Saturday 4 February 2017

Dear Arsene.....

THE ESTEEMED John Cross tells us in the Daily Mirror you want to ‘feel loved’ before you sign a new two year deal, a contract you will once again observe to the day I’m sure.

All true Gooners do love you Arsene, you are the greatest modern-day Arsenal manager and we have memories to cherish until our dying days. The first double including that phenomenal run to haul Manchester United’s 12 point lead in and of course 2002 when we won it in their backyard.
None of us will ever forget 2003/4, the unbeaten season during which you and the players delivered the best football I have ever seen from an Arsenal team.

Those were seasons where we felt everyone was aiming high, pushing each other to win, win and win again. Since then I suspect many Gooners including myself feel an attitude of ‘that’ll do’ is the message, much of it coming from you.
We understand moving home was a nightmare financially and meant we had to sell the best players, but please remember before the move us fans were told it wouldn’t affect the team.

We do appreciate your loyalty and understand others wanted to prize you away, but that doesn’t mean we will just accept things.
And we do appreciate Champions League football every year Arsene and the stadium you enabled to be built. Personally if the Emirates deal ever ends I would be happy for us to play at the AW Stadium

But too often in the Champions League we end up throwing it away against sides we should beat or rest players in the group stages and end up with a harder draw in the knockout phases.
Arsene, we also pay some of the highest ticket prices in the country so it’s massively galling to see our team get so close and throw things away.

The Carling Cup final in 2008, we should have beaten Birmingham out of sight yet we went into the game thinking it was won already. AC Milan were disposed of in the Champions League 3-0 at our place, just a shame we were 4-0 down from the first game!
Put simply, when the pressure is on, a lot of us now think an Arsenal team under you cannot handle it.

Last year we beat Manchester City at the Emirates to go top of the league at Christmas. We then won just two out of the next seven league games and went a month without a victory.
We don’t understand Arsene how Leicester, a team which was all but relegated the Christmas before, held it all together to win the league. A team we beat home and away.

We struggle to understand how the current very talented team isn’t running away with the league like Chelsea – under a manager in his first season in English football.

And Arsene, we don’t like the fact them lot down the road seem to be building a pretty decent team!
We have a huge, beautiful stadium, a cracking team which you have assembled but then we lose to Watford, go 3-0 down to Bournemouth and inch past Preston North End.

We are football fans Arsene, we are forever asking ourselves ‘Would this happen to Man United, Chelsea etc’ and nine times out of 10 it wouldn’t.
That’s why we are frustrated and yes angry with things. We don’t want ‘that’ll do’ mentality, we want the Arsenal of old, the flourishing football with an insane desire to win trophies.

You are your own man and make your own decisions Arsene and we will always respect that.
If this is the end though, please be assured all true Gooners, even your fiercest critics will stand and applaud as you leave and thank you for taking a football club in a right state when you arrived in 1996 and putting us among Europe’s elite.

We do love you Arsene, but we love Arsenal Football Club as well. It was here before us and it will outlast us all too.
Merci pour l’écoute

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