Why won't anyone believe me that Drogba is actually shit?! WHY?!
As usual, good ol’ Arsene Wenger sent out an email to the club members after this week’s Barclay’s Premier League clash with Chelsea, and I need to vent, so here we go.
Dear Supporter,
We are all very disappointed with the result on Sunday, but I feel the 3-0 scoreline against Chelsea was a very unfair reflection of the game, but we cannot change it now.
Unfair, huh? Okay, I can already tell where this is going. I can feel the bile rising in my throat.
I believe that Chelsea had absolutely everything going for them on Sunday and we can only respond in our next game. With their first shot on goal, they scored. With their second cross, they scored. And after it was difficult.
I’d love to know what “had absolutely everything going for them” means. My guess is that he’s not trying to infer that Andre Marriner was in the tank for Chelsea or anything, but he might just mean that. He’s right, though, about them getting a goal on their first real rush towards the Arsenal end. I was disgusted but not surprised.
The turning point was when the referee disallowed Arshavin’s ‘goal’ early in the second half. I feel it was a very unfair decision. That was a very important goal in this kind of game, and I feel it was a mistake by the referee.
And HERE we go. The referee. Sure. Never mind Bacary Sagna dragging down Anelka 17 minutes in, THIS is the thing that cost Arsenal the match. Nothing to do with Arshavin’s indifferent performance other than this moment, nothing to do with Cesc Fabregas’s largely invisible evening, nothing to do with Carlos Vela being not ready for prime time or Eduardo’s unwillingness to mix it up. Nope, it’s the referee, clearly. Wenger drives me INSANE some times.
Of course, Chelsea are in a very strong position now, but this team, for me, they can drop points. I’m convinced of that. That’s an impression I have. Before we speak about the title, we now have to get back to winning games.
Oh, clearly Chelsea is awful and will drop points. Never mind they’ve conceded only 8 goals in 14 matches, are a perfect 7-0-0 at home with only one goal conceded and hold a five point lead over United. They are AWFUL and will drop points because I think they are rubbish. Instead of worrying about winning games, how about just scoring a goal sometime soon? That might help.
Also when you look back at the game, I think Carlos Vela could have had a penalty. I think it was at least a foul on the edge of the box. If the referee gives a foul when Drogba scored from his free-kick, he cannot say it was not a foul on Vela. But I do not want to talk too much about the referee. I think we make mistakes; we need to look at ourselves and ask why we conceded the goals.
Again, Sagna yanked down Anelka in the 17th minute, which was a clear penalty not given. Mistakes were made for BOTH sides, Arsene. You don’t want to talk about the referee, but you mention the missed calls constantly. You slag off the opponents and the referee WITHOUT FAIL every time. You then qualify it AFTER saying all that by saying that the team must look at the mistakes it’s made. Read what you write before sending it out, because you do this ALL THE TIME.
Drogba is a good player. It’s funny because he doesn’t do a lot, but he’s efficient in what he does. You would be surprised by the number of balls he touched on Sunday. But Drogba is a great player, nobody can deny that. He’s very efficient. I think as well, at the moment he’s in a period where he kicks the ball and it goes in. On the first goal, at the moment he has complete confidence and he doesn’t wonder ‘will I score or not?’. He just goes for it and he did very well. It’s a great goal, the first one, but it’s a goal of a striker in complete confidence.
Again, why even TALK about Drogba? He’s scored 10 times in 11 league matches against Arsenal. That is a phenomenal strike rate against any opponent and he’s proven clearly that the Arsenal center halves cannot handle him, regardless of who’s back there. So he doesn’t touch as many balls as Titi Henry touched, who cares? He’s full of confidence, he’s strong as a bull and he absolutely loves sticking it to Arsenal. DEAL WITH IT or shut up.
I do not think the title race is over. I think we are fighters and we have to show that in the next game. The problem we have at the moment is that people will not believe in us, so we have to make sure that lack of belief does not diminish our belief.
Technically, the title race isn’t over for Chelsea and United, but it’s probably over for Arsenal. 11 points down with 24 to play is not completely insurmountable, but you have to climb over three teams including the three-time defending league champs who you never beat, especially at Old Trafford. You don’t have an answer for Didier Drogba, and despite beating Spurs rather handily on Halloween, you’re still behind them by a point. And yes, you’re right, not a lot of people believe in this team anymore. Four consecutive trophy-less seasons will do that.
That’s where we have to be mentally stronger than we were until now. Because until now, we had some credit that we earned at the start of the season from the ‘specialists’, and then we a lose a game. And now it will be harder for us.
Results that flattered to deceive at the beginning of the season hurt this team and supporters group be making everyone think that this would be a season of 6-1 victories. You’ve now lost to United, City, Sunderland and Chelsea, all teams in the top eight, so it’s true that the sky isn’t necessarily falling, but still, you need to get Arshavin going again, Cesc has to get back in the right frame of mind and you must get Eduardo and Vela in the frame to score some goals. Until then, SHUT UP. Oh, and good luck.
Thanks for your continued support.
Hey, as always, you’re quite welcome.
The picture. God, the picture. It’s like he’s passing a stone.
Just my two cents…
1) In all honesty this game was about Arsenal problems not how great Chelsea were. Until, Arsenal self-destructed themselves in 3 minutes it looked awfully like 0-0 draw.
2) “Again, why even TALK about Drogba? … DEAL WITH IT or shut up.” This was uncalled for. To me Wenger sounded like giving Drogba a praise when it was due. He was the difference on Sunday.
3) “And yes, you’re right, not a lot of people believe in this team anymore. Four consecutive trophy-less seasons will do that.” Well, Chelsea will loose some points. Come African Nations Cup and there will be no Drogba or Essien to make the difference as they did on Sunday. It will be still very difficult to score against Chelsea – hence we may see draws where it could have been wins. I can imagine scenario with United just hanging around as they always do and overtake Chelsea late in the season. So Chelsea will go trophy-less (unless you count FA Cup on par with EPL and CL) for four consecutive seasons. Pretty much like Arsenal … but with the best squad in Premiership in all these four years.
Ouch. Touchy much? Wenger must really get up your nose. I don’t see that he’s said anything too controversial here really. He’s highlighted a couple of decisions that he thinks went against his team, like any manager would do. Do you really expect him to start talking about decisions that went against Chelsea?
He’s given nothing but praise to Drogba, so how can you fault him for that. Surely by saying that Drogba didn’t have much of the ball apart from his goals (which he didn’t), he’s saying that despite that he has done excellently to score twice.
And what do you want him to say? That his team is out of the title race? Even if he believes that’s probably the case, it doesn’t help to come out and say it in the aftermath of a painful loss when the season is only a third of the way done.
Please get a grip on the Wenger hating. Ferguson comes out with similar stuff every single time he doesn’t get a result.
Oh, and if Van Persie was playing, I feel confident the outcome would have been different. Just like if you had taken Drogba out of the Chelsea team they wouldn’t fare as well.
Jack from Chelsea Offside here – so I obviously love the post. I trust you saw the battering I took for criticizing Wenger on the Drogba comments.