Gooners' Views is the Arsenal Community's own version of a "Roundtable," which has been a popular innovation in Bleacher Report.
Gooners' Views brings Arsenal fans together to discuss and dissect various issues—and boy, do we have some issues these days!
I caught up with valuable Arsenal contributors Alden Sing, Joe Guarr, and Co-Community leader, Maire Ofeire, to ask them what they had thought about certain issues surrounding the club off late.
1. What according to you is the definition of a "crisis?" Are we in one?
Alden: After beating Manchester United, nobody would ever label a club in "crisis". But in Arsenal's context, crisis is a word that has been bundled around fans ever since their defeat against Fulham earlier this season.
After losing to the likes of Fulham, Stoke, Hull, and most recently Aston Villa, Arsenal is indeed in some sort of a crisis. Beating Man Utd certainly helped lift the gloom around the Emirates but every football fan worth their salt will tell you that if you want to win the title, a team can't lose more than six games.Arsenal has lost four.
Based on their current level of consistency, it will not be surprising that Arsenal go on and lose two matches and more.
Joe: Arsenal is not in a crisis, far from it. They've slipped up against the newly promoted Hull and Stoke sides, as have quite a few other clubs this season. They've also lost to a very talented Aston Villa squad. While Arsenal didn't play well in any of those three games, that hardly constitutes a crisis.
It's very unrealistic to expect a club to play perfect football in every match of a 38 game domestic season, plus Europe and domestic cups. Arsenal still has a legitimate change at winning the league; they're only in fourth place and have a better goal difference than Villa.
A crisis would be starting the season like Tottenham had. If Arsenal had played that poorly for that long, their title hopes, and maybe their European hopes, would be sunk. A crisis would be a team in a financial tailspin struggling to avoid going into administration. A crisis would be having a squad filled with players not capable of stringing together 7-10 straight victories. This is a slow start, nothing more.
Maire: If you look up any dictionary, it will tell you that a crisis is an unstable situation of extreme difficulty or danger. This is a definition used to describe Leeds United in 2003-04 and it was warranted. The club were unable to pay back huge loans they had taken out to buy and pay players, had to sell their best players, managers were falling out with chairmen, fans were protesting and in the end the club got relegated.
Looking back it seems that one year Leeds United were playing a Champions League semifinal and the next they were stuck in League One (Not the correct time line but that is as it seems). Now that is a "crisis".
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about 1 month ago
Good work Shyam, Maire and Joe.
Let's keep this series going. I think we all offered very valid and diversified views today!
from about 1 month ago
lol.. your name should be in there instead of mine!
I think that bottom line - your views are all the same!
about 1 month ago
Thanks for having me, Shyam!
Wenger is a manager who is focused on the big picture. I think the Wenger Out brigade live week to week based on Arsenal's results. They can't be doing that.
from about 1 month ago
You're right Joe. Let's hope that they stop their nonsense altogether!
about 1 month ago
Great work Shyam.
We are all thinking along the same lines alright
about 1 month ago
What's a bulletin board? Would be interested. Anyway interesting feature though I also done one three weeks ago on my site.
http://arsenalcolumn.wordpress.com/2008/11/04/attack-on-arsenal-style-has-no-basis/
about 1 month ago
Good stuff people!
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