7 years. We have all heard it, we are all suffering from the jibes and the media make sure it repeated regularly. What has happened?

Many on the site will have sung with gusto:-

“Georgie Graham’s Magic,

He wears a Magic Hat,

And when he saw the F A Cup,

He said  I’m having that”

If you look carefully, BR is just below GG’s shoulder!

Of, course, in later years Arsene Wenger inherited the song.

With the FAC this Saturday and another year of non-Arsenal interest, I question what is going wrong? How can a team as talented as ours, with as many outstanding players as we have, won zip for so long? Quite frankly, it is not good enough.

We have many discussions about evaluating what is success; for example, would we swap Liverpool’s season for ours – they stand on the brink of equalling our Double Cup win, yet lie outside the European places and a huge 34 points behind Manchester? What will the records show? They will show a successful 2012 for the Scousers. Arsenal can point to another season of “development”.

We can all list a litany of excuses; the stadium, the CL involvement, Project Youth, financial restrictions, bad luck, injuries etc but the sad fact is that during our barren run even Spurs have won a trophy!  A Div 1 team have won a trophy (don’t bother looking it up – it was Portsmouth) and so have a Championship side (surely you recall that one 😦 ).

So, why aren’t we winning silverware and how do we remedy this sorry state of affairs?  I will let you into a secret – Mr Wenger has no idea and neither do I. We both need some input as to how to remedy the problem.

Can you help?

Written by BigRaddy

Season end approaches and once again the phantom shopping trolleys are being pushed around the blog world by deluded supporters expecting their clubs to go to market. Well sorry folks, in most cases it isn’t going to happen the coffers are empty; the players have had it on their toes with the bread and many of them too, are in for a nasty shock.

Football has for years casually spent the huge TV revenue on player’s wages, whilst obtaining those same players on the never/never. Now club owes club, owes club, owes club, for past deals, many for players that no longer play for them. The whole system is a house of cards ready to tumble as soon as a big club goes. A bit like the inside trading that brought down the banking system when Lehman bros went.

But this time there will be no helpful taxman waiving his debt to help bail out the clubs damaged by the shock waves. He will want paying in full and don’t rule out a quick bill being pushed through parliament to make sure the taxman gets first shout as he does elsewhere when companies go broke.

So no mega spending by clubs this window, a few individuals will buy the one or two major players they need. But expect the rest to be cutting back on squad sizes as contracts run out, many players to be out of work this year and the major part of the trading to be in loans.

We at Arsenal are lucky, we are solvent, and I see no way the directors won’t keep it that way. Arsène will IMHO buy maybe a couple of key players and release many of those whose contracts run out or alternatively re-sign them on lesser terms, as will be the norm for all but the elite players throughout the game as their contracts run down. Expect young players to be ruthlessly fought over as clubs bid to stock their academies and just as swiftly dropped if they fall behind the standards required. The gravy train has hit the buffers and the fall out will be enormous.

Conversely those managers, who have proved their ability to run clubs on limited budgets, are likely to find themselves quickly elevated to “bigger clubs”. IE. those PL clubs outside the select Champions league qualifiers and those owned as playthings by the mega rich,who will try to reinvent themselves as participants in the real world, rather than the Mickey Mouse environment that has, since the birth of the premier league, been football.

Consider financial fair play, tougher tax regimes, sound business practice, higher interest on loans if indeed loans can be found by many. These all mean that clubs, players and the fans that support them have to come to grips with the new reality  that is football 2012

Welcome to the real world Gooners.

Written by dandan