2008-the year of suffering (not for the faint hearted)

[Alfonso]

**WARNING** This thread contains SPOILERS**

What I am about to write is based on the events that have shaped us as Arsenal fans over the past 12 months. Over this eventful yet almost tragic year if you have wiped out all the bad memories from your mind, forgotten all the near misses and all the heartbreaks then you may not want to read on...

For the rest of you car-crash tv loving mofos, this is for you. Firstly, where the hell do you start this year? I am not even trying to be dramatic (alright Luka) but this past year has literally been the worst I have experienced as an Arsenal fan and the most suffering that I have had. And I challenge any football fans of any big clubs to come to me with a worst year (ok, you could say Leeds, but their relegation was inevitable in the last season). Perhaps Bayern Leverkuson circa 2002 could match us, but they are not a big club, and you could argue they overachieved.

Football fans experience **** years, fair enough, but to experience what we did is completely different and even harder to take. What did we do as fans to experience what we did? Was it karma? Or were the footballing gods making us humble after experiencing so much success for a decade that we took it for granted?

To go so close, yet fail in the final hurdle, time and time again is what I call suffering. To have your hopes be shattered after so much promise, to think that your team after 3 years of transition was finally back on its way to what we have seen before us has been unbearable at times. So many false dawns, broken dreams and too many glorious failures for our liking.

From the start of the year it has been one **** up to another. From being humiliated against your arch rivals 5-1 to getting knocked out of the FA Cup in similar fashion by another fierce rival to that Birmingham game and being so near to the title and success that you could smell it and think maybe, just maybe this is your year, to lose it all within a space of a weeks was an Arsenal tradegy. From starting the year with a midfield of Rosicky, Fabregas, Flamini and Hleb to ending the year with Nasri, Song, Denilson and Diaby says it all. To go throughout a whole summer window without strengthening after losing two of your best players, to the manager continuously feeding us fake dreams has been a mind ****. Blow after blow after blow. We've had more blows than Clinton in 98.

To go to such high of highs against Liverpool in the CL to then go to the lowest of the lows in the space of a minute sums our year up. We bought the lottery ticket, got the numbers right, and were about to collect our fortune before losing the ticket, that is our season, our year. Even last night was an example of this or even the Sp**s 4-4 game. When posters like Kami become humble and Ricky1985 get critical you know something has gone wrong.

So, what are your favourite moments of 2008?

 

[hackajack]

Even at the worst (which was failing to hold on to the lead at Anfield with 6 minutes to go) I don't think it was as bad as 2003 when we were the best team in the league and threw it all awaaaaaaaaaaaay.

 

[Alfonso]

Even at the worst (which was failing to hold on to the lead at Anfield with 6 minutes to go) I don't think it was as bad as 2003 when we were the best team in the league and threw it all awaaaaaaaaaaaay.

It was worse because in 2003 it was just a year after we won the double, we just experienced success so we werent that hungry for silverware, plus we won the FA Cup that year. But last season we thought, yes, 3 years of no trophies, all those losses in the north, all those times our critics that wrote us off , the CL final loss, Romans millions, Fergusons arrogance, we will finally do something special, to justify Wengers approach of the past few years. But no, it was a gigantic **** up.

I honestly think we were one game away from greatness and what would have been Wenger's greatest acheivement as manager. Had we beat Birmingham we would be the best team Europe right now (we would have won the title, Flamini and Hleb would have stayed, mental confidence at its highest, etc). And that is very hard to take.

 

[dos1986]

Had we beat Birmingham we would be the best team Europe right now (we would have won the title, Flamini and Hleb would have stayed, mental confidence at its highest, etc). And that is very hard to take.

I doubt that, we/they would have ****ed it up somehow.

I dont think its been that bad at all.I'll take the bad times if we can get back to playing good football in a few years, we might have done ok last season, but I didnt really enjoy watching ous.

 

[dos1986]

What do you get out of Arsenal Alfonso?

 

[hackajack]

I was never totally convinced that we'd win it (even if I backed us to at 14/1) since I thought the squad thing might well catch up with us eventually. The CL at Anfield still hurts I just still can't get my head round Theo putting us right back in it and us farking it up AGAIN.

 

[giuliob]

A win at Birmingham would have done wonders for the team....Don't know if we would have won the PL, but it would have been the kind of win which would have had positive long term effects on the players psyches...

