This season showed that no matter what Arsenal players believe or what Arsene Wenger is telling them, they have very clearly not been good enough.
You don’t end up in the Europa League by accident. It is the canary in Arsenal’s coalmine.
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Coasting
When I was around 7 or 8 I was in the top reading class in my primary school.
I’d made it and had been there for years. I can’t remember if the teacher rated us within the group but it didn’t matter, I was one of the smartypants kids who, thanks to the encouragement of my grandparents, had developed a love of reading that still endures with me to this day.
As I’d ‘made it’ I started to coast.
Now, I can’t remember how you learn to read, but I know that I stopped learning, another annoying trait that I battle with even now.
The teacher noticed and decided that I was no longer worthy of my place in this elite group of readery kids and demoted me to the B group.
I. Was. Mortified.
My ass was metaphorically kicked and within a few weeks I’d got my act together and reclaimed my place in that top group.
If you haven’t already realised why I’m telling you all this, I see a very strong correlation between my reading group experience as a kid and Arsenal in the Champions League.
We made it to the elite group. We did it every year. It was a given, but for the last decade we were in it but never, it seemed, to win it. We coasted. We approached group games with a ‘yeah whatever’ attitude until we were forced to adopt a ‘oh f**k’ one and pull our sh*t together.
Next came the inevitable – Bayern or Barca – in the knockouts. Those we paid attention to, for part of the games at least. The Monacos and AC Milan, less so. Those we approached like group games. ‘Yeah, whatever’ in the first leg. ‘Oh f**k’ in the second.
Out on our arses we’d go, but never worry, there’s always next year. And there was. For 20 years there was always a ‘next year’.
Until there wasn’t.
Now, we’re in the Europa League, the B reading group of European football.
In truth, if football operated like my primary school, we’d have been sent there long ago. But Arsenal were never causal enough to finish third in the group and so we never got sent to the European kiddies table.
When the Champions League rolled around each year, nobody ever expected Arsenal to win it. Like when the Primer League starts each season and you know there are some teams who will be there but offer no threat at either end of the table.
We were the Everton or Southampton of Europe’s elite club competition.
That’s not the case in the Europa League. We will go onto that tournament as one of, if not THE favourites to clinch the trophy. We will be expected to bring out A game to the B group.
That brings with it a whole new set of expectations that our fragile group of bottlers will have to deal with.
Catalyst
In my head, being dumped into the Europa League should act as a catalyst, the way sticking me in the B reading group did when I was a kid. It should encourage Arsenal to get their heads down, domestically at least, to ensure they claim back their place in the Champions League.
But history tells us this is easier said than done.
Liverpool, once a mainstay of the competition, dropped out and have hardly been seen since. Ditto Spurs between their first and second outings in the competition. Chelsea have stuttered in and out over recent years, and even the mighty Manchester United needed a back door to sneak back in.
The Champions League, like my primary school, rewards only those who improve and keep pace.
Arsenal might be four points better off this season but Chelsea improved by a whopping 43. Liverpool and Chelsea 16, and City 12. That’s why we’re in fifth and out of the Champions League – our rate of improvement pales in comparison to theirs and the teacher has noticed.
Like United this season, there are two ways back into the Champions League for Arsenal – via the league or the Europa League. Both call for vast levels of improvement, but without the guiding hand of a special teacher.
We need to take on of the two very seriously indeed if we are to reclaim our place as a Champions League mid-table side and that requires a focus that has been sadly lacking at Arsenal for some time as we coasted.
My biggest fear is that we will approach both in the same way as we have over the last decade with the Champions League, believing that we are somehow A group material that has no need to improve because we’re already ‘good enough’ and that things just didn’t go our way this season.
In the Europa League, we must either play all the kids or all the A listers. There can be no halfway house. We are either in it to win it or in it to get out of it as soon as possible. Being in it just to be in it will not be enough and could wreck our league season which should be Arsenal’s priority above all else next season.
Wake-up call
The Europa League should be Arsenal’s wake-up call. A kick in the knackers to get their sh*t together so they can get back to playing with the big boys.
It should be the call to arms that the club have needed for the longest time yet was silenced because we were still outperforming the likes of Liverpool, Tottenham, and even United since Ferguson left. Good enough, but not quite good enough.
Well, much like Dennis Bergkamp, that won’t fly next season.
The Europa League will chew us up if we get it wrong. We already know that Arsenal have no stomach for a real fight. If it’s bad losing to Bayern or Barca, how hard will their confidence be hit losing to some Eastern European randomer?
Change is needed throughout Arsenal. From the owner to the board, to the manager, coaching staff and playing personnel. But the biggest thing that needs to change is Arsenal’s mentality.
Good enough is no longer good enough.
They must strive to be markedly better, accepting their shortcomings and working to address them,
Talking about mental strength doesn’t mean you have it any more that Theresa May going on about ‘strong and stable’ like a parrot with OCd means that’s why the Tories offer.
Football games are rarely won with words off the pitch rather, with the ones that roll between your ears. If Arsenal players believe they are ‘good enough’ what incentive is there for them to get better?
This season showed that no matter what they believe or what Arsene Wenger is telling them, they have very clearly not been good enough.
You don’t end up in the Europa League by accident. It is the canary in Arsenal’s coalmine.
You just have to wonder if anyone at the club has heard the silence of the dead bird…