Let’s be real here. 5th place is the new 1st place in the Premiership.
Only a few times this decade has a club not named Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool or Arsenal qualified for the Champions League in its current format. Those big four teams are far, far ahead of everyone else in terms of talent, prestige and cash on hand to buy more talent. The first three are owned by international billionaires, and Arsenal are about to be taken over by another one. This means that gap between the big four and the other 16 is about to widen even more.
So why the hell are the Gooner faithful complaining like they finished in last place?
Arsenal has had its share of injury trouble this season. Thierry Henry and Robbie Van Persie, the two strikers who helped the club beat Manchester United at Old Trafford earlier this year, have missed the better part of the second half of the season with injuries. That more than anything sunk the Gunners this year. They were bounced out of the Champions League knockout stage, lost early in the FA Cup, and defeated by Chelsea in the Carling Cup final. Now they find themselves with nothing to play for but a spot in next year’s Champions League qualifying round, which they will likely win easily.
Gooner fans, however, have treated this season as an abject failure, and at least one polite lad is growing sick of this.
All this criticism reflects badly on us as a community. I have been at The Emirates on more than one occasion this season when a 1-1 draw has resulted in a mixture of silence and profanity. Surely it would reflect better on us to applaud the side off? I’m just talking about a respectful applause, not necessarily celebrating a league point like we’ve won the Quadruple, ala (Aston) Villa and Newcastle this year…
After looking at the argument from both sides I think I have convinced myself that the level of disgruntlement amongst Gooners is too high at the moment and we need to reduce the amount of stick we are giving the team on the whole.
It’s funny to see the Gooners react this way, given that there are 16 Premiership clubs below them that would kill to be in the position Arsenal is in now — 9 points clear of 5th place and way up in goal differential. Everyone below the big four has nothing to play for but a UEFA Cup bid, and that would be a grand reward.
Not to fans at Emirates Stadium. Oh, no. To these people, UEFA Cup bids are for losers. They demand greatness at all times, superstar injuries be damned. And if this happens to Man U, Liverpool or Chelsea next year, you can expect the exact same reaction from those fans. These people cannot and will not accept a down year.
This sort of thing always happens when a team that’s so successful for so long suddenly has a slightly down year. The fans start getting pissy, and the haters on the other side revel in kicking those fans when their team is down. (I live in Durham, North Carolina. The exact same thing happened here during college basketball season.)
More importantly, though, this sort of fan negativity exposes the widening gap between the big four and the rest of the Premiership. 5th place is great success to 16 teams and completely unacceptable to the big four, who are the bullies of the block and will always be better because they can afford it.
This same gap exists in many other top divisions in Europe, too. How long have Barcelona and Real Madrid been the top teams in Spain? How long have clubs like Inter Milan, A.C. Milan and Juventus (before their match-fixing stupidity) dominated Italy? How long has Celtic owned the Scottish Premier League? Everywhere you look in Europe, you’ll find at least one club in each country that is just that far ahead of everyone else.
At what point do all these super-prestigious European clubs get together and decide to form their own Ultimate Euro League?
By season’s end, Chelsea will have played 38 Premiership matches, 12 Champions League matches, 7 FA Cup matches and 6 Carling Cup matches. At what point do they decide that this is too much and start talking to other clubs about the idea of a Champions League that’s an actual league, complete with its own separate competition and highly expensive TV rights?
Y’know, it’s almost worth watching the F.A. brown its trousers to find out…
1 response so far ↓
1 a different dave // Apr 27, 2007 at 8:01 pm
A Euro superleague is a political minefield. It might happen some day but don’t be surprised if it doesn’t happen.
Meanwhile, more money is pouring into the top leagues, especially with new foreign owners in the EPL. Don’t be surprised if the top four have to work harder in future to stay at the top.
Sure right now the top four have the top billionaire owners, but what happens when your outsider billionaire wants in and buys, say, a Tottenham Hotspur, or even a Nottingham Forest (a real fixer-upper!) and turns clubs like these into real challengers for Champions League spots?
Anyway it will be entertaining to watch.