The English Patient - Arsenal

8-2...8-2.......EIGHT goals...a snow man in golf terminology. Just plain awful. The nice thing for me was because of hurricane Irene I had no power and therefore "watched" the game through my iPhone. Thankfully. Too bad Arsenal are no refunding fans who had to suffer through that match away from Old Trafford. Alas, after 3 games in the young season, Arsenal are just above the drop zone.

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	W	D	L	F	A	GD	PTS
1	Man Utd	3	2	0	0	11	2	1	0	0	2	1	10	9
2	Man City	3	1	0	0	4	0	2	0	0	8	3	9	9
3	Liverpool	3	1	1	0	4	2	1	0	0	2	0	4	7
4	Chelsea	3	2	0	0	5	2	0	1	0	0	0	3	7
5	Wolverhampton	3	1	0	0	2	0	1	1	0	2	1	3	7
6	Newcastle	3	1	1	0	2	1	1	0	0	1	0	2	7
7	Aston Villa	3	1	1	0	3	1	0	1	0	0	0	2	5
8	Wigan	3	1	1	0	3	1	0	1	0	0	0	2	5
9	Stoke	3	0	1	0	0	0	1	1	0	2	1	1	5
10	Bolton	3	0	0	1	2	3	1	0	1	5	3	1	3
11	Everton	2	0	0	1	0	1	1	0	0	1	0	0	3
12	QPR	3	0	0	1	0	4	1	0	1	1	2	-5	3
13	Sunderland	3	0	0	1	0	1	0	2	0	1	1	-1	2
14	Norwich	3	0	1	0	1	1	0	1	1	2	4	-2	2
15	Swansea	3	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	4	-4	2
16	Fulham	3	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	2	1	4	-3	1
17	Arsenal	3	0	0	1	0	2	0	1	1	2	8	-8	1
18	West Brom	3	0	0	2	1	3	0	0	1	1	2	-3	0
19	Blackburn	3	0	0	2	1	3	0	0	1	1	3	-4	0
20	Tottenham	2	0	0	1	1	5	0	0	1	0	3	-7	0

The only funny part is who is in last place! Hey maybe next season Arsenal and Tottenham can battle it out in the Npower Championship, might actually make Wenger happy, he can start a bunch of teenagers all season!

I don' really know where this post will head so please bare with me...a couple of thoughts:

• There are three entities that should shoulder the blame: Wenger the coach, Wenger the manager and the board.
• Wenger the coach - cannot be sacked today, what could another coach do with this ragtag bunch of players? Can a new manager teach his defenders how to ... defend? Or somehow find a way to get the Arshavin of Euro 2008 to show up? Or get the likes of Walcott to live up to their over-hyped potential? Or keep Diaby on the field? Like or not we are stuck with Wenger the coach at least until the January transfer window.
• Wenger the manager - to me he is the main culprit in this debacle. So you sell Clichy, Nasri and Cesc...you would think that with that cash windfall you would have some plan in mind on how to back fill these roles. Instead all Wenger does is talk about how the squad will rally behind this and close ranks. Rather than wasting our time telling us that Nasri and Cesc were going to stay, maybe Arsene should have been devising a plan on how to fill in these gaps. Maybe he did, in the back ground, but he seemed to keep saying that both players were going to stay that he convinced himself that it might be true! Feels like Rain Main - three minutes to Wapner...yeah....Wenger talks now of Hazard, well maybe making bids a month ago would have been good. M'Vila? Same thing...Kaka on loan, how about approaching your buddy Mourinho when the Special One was all but buying Kaka a bus ticket out of town? Instead Wenger the manager has stockpiled a boat load of cash and with 48 hour left in the transfer window would like us to believe that he will purchase 3-4 players. FAIL.



A lonely lonely man

• The board -where have they been during this whole time? According to this post, Kroenke might not even care that his team will be lucky to get to the Europa League next year - click here. If that is the case then...ugh...not much one can do. And Manchester United fans think the Glazers are crocks, at least they SPEND and borrow and use ManU as a cash register, but they are winning and I am sure the value of the club is higher now than when they acquired it! If Kroenke and his cronies are satisfied to have a world class stadium that throws off cash then so be it, smells too much like the Boston Bruins under the Jacobs family, but at least they spent some money! If Kroenke really does want to win or at least feign competitiveness then what were they doing this summer??? WAKE UP!!

Wenger's time is coming to an end. His self imposed rules about not signing players over 30 to multi-year deals is asinine - you mean to tell me that the likes of Pires, Gilberto, et al could not have contributed to the team when they hit 30? Instead they were jettisoned due to the Wenger rule, of course until he decided to sign Squillaci.... What about the self imposed rule of running transfer as a business? I realize that the likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid, Chelsea, Manchester City and the likes have taken all semblance of reality and spending and thrown in into the trash compactor, but as far as I can tell they seem to be finding ways to survive and WINNING.

The season is young...Arsenal might surprise us and come roaring back with a collection of no names. Or they might toil in the middle of the table...more likely.  The sad part to this weekend's thrashing - Manchester United's starting line up was younger than Arsenals....sad day for the Gooners, could be a sadder day as the end of the Wenger era seems to be crashing to a abrupt end.