Let me take the bull by the horns and address the issue in the minds of most Arsenal supporters – today – Friday, 10th February 2017.
Wenger Out – No
So let me give you my reasoning that gets me to the above conclusion. And it is reason – reason with a blend of feeling and emotion. Always in life we take big decisions and do our best to be analytical and see both sides of the argument. Football is the same – only cool headed reasoning can work. Look at the facts – look at the individuals – look at the circumstances and make a decision.
Today we are still in the Champions League and we are still in the Cup. How can it make sense to engage in protest, acrimony even hatred (for some). Where is the common sense in lining up alongside the Sun Hero of the Moment – Mr Kane Hoops – and unfurling Time To Go banners. Don’t we all love Arsenal? Don’t we all want Arsenal to do well in the Champions League? Don’t we want to beat Bayern Munich. If each of you answer No to these three questions then you are not a supporter of AFC. Don’t kid yourself – you will have descended to the level of rabble. Don’t try to say you support AFC if you want them to lose
You get my point – it is unmistakably clear. So many of you are falling into a trap. You are allowing your frustrations – and I fully accept there are reasons to be frustrated – to get in the way of balanced judgment. If AFC is your thing, if it is your Club, then you are damaging the Club you love and follow and eat and drink and breathe – if you join in the chorus of denunciation and become anything less than a full hearted, full throated Arsenal fan.
Together we stand
The time for managerial decisions is at the end of the season. Not now. Not while our players are going into such important matches in the Premier League, the Champions League and the FA Cup. Now is the time for support, noisy support, shouting and singing with the one and only purpose of helping our players to win. Boo them, go quiet on them, laugh at them, unfurl banners demanding the sacking of Wenger and you can be sure you are hurting the players and hurting the Club and into the bargain hurting and insulting the many more fans who always want to get behind the team.
The Watford game hurt me enormously. I was really fed up. I have managed to separate football gloom and doom from family life and am resolute in not allowing an AFC setback to make me grumpy, grouchy, rude and intemperate. It takes will of character to shut out the defeat in those circumstances and I can do it but it comes back the next morning when you avoid picking up the papers, or watching Sunday Supplement on Sky.
The media wolves can smell blood
Things do not look good for Wenger and some questions have been asked which he has not answered. Results have gone against us and the media are having a field day at his expense. In the name of press freedom it is their job to first build up and then destroy. I know their strategies and their tactics. They love “fury”. Giving space to Kane Hoops is right up their street. But leave aside the Press – the issues do not go away. Why do we crumble? Why are we out of the title race in February? I assess Wenger from when AFC became a buying Club again but even by that standard we have failed – and never more so than last season when with other teams in relative disarray there were opportunities for us to win the League but we finished second a bad 10 points behind.
So today is not the day to make decisions about Wenger or even voice your feelings. Louts not supporters shout for the mangers head in February. Supporters not louts get behind the team in February. The players always say the prolonged vocal support is a big plus so let’s get behind the team now, today, right now. We want nothing more than to win the CL – we face a stiff hurdle but it can go our way.
We must look to beat Sutton and then be two matches away from a Wembley Cup Final. These things matter big time and true fans of Arsenal suppress their frustrations and give everything for the team and that starts with tomorrow’s fixture against Hull City, a team fighting relegation but enjoying better results. So the shout is not Wenger Out but Arsenal Forever. Re-assess the future at the end of the season and not mid-season because the media wants you too. We decide our priorities. We all know what we have to do – Support Arsenal. The time to review personnel is May not February. Good luck Players. Good luck Wenger. Good luck Fans. Out with anything else.
Graham Perry
@arsenalcircular – tweeting daily
My name is Graham Perry and I have been a lifelong Arsenal supporter since 1952 when I saw the ten men in red shirts hold out heroically until the 84th minute at Wembley.
The Arsenal thing was confirmed by a meeting with Alex James during Easter 1953. As with most of us it is a family thing with my father always waxing eloquent about the Chapman years.
I am married with four children and five grandchildren. I have been a solicitor in a legal aid practice and have just stepped down after 13 years as an Immigration Judge.
Arsenal is in the blood. The goals and the excitement matter but so does the Community thing and sharing Arsenal with friends and family over so many years.
Want nothing more than to see Wenger hold aloft the Premier League Trophy again.
A team is always in the likeness of the manager. Enough said. Time to go…….. AND NOW
If we all move forward together success is for the taking, together we stand divided we fall
Well said Judge!
today’s plastic fans are everywhere. They cannot deal with losses, they treat football like a fix. They have never gone through the real circumstances of mediocre mid-table and below consequences.
Well a team is a mirror image of the manager..yes that is right. deal with it, fight to the end! not like a moron holding out an A4 asking for an ouster..What an embarassment!
If some would look at the bigger mirror, a club’s success is also about the fans, not about the whining bitches! The big man knows when he needs to go…
Stand up, cheer and sing you whingers!
All the arsenal supports ones knows over my many years R TRUE educated football FANS, sometimes one feels we have been invaded via our London club competitors rough and ready fans??? love my club, they give happiness, dreams, disappointments, up and downs, But am happily married with grand children and know these screaming supporters’ must be getting divorce every other year are so, from there wife’s, they dont know if they have children >>>Or have never found any male or female who would wish to be a part of such a love hate every living week relationship. RG
i am wenger out, but because I want to see the club do well, and that i believe the club is everything. Wenger is a legend, but then the club existed before and will exist after his tenure. He is not the same as he was before, and it is really time for a change.
give it up le twonk is a stale old goat that needs putting out to graze lol