Arsenal need to keep the Spirit.

Resident Blogger : SimonSEEZ

“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.”
― Michael Jordan

Wish I could say ‘Top of the League to ya’ but sadly we have been knocked off it and knocked is putting it mildly as the force that was used to sweep us off the top can be compared to that of a hurricane. Livepool ran us out of town like Jamie Foxx and  Christoph Waltz in Django Unchained and Chelsea didn’t falter and now sit on top of the pile (albeit temporarily, as we are destined to go back there :)).

Noticed some traffic on the site on Sunday and some enquires on twitter as to why we didn’t have a review, apologies if you visited, didn’t watch the game live, tried to watch a rerun but passed out waiting for it to be repeated and when it came on the 3^rd time, the wife wanted to watch the Sochi games, seriously!!! Since when did black people start watching ice-skating and people flying on ice?? Some battles you know you can’t win so I had to hand over the remote but it just meant I have to hurriedly get my 11 month son a football before I get home someday and he tells me wants to dance ballet rather than be the next Messi.  (With all due respect to Ballet dancers though)

To Arsenal related matters, the defeat was shocking but the reaction on twitter in my opinion was even more shocking to be honest. I was following it during the game and the #WENGEROUT brigade were in full force and in truth the loss was very bad and the manager deserved huge criticism but are we going to be sending #WengerOut every time we lose? Last season most of us all we wanted was for the team to just compete, not to crash out of every competition by February but the anger we feel now has been largely due to the fact that the team has done very well and for the first time in a long while we have a feeling that we are near achieving something and in truth we still are near achieving something so if you really where in charge of Arsenal now would you really want Wenger out now?

The manager himself has said that he should be appraised in May so shouldn’t we wait till then? We have been winning games even though the victories have seemed labored and even this has come with some criticism from fans but when United won the league last year they really weren’t blowing teams away either. What was very evident in our wins this season was the spirit that the team seemed to have, the togetherness was very clear and it showed on the pitch and the pictures we see from the training grounds. There was a collective will to do something, to achieve and break the trophy less shackle, it’s even more important now that the spirit is not lost as the manner of the loss at Anfield, loss at United, failure to beat Chelsea at home and the how we fell to Man City might get some players doubting if they think their team is good enough to compete against the best sides.

We don’t have many players that have won anything with Arsenal, actually we have just Flamini and at times like this going into a period that might define our season it’s important to have players that have won with the club or players that have a history of winning trophies stand up and be counted in terms of lifting team spirit and performance. City have Kompany, Chelsea have Terry , Man United have errrr well I think we can skip them and Liverpool have Gerrad, players with influence in the dressing room need to galvanize team spirit and remind them of what it means to play for the Arsenal fans.

From the crates :Read:  Arsenal ; The Spirit will set us free

See this clip of the last time we won the trophy with a goal by Wiltord at Old Trafford, listen to the away fans singing even before the goal went it…someone needs to play videos like this to remind all our Gunners what a trophy means to the fans

It’s not strange to get all the negative stories once people see a that a team has suffered a setback, rumours of Yaya Sanogo in a brawl with Metersacker, Giorud’s infidelity, Wenger falling etc have graced the media all on the back of the Liverpool defeat so it’s even more important now for the players to come together and put up a uniform spirit to propel them to victories in the tough games ahead. We are second on the league and we didn’t become a bad team overnight due to one loss, we didn’t fluke our way to leading the league for that long and in this final run-in the team needs to rediscover and be reminded how their form on the back of the Bayern victory last year galvanized us to champions league qualification which should be our target ever again.

A player who sure needs reminding is Ozil, our summer signing seems to have fallen behind a bit and it’s the Arsenal curse to say something negative about Ozil but truth be told if Ozil played for United and was signed for the amount we signed him most of us would be slagging Moyes of all day. In a bid to excuse his performances we have tied it down to everything but him, first he just arrived in a new country to he is tired and over played, then we moved on to blaming everyone around him for not being intelligent to make the runs and some have moved to having no expectations of him till next year citing the Pires, Hazard and Drogba examples of players who started blossoming in their 2^nd years, one can also cite Cazorla and Michu as players who came into the league from Spain and fit in almost immediately.

In all of those excuses there are huge elements of correctness but  Ozil needs to raise his own game and he has it in him to do it, games early on in the season and his performance against Southampton recently indicate that he can. When you sign someone of Ozil’s quality you don’t just sign a player, you sign some part of a winning dressing room, he was a league champion at Madrid so he knows what it takes to win and he needs to move that winning attitude to his mates. He is meant to be out technical leader, our Denis Bergkamp and we know he will come good but he needs to start showing more glimpses of it now and lifting spirits again like he did when he joined the club.

Have yourself a great day friends. You enjoyed the read? Kindly Share. Want to interact ?Comments section beneath or on twitter @canoncrested.

We would have preview up for the United game so do well to visit. Until then ‘ Keep the Canons in your heart’