Blinded by Ambition
Guest Opinion by Geoffery D. Wessel
One of the biggest non-criticisms I’ve seen of Arsenal lately, from certain players and certain fans alike, is the claim of lack of “ambition” in the club. To quote The Princess Bride, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
It was especially pungent coming from Robin van Persie as his excuse to leave once the bigger clubs started waving money under his nose. And it really is the perfect non-excuse, isn’t it? There’s no gauge to measure it, no quantifiable method of determination, no scientific formula to show just how much “ambition” a club does, or doesn’t have. It’s a great smokescreen to throw up to deflect any criticism from more mainstream quarters that you may be leaving after your one full season (and it was a great one, don’t get me wrong!) at the club… or probably more accurately, the manager… that stood by you where you spent the equivalent of four full seasons out injured instead of shipping you off, not because of any perceived lack of desire to win anything at the management level, but because you may be, deep down, a petulant douche.
Ambition or desire is not the problem besetting Arsenal at the moment. Now, are there issues at the club? Most definitely, and if you ask me the majority of them involve either Stan Kroenke and/or Alisher Usmanov. (Don’t for two seconds tell yourself or anyone else that Usmanov wrote that open letter to Kroenke in a fit of concern; he had that ready to go for the moment when some big player, maybe van Persie, maybe someone else, took a hike.) Sometimes I’m bewildered by the choices Arsene Wenger makes, but you know, overall I think the guy knows what he’s doing. Yeah, we had a rough start last season, to say the least, but that was very much an aberration, not what we normally produce earlier in the year. And really, I think it’s high time the players we field quit caving the second we go a goal down. We started to overcome that after the 5pu2s match, but we still got caught out a few times.
But for someone like George Graham to say the club isn’t ambitious enough? Let me remind you of some history you may not like: George Graham got sacked from Arsenal for taking a payoff from an agent for two players. Guess we know the extent of HIS ambition, eh? And lest we forget, his last foray into management was for Tottenham. You know, THAT Tottenham. So, you’ll forgive me if I take George Graham’s keen analysis into where Arsenal is mucking it up with as much seriousness as I would, say, former Baltimore Ravens coach Brian Billick telling Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin where he’s going wrong. I didn’t tolerate smack talk from one ex-Spurs manager who took payoffs about this club, I’m not giving another one a pass either.
Lack of ambition? No. Now, lack of ability to pull off that ambition with the money spent and players at disposal? That’s a valid point of discussion all day long. But call me crazy, I really rather doubt the board of Arsenal, or any other club, are going into their season’s plans thinking “You know, I think we really need to sit back and just tank the season for a change. Get ourselves relegated, give us a chance to relax a bit…” Naw, dog. Naw. [Of course, I write that, and what do I see? Liverpool owner John W. Henry saying it’s not a big deal if Liverpool don’t make the Champions League next season. Liverpool. Not making the Champions League. Is not a huge concern this season for the owner. Wow. If Stan Kroenke had said that?…. BOY. But hey, let’s not discuss Liverpool’s “lack of ambition,” RIGHT?]
And call me crazy, but I don’t think a lack of ambition on the part of Arsenal gets us Laurent Koscielny locked for another five years, the golden boot for Ligue 1 last season, or a true talent with over 100 caps for his country before the age of 26. It shouldn’t END there, of course, but it’s hardly a disaster on the scale of, well, LAST season’s pre-season transfers.
Indeed, unless I’m a petulant douche, I don’t look at those acquisitions and see how we DON’T have ambitions of winning. But maybe my definition of ambition differs from yours, or Robin van Persie’s.
Geoffrey D. Wessel is an Arsenal fan living in Indianapolis, IN, USA. He typically writes, and writes about, comics, including the serial-killer football thriller KEEPER (http://keeper-comic.com), but also contributed to numerous other comic anthologies, as well as an episode of Current TV’s 2011 fantasy program BAR KARMA. His website is http://gdwessel.com, and you can mainly find him on Twitter @gdwessel, or on Facebook at http://facebook.com/gdwessel.
