The clock is ticking: How long can Arsenal wait for Arsene
Wenger's emphasis on youth to pay off?
I have had some horrific moments as an Arsenal fan.
Being at the Nou Camp when Teddy Sheringham scored for Manchester
United in the 1999 Champions League final would be right up there.
Particularly as until that moment I had been quietly chanting
'There's only one Mario Basler' to myself after the Bayern Munich
winger had given his team the lead in the sixth
minute.
That god-awful Ryan Giggs goal against us in the FA Cup
semi-final would be another; I don't know what was worse, Giggs
beating our entire team with that jaw-dropping, fast-swerving,
insanely determined run to smash it past David Seaman, or him then
haring just as fast back up the other end, waving his shirt like a
punk on acid and showing off the most hideous hairy chest since
Burt Reynolds.
And, lest we ever forget, there was little Nayim from the
halfway line in Paris. A shot I still see in sweaty, slow motion
nightmares after a night drinking too many tequilas.
But I don't think I really knew what horror was until last week.
On Wednesday I sat in my hotel room in Dubai - I'm here making an
ITV documentary - watching our farcical draw with Tottenham. And
yesterday, I lay on the same sofa, seeing us get stuffed by Stoke
in a performance of such amateurish ineptitude I wanted to throw my
couscous at the TV screen.
The Spurs farrago was, frankly, pathetic. Everyone knows that
when you're two goals up with five minutes left, you get to a
corner flag as fast as is humanly possible, and waste every second
you can. What you don't do is have a complete, collective, mental
and physical defensive breakdown. It was worse than child's play.
Even my three young sons would have made a better fist of it,
though at 15, 11 and seven, they may be too old for the current
Arsenal team.
The only saving grace was that most of the fickle Spurs fans had
left the stadium long before they saved the match, so depriving
themselves of the best laugh they've had since Tony Adams was
jailed.
But they've still got every reason to be happy, because in Harry
Redknapp, they've acquired the best English manager in the country.
A razor-smart, passionate, cunning, brave and hilarious man who,
until last Monday, was my favourite character in football. He will
save Spurs from the drop and get them back to the mid-table
mediocrity that they usually occupy.
The downside is that, from the moment he arrived in that
Tottenham dugout, our previously cordial relationship is so, like,
OVER.
Far more worrying for me is my romance with Arsene Wenger. Yes,
he's the greatest manager we've had and, yes, he deserves every
ounce of the love and affection lavished upon him by grateful
Gooners.
But Arsenal have won nothing for three years and, as I've
repeatedly said since the season started, that situation is not
going to be rectified with this bunch of indisputably talented but
also arrogant and lazy nappywearers. We'd already lost to Hull and
Fulham before the Spurs fiasco. Now we've been humiliated by Stoke,
too. And the team are disintegrating into a miserable mire of
stupid sendings-off and self-defeating dressing-room squabbles.
You can blame the monkeys all you like but the buck stops with
the organ-grinder. It's high time that the Arsenal board stopped
dropping to their knees and doing their 'We are not worthy' hand
movements every time Arsene walks past them and stick a polite but
firm rocket up his backside.
The conversation should go something like this: 'Arsene, old
chap, if it's not too much trouble, we'd really rather appreciate
you acquiring a new central defence, goalkeeper, and midfield
general of the Vieira/ Keane/Gerrard variety. All older than 26,
and taller than 6ft 2in please. Here's the chequebook, go and get
them in January. Oh, and while you're at it, find a proper bloody
captain to make this feckless shower understand what wearing the
Arsenal shirt really means.'
And if Wenger still stubbornly resists, insisting that his
relentless youth-only policy will eventually work, then he should
be equally firmly told that the Arsenal manager's job is not for
life, however great your track record.
Or, as they would put it out here, the command should switch
from 'Balli, balli, balli, Arsene!' ('Whatever you say, Arsene!')
to, 'Maternier ghermez ahlieh, gorban' ('The red blindfold would be
lovely, excellency').