I believe Arsenal FC is one of the only football clubs in Europe that finds it hard to classify itself either as an elite club or as a regular club in recent years.
I also believe Arsenal is the only EPL club that has not added a single member to its once popular fanbase in recent years, instead has lost millions.
And that should not be hard to decipher.
Even the three blind mice can see clearly why Arsenal is not the best club to support in modern football as continuous heartbreaks are a given in that relationship.
One of the biggest falls from grace to grass can be found in London – to be exact, in the Emirates Stadium.
That stadium was built with big dreams in mind. Dreams that were supposed to make the Theatre of Dreams look irrelevant but since that stadium was completed as Arsenal’s home ground, it has not lived up to a pinch of the dreams that were laid as the foundation for its existence.
Before Arsenal moved from Highbury to the Emirates Stadium, Arsenal was the pride of Europe even though the Highbury was regarded as a match box then. If you wanted to see the best of tip-tap football outside of Brazil or Spain, all you had to do was visit Highbury on a weekend or midweek whenever a home game was sure to take place and you were sure to leave there marveled by the entertainment that was offered by Prof. Wenger’s men and satisfied with the high ticket fees you paid to get in.
Those days of humble beginnings from the late 90s till mid 2000s were like fairyland tales for every Arsenal fan or player. The world could not stop talking about the team that excelled and played beautiful soccer on seasonal shoestring budgets.
Almost every aspiring star between the late 90s till mid 2000s had a trial at Highbury just because Arsenal FC was classified as the second best team in the EPL and also amongst the top eight teams in Europe consecutively.
Unfortunately, nothing good lasts forever especially if the level of commitment changes.
Since Arsenal top brass started selling their ownership shares to a strange, stingy, quiet and inconsiderate American behind dark shades, the club’s commitment to success changed for worse and its commitment moved to ensuring financial success for its new owners only.
Since Ashburton Grove a.k.a. Emirates Stadium was launched till date, the Arsenal FC club has slowly lost its prestige, honor, respect, attraction, zeal and many other words that I cannot remember because those words fail me. Emirates Stadium is just another stadium lost in Europe’s array of stadiums – nothing significant happens there.
Arsenal used to be a top-two EPL team in the late 90s, dropped to a top 4 team by the late 2000s, moved further down to a top 6 team in 2018 and now fighting to be part of EPL’s top 10 in 2021.
How low can we go?
As low as Kroenke goes (I guess).
From being one of Europe’s top-seeded UEFA Champion League teams to being a team that is not even certain of qualifying for the Europa League every season of recent is our new fate.
Since 2014, Arsenal has found it difficult to attract top talents unless the stars we attracted were natural fans of the club or we just outbidded every other team stupidly because the club’s management wanted to please the pissed-off fans that they stripped of their weekly joys or just because it was glaringly obvious that a serious gap within the team needed to be closed immediately to save the team, club and fans from further global embarassment.
In recent years, many top players will rather go to the Italian Serie A and play in Europe’s 3rd most respected league than play for Arsenal in the world’s favorite football league just because they think the team called Arsenal FC has lost its marbles.
Arteta and Edu have brought a lot of stability to the team in recent months compared to our recent sad past by flushing out lots of artefacts and introducing new vibrant faces and tactics to the team, but still what rabbit can these two dedicated but inexperienced men pull out of their hats with shoestring budgets in a period when football spending and standards are way above a skyscraper’s roof?
The competition is fiercer with all the top managers in the world except for Zidane, Pocchetino and Conte plying their trade in the EPL? Noticed I did not mention a certain gaffer’s name who just lost his juicy Chinese job?
Its tough times for we fans especially when teams like the Wolves keeping pulling us down and we keep praying, hoping and fasting that we can finish the league with an Europa League qualification.
The Kroaking guys at the top need to listen to we fans very soon and spend some real money soon too to attract real proven talents or else we might just tow the line of Newcastle some day when we will hope and fast to remain in the EPL against all odds.
No matter how bad or dim the future seems for we Gunners across the globe, we have no choice but to continue to be Gunners till death do us part.
Let’s keep the faith and march on as we reload our blanks!
Ballerz FC 
1 thought on “ITS HARD BEING A GUNNER!”