We Are Tottenham Haters

Arsenal F.C., or simply, “Arsenal” is an English football club based in North London. They play in the English Premiership, the highest division in the United Kingdom and arguably the best league in the world.

My support for Arsenal started in 2004 when I was seven. My brother had been watching them for a few years prior and had convinced me to start watching their matches with him on the weekends. My support quickly grew into a love when my brother and I watched Arsenal complete the impossible and go an entire League season, 38 matches, unbeaten. This was a feat not done since the 19th century by Preston North End F.C.. Watching arsenal that year was like watching an artist paint his masterpiece. Those 11 men strung together the most incredible, perfect, and viscous passing ever witnessed by mankind. Their defense was impenetrable, and their ability to counter-attack was unmatched, the Arsenal could be defending one moment, and then three passes later, have the opposition’s keeper picking the ball out of his net.

Since 1997, Arsenal has been led by their manager, Arsene Wenger. This lanky frenchman brought an entirely new style of football to Arsenal and was the first manager in the English Leagues to field a completely non-english team. Wenger led Arsenal to countless trophies in the first years of his reign and brought in some of the world’s best talent. That is, until after that historic season. Since the 2003-04 season, arsenal has won only a handful of silverware, and finishes lower and lower in the league table each year. Most football supporters can handle this sort of decline, but not me. I’ve been watching Arsenal’s slow descent as if it were a close friend slowly being taken over by addiction or some other crippling disease. The disease that Arsenal is currently stuck with is “Wenger-itis”.

Monsieur Wenger was magnificent for Arsenal, but as of recent he has been doing nothing but hurt the club. His refusal to buy new players for the team has allowed the biggest talent we had to leave year after year and see nobody new come in to replace them. The decline hasn’t been apparent until this current season. So far, five weeks into the season, we’ve lost two matches. Teams that win the league typically only lose 4 or 5 matches a year. It’s absolutely ridiculous that they can’t muster up even a draw early in the season, they’ve been losing. We’ve won three matches, but it’s really not enough, it should be six matches won. If this descent continues from the Arsenal, I don’t think I could truly love them the way I have in the past. For the love of God they better start winning more matches, and if they don’t I’ll have to jump on the “Wenger Out” bandwagon.

-Ian Caldwell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fWFBz6s4XI