’s another theory to ponder over. (This is based on an article I posted last year, but I think it is worth revisiting.)
THE FAR SIDE THEORY?
For want of a better phrase, ‘The Players don’t care enough’. A bit harsh you may think, it’s not that they don’t want to win; it’s that they don’t have to reach their goals.
All players state they want to play at the highest level, which means they want to play Champions League football and that’s been made too easy these days and that UEFA’s fault.
Is UEFA breeding a generation of footballers who believe that winning isn’t everything?
Arsene Wenger’s famous quote, in my opinion, backs this up:
“For me there are five trophies every season: Premier League, Champions League, the third is to qualify for the Champions League, The fourth is the FA Cup and then the League Cup.”
Back in the day, (yeah I know I’m old) the winners of the league qualified for the European Cup.
That was it, end of story, just the winners, no place for second, third or fourth. To be at Europe’s top table you had to be the best, therefore you had to give it ALL to win.
By providing four qualifying spots to the Champions League to the Premier League, teams and players know that they can aim for the top in the knowledge that if that fail, it doesn’t really matter because they will still be in the Champions League and therefore classed as successful, even though ultimately they failed because they FAILED TO WIN.
So when the going gets tough, ‘Why Bust A Gut For Glory‘, just put it in the ‘too hard basket’ and take it easy. After all, as long as you beat everyone else, losing to the big boys, don’t really matter, does it?
Of course, unless you are a fan!
Well it’s just a theory anyway!
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Steve Wellman
English by birth, Australian by choice. Traffic Engineer, Arsenal ST Holder, Sun DreamTeam Winner, Writer on @GunnersTown, Depeche Mode, Welcome to my world…
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