I thought the 06-07 season was pretty disastrous....Eindhoven, Liverpool, etc...But I was fairly new to Arsenal football then, and I trusted in Wenger...No more......

My favorite win: At home against ManU....Heart stopping football....

 

[arsenalfc0719]

It was definitely hard to take. I was shattered as I thought we had the quality and heart that was needed to be the best, both in Europe and in the PL. Unfortunately injuries and fatigue got the best of us and our players experienced a dip in from because of it, thus leaving us empty handed, after a season that had promised greatness. It was very disappointing.

But what was even more disappointing was seeing the team that had taken 3 years to build being torn apart, and us hardly doing anything to try and keep it together.

There is nothing worse then being left thinking 'what could have been'.

The day Flamini and Hleb left us and Wenger didn't even try to replace them properly, was the day I knew this season would be a complete and utter failure. I don't know how some people couldn't see this coming, it was light as the sun, as soon as preseason, that our current bunch of players weren't good enough.

 

[AnthonyG]

I honestly think we were one game away from greatness and what would have been Wenger's greatest acheivement as manager. Had we beat Birmingham we would be the best team Europe right now (we would have won the title, Flamini and Hleb would have stayed, mental confidence at its highest, etc). And that is very hard to take.

Admittedly, it's what you think, but there are too many inferences there. Do you really think beating B'ham would have led us to CL glory?

I've seen worse than this year, not that that makes it any easier to swallow. Maybe we'll make a great run in the F.A. Cup and it will be one of those years (think 1992-93). There's still time to right things or, at least, consolidate what we have. I can see great things in this squad (yes, even without a January spending spree), but a lack of depth in key areas and injuries are again our all too common companions.

 

[DanielVale]

Always good to beat Tottenham though ;-)

 

[Alfonso]

Always good to beat Tottenham though ;-)

Thats the thing, we couldnt even manage to beat Sp**s this year.

Dos, my favourite moment of the year was beating Milan away in the CL in Feb. Man, when Cesc scored, I had not celebrated such a goal like that in a long time. Shame that was the highlight of the season/year. Should have used that as our springboard.

Anthony, I never said we would win the CL that season, but I rekon we would have won the league and subesquently become the best team in Europe now, like Barca are currently, and gone on to dominate and win the CL this season, basically what we were supposed to do after we won the double in 2002. The title would have been the ultimate platform for this team, whose main issue is mental, to go on and be world beaters. Losing the title like we did allowed the opposite effect to happen, and we have too many issues now to win anything.

Lets hope 2009 is kinder on the heart. At least there are no pretentious expectations.

 

[DanielVale]

Always good to beat Tottenham though ;-)

Thats the thing, we couldnt even manage to beat Sp**s this year.

Dos, my favourite moment of the year was beating Milan away in the CL in Feb. Man, when Cesc scored, I had not celebrated such a goal like that in a long time. Shame that was the highlight of the season/year. Should have used that as our springboard.

Anthony, I never said we would win the CL that season, but I rekon we would have won the league and subesquently become the best team in Europe now, like Barca are currently, and gone on to dominate and win the CL this season, basically what we were supposed to do after we won the double in 2002. The title would have been the ultimate platform for this team, whose main issue is mental, to go on and be world beaters. Losing the title like we did allowed the opposite effect to happen, and we have too many issues now to win anything.

Lets hope 2009 is kinder on the heart.

Theres still an FA cup to chase in 2009. I'd at least expect a challenge in that from this squad.

 

[RockyRocastle]

I just dont know what is going on at this club at the moment. It seems for the first time under Wenger that there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

We have had 'bad' seasons under him previously - but you could see we were building to something. We had world class players, experienced players who were Arsenal through and through and you knew that something was always just around the corner.

I also trusted Arsène 100% and agreed with every word he said.

Now? I think he has totally lost the plot. We are going backwards and there is nothing, not a thing, on the horizon that makes me think that Arsenal are going to challenge for anything anytime soon.

It is a fact, a glaring one at that, that the squad has been toally and utterly miss managed over the course of this year.

To allow Hleb, Flamini, Diarra, Senderos and Gilberto to leave and replace them with Nasri and Silvestre is criminal really.
The lack of a proper signing in goal, the lack of world class defender, the lack of a proper DM etc etc etc.

What did he expect? Surely he could not have been as arrogant/miss guided that he could have thought Denilson, Diaby, Song, Djourou, Bendtner could all step up at once?

