By Dan Ferguson
Bournemouth 2 Arsenal 1
Who played well?
Really, that is a question I want to ask. Wilshere had some nice touches, bursts and tackles, but ran out of steam. Who else? Did anyone actually even perform to par? We know that the answer is no. Some players occasionally did what was expected of them as the minimum, but most we worse than the new-normal for AFC.
Wenger hasn’t just lost the dressing room, he has lost the power to cough up the hallucinatory deity-dust he sugar coats each speech to the players. He is finished. He is a car with failed brakes. It isn’t down to the car any longer, just the shape of the road and the other traffic on it.
Look at the images of Xhaka at the end, or Welbeck throughout the game, or as I’ve highlighted before, Lacazette’s face from the moment he wakes up until he sleeps again. These players have been lied to, deceived, have flattered to deceive, have been asked to perform at a level that they cannot fathom.
For too long, they have taken instruction from a two-bob Wizard of Oz who has lost his marbles, spell book and the elastic around his underpants.
There is no anger left, just shame.
23 games in and many Arsenal fans don’t want to watch any more this season.
They know that the form will continue to be repeated, and any positive results will be erratically interspersed in a melee of free-fall. We don’t know why to win, let alone how.
So why trust Wenger with the money to buy more players? Who chooses these players? The next manager may well not happen for another 18 months, so these are players who are looking at big money and have shown enough character issues to be sold. Why else come to AFC?
I don’t care that Sanchez is signing for Jose. I don’t care that Ozil cannot commit.
I cannot believe we are asking Jack Wilshere to take a pay cut in the face of these players who cannot kick a ball to each other. I cannot believe Steve Bould is a coach. I cannot believe that Jens hasn’t strangled Wenger yet.
In fact, my only conclusion is that Wenger is spending so much of his ‘magic dust energy’ on pacifying Lehmann, that he has nothing left for the team.
Wenger is turning into the Neil Hamilton of football. Arsenal is a joke with no punchline. There is no reason for the joke, nothing to base it on. Just a hysterical and ironic sum of its parts. This is Wenger’s legacy.
He better be careful before the militants on Arsenal Fan TV ramp it up a notch and rip down his statue.
There isn’t much left to communicate.
PS. He shouldn’t be allowed to buy. But if Aubameyang and Mkhitaryan come, they will work better under another manager.