Wenger's Weekly Email part 5

Dear all Arsenal fans,

I write to you today very upbeat, staring at the exciting dawn of a new era for the club, united as one under a banner of strength and efficiency. It is good to be finally relieved of the stress of this year as it has ultimately been pointless since the start in August when we were written off as outsiders. This was the year we were supposed to finish fifth, so I encourage you to condescendingly ask of all nay-sayers whether third is in fact higher or lower than fifth?

Is it is a crisis to supercede expectations? I thought not. Our third consecutive trophy-less season is in no way outside of my grand plans for the club, and if anything, everyone has played nicely into my hands. Suggestions that it might be a touch embarrassing to win less silverware than Spurs over the last three years should as ever be met with non-sequitur boasts, and failing that, outright insults should work fine.

I feel I must now address a couple of specific points to clarify exactly how our season has been categorically dismantled over the last week. Firstly then, those horrible people from Liverpool. I accepted a while back that we would never ever get any penalties (apart from a fortnight ago against Bolton) but it is frankly difficult to swallow that we were kicked out of Europe by a penalty ourselves. In an incident identical to those previously involving Alex and Cesc, another one of their cheating Dutchmen dived over Kolo’s leg and broke our hearts. Poor Philip was in tears and even William, who is normally so professional and together, lost the plot a little bit. The only explanation is a Europe-wide conspiracy involving the other Champions League teams and the officials to stop us from winning what is deservedly ours. They all are afraid of our clever one-touch football and reluctance to hit the target, so went out of their way to screw us over.

Talking of which, a similar injustice befell us this past weekend when we seemed set to rejoin the Premier League title race, even though I said from the outset that we were not genuine contenders. Manny’s goal was great wasn’t it? I saw Maradona do that once, and he was really really good, so I congratulated Manny for being such an excellent striker. Again, suggestions that he won’t ever score again after this season, and couldn’t actually hit sand from a camel, should be sneered at. So then the ref gave another penalty against us (big surprise), for what though I do not know. One of those teasing Portuguese rent-boys that they have up in Manchester scored, and just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, they did some more cheating to win a free-kick. Poor Jens hasn’t been too sharp lately, and was a bit confused as to what was happening. The ref told him that the free-kick was going to be taken, but he thought he meant that it had been taken already, so was thoroughly confused when that weird little German boy chipped the ball into the net and went to celebrate. It was subterfuge of the lowest order.

But as I said before, onwards and upwards. Liverpool and Manchester United are physically incapable of out-playing us, or simply wanting the victory more, so I still see no cause to be gracious in defeat. There are many positives to take out of this season all over the pitch though, with the defence in particular worthy of uniform praise. We have been united throughout, and not conceded a single soft goal in my eyes. Some people asked me whether Philip, Alex Song and Manny Eboue were mentally deficient, but I think that question’s been answered hasn’t it! They are such great boys. The true revelations though have been Theo Woolcott, who is quite possibly the best English player ever (but not good enough to start in my team obviously), and Alexander Hleb, who is truly the reincarnation of George Best. Now I’m not sure exactly who Best was, nor are any of you I assume, but the comparison sounds nice so just keep saying it anyway.

Finally then I leave you with my favourite quote of my own this year, and if you’re looking to get anything smug printed on an Arsenal-related t-shirt in the summer, go with this: “I feel we have done a lot for the Premier League this season by the way we have promoted it.” You see, success was never on the agenda, it was all for the good of football in general; if it wasn’t for us, everyone would just hoof the ball forward and play off a big striker.

Until next season, when trophies will come.

In you I remain,

A.W.