 

[irishgunnerz]

I think his biggest flaw is failing to address squad depth

Every team suffers injuries throughout the season but yesterday we were missing for one reason or other:

Djorou - current first choice CB
Fabregas - first choice CM
Clichy - first choice left back
Eduardo -
Rosicky - wide player or AMC
Theo - current first choice winger
Ade - first choice striker


6 of the above would arguably be first choice if fit. How many teams could get a point at Villa Park with 6 first teamers missing?

United Chelsea or Liverpool would even struggle with that. Its not an excuse for how our season is gone, far from it. Quality cover is needed for any team with title aspirations. To be honest saying that he expected Denilson, Diaby, Song, Djorou and Nik to all step up at once is probably far from what he expected. He seems not to have forseen an injury list as bad as what we have all happening at once - but it really was on the cards. Our record over the past few years with long term injuries is abysmal,. Whether it's our medical team misdiagnosing injuries or whether our training methods are inadequate, who knows. But surely something needs to be looked at?

 

[kamikaze80]

alf, you're right, what hurts the most is that we had european domination within our grasp and completely bottled it. b'ham was the turning point and that's where our loser mentality took root, and our defensive frailities became some sort of mental block. we all saw what happened when we lost quality+experience in sagna that year, and now we're seeing what happens when you remove quality+experience in flamini, gilberto and hleb.

we practically had the trophy in our hands and ****ed it all up. i don't know how you repair the psychological damage and rebuid the confidence that was lost (and continues to be lost with every dropped point and lost lead). new players? new manager with a new attitude? this team just seems like a bunch of victims.

 

[TheEmirateDon]

Theres still an FA cup to chase in 2009. I'd at least expect a challenge in that from this squad.

Albeit the most realistic trophy we have leaft to challege for, I don't think I'd be 100% satisfied with only challenging for that this season to be honest. The FA Cup nowadays isn't as prestigious a cup as it was, say, four or five years ago. Often clubs now use it as an invitation to field a second-string team full of fringe players and rest a number of key first-teamers in order to keep them fresh for up and coming Champions League/ Premier League fixtures. The times when this trophy used to be an adequate alternative to not winning the league are long gone in my eyes. If we don't win the league I want the Champions League if we don't win that then it's a toss up between whether or not I'll settle for the FA Cup and the FA Cup only, even if we have had such a dissapointing season.

That said, winning It would undoubtedly help matters somewhat, seeing as though we haven't won s**t for almost four years now, but it's the big competitions that appeal. For me the FA Cup isn't up their as a 'big' competition anymore. And it's pretty damn sad that that appears to be the only trophy left that we have a realistic chance in winning.

My only wish is that Wenger does what everyone's been screaming for and makes those required signings in next month's transfer window. At least then some of us fans would begin to recapture the belief we had at the start of last season, start believing in the club once again and once more give it our all the next time we spend our hard earned 'bread' to go and watch our beloved team play the 'beautiful game,' instead of bi*ching about it on an internet forum.

Though, only the board and Wenger have the power to make that happen.

As long as we display even the smallest of Champions League / Premier League bids come the end of maybe then maybe, just maybe the thought of settling for the FA Cup won't be all that hard to stomach after all.

Thoug I won't be holding my breath.

 

[hackajack]

The FA Cup has lost most of its prestige I wouldn't be surprised to see us go Carling on it - we farked up last year by doing neither one thing nor the other.

 

[Zico]

The FA Cup has lost most of its prestige I wouldn't be surprised to see us go Carling on it - we farked up last year by doing neither one thing nor the other.

I disagree. Our only shot at silverware is the FA Cup. The league is out of our hands. We do not have the quality to realistically challenge for the Champs League. Although luck is involved, the reality is that the quality of the opposition is too high for this dodgy team of ours to expect to take down 4 different opponents.

 

[Biggus]

Good thread Alf, can we turn it into a sort of year in review?

Best moment: Beating Milan 2-0 at the San Siro.
Runner up: Gallas being finally stripped of the captaincy.

Worst moment: Eduardo, for a few moments I feared for his life.
Runner up: Flamini leaving.

 

[hackajack]

We do not have the quality to realistically challenge for the Champs League. Although luck is involved, the reality is that the quality of the opposition is too high for this dodgy team of ours to expect to take down 4 different opponents.

We can take out Roma if we make good use of the home leg, That gives us a near even money chance of a tie v Bayern, Villareal or Atletico - all winnable. By then we're in the SF with Cesc back - and with him we can beat anybody on our day.