so hey before i get to my much-needed CL final preview, let's get to an even-much-more-needed 2016-17 Arsenal Post-Mortem, by our hero and protagonist: THOMAS Q. MCTOUGHNUTS, esq / OBE -- Arsenal Plastic Du Jour!!!!!
(yeah i've been told to "mind my p's and q's" so much lately that i figured i might as well go from THOMAS P. MCTOUGHNUTS to THOMAS Q. MCTOUGHNUTS.... and the "Q" is for "quixotic" because PROTIP: there are no windmills within a ~25 mile radius of where i live BECAUSE I SLAYED THEM ALL!!!! MWAHAHAHHAH!!!!!)
2016-17 Arsenal was pretty much a jekyll-n-hyde season that was really a tale of two halves because we basically had two different Arsenal teams on display during 2016-17. In the first few months of the 16-17 season I was out there saying that there was something
different about this Arsenal team; they had fight that I had never seen in an Arsenal side in my football-proper lifetime [from mid-late 12-13 onwards, tho fully "representing the cannon" from summer 2013-present] -- there was that game vs southampton that they typically woulda drew/lost [against their nightmare team, dating back to when wojciech szczesny-- fresh off of a howler/fuckup or 2 that cost arsenal a victory/draw/result-- got caught with a hot burrito in the showers of the southampton visiting lockerroom. OF COURSE I MEAN A CIGARETTE, but still....
and then Arsenal went on to beat Chelsea 3-0 @Emirates (of course, this loss directly set up a 13-0-0 beyond-invincible run by Chelsea [starting with the very next game after AFC 3-0 CFC] that essentially allowed them to walk the Premier League [win the league with little-to-no resistance, SEE: 2014-15 SEASON] from that point on Arsenal went out and got BORO'D 0-0 (but don't worry, they went and had a draw with Manchester City roughly a week or 2 later, so this was probably the only run of form for a relegation-tier side all season long) and then they were stomping 5th-tier teams, hanging around the top-4, having a shit november, starting to rack up some injuries..... you know, #SameOlArsenal, except that they showed this remarkable amount of fight this season, like maybe it could be different? even when they went to bournemouth and got down 0-3 in the 2nd half they managed to rally back for a 3-3 draw.... they had fight i tell you!
but then at some point the switch flipped and, of course, things got bad. you first saw signs in like the second week of december when in the course of 1 calendar week Arsenal went from 1-0 >> 1-2 against Everton and @ManCity. and then if that 2-DM-midfield [that Wenger should never have had to resort to, more on Wonga later tho] didnt shit the bed in the 2nd halves of Everton/@City enough, they went out and played what has to be the worst football game i've ever seen Arsenal play (and yes, i was there in 13-14 for 1-5 @Anfield/Liverpool, 0-6 @Stamford-Bridge/Chelsea, and the oft-forgotten 0-4 @Southampton on boxing day [day after christmas] 2015 when Arsenal had JUST FINALLY ascended to the top of the Premier League table for the first and only time during the 2015-16 season [you know, the league that Leicester City would go on to win with 81pts, while Arsenal did manage to overcome a bottling-it-like-usual Spurs side in the final week to finish with a whopping 71pts]
AHEM. but yeah that Mid-November/ish game @Old Trafford [Manchester United, who will be referred to as "MouUtd" or "Mou/chester United" from here on out =] was easily the worst game I've ever seen Arsenal play. They fielded a Coquelin + Elneny DM/CM midfield combination, and when you have two holding/defensive midfielders playing the "offensive engine" role of Arsenal.... man, they simply couldn't consistently get the ball up past midfield against the mighty mighty Mou United featuring a back-4 of Valencia, Jones, Rojo, and Darmian. MouUtd deserved to win the game in spades, however a late OMFGLOLWTF!?!?!? cheeky equalizer by Olivier Giroud gave Arsenal a beyond-wholly-undeserved 1-1 draw, and when i say "beyond-wholly-underserved" i mean that DAVID DE GEA [MouUtd goalie] LITERALLY FINISHED THE GAME WITH 0 SAVES!!!!! ZERO POINT ZERO, MR BLUTARSKY!!!!!!! ARSENAL MANAGED ONLY 1 SHOT ON TARGET IN 90+ MINS AND THANK THEIR LUCKY STARS IT HAPPENED TO BE A STOPPAGE TIME/ISH EQUALIZER, HUH!?!?!?
THEN teams like liverpool and chelsea started coming back for their 3 [more in LFC's case] points, and Arsenal started to drop points in the league to midtable/lesser sides, especially away games. At one point in Feb/March I believe arsenal had lost/not-won something like 5 straight road games for the first time since the Cromwell Administration? Arsenal eventually plummeted down to 5th, then 6th, then even 7th, all while the hub-bub about finally winning their Champions League group was drowned out by the macabre laughter of Arsenal fans when their jokes about drawing Buyern Munich or Barca in the CL Knockout Round/s was "memed into reality" not too dissimilar from LaVar ball getting his boy to the Lakers! Arsenal got buyern munich in the CL RO16, and what started out as a surprisingly tight and well-played 1-2 game circa 50-55' became the usual clown show when laurent koscielny (Arsenal's best defender by a country mile) got sent off and then the floodgates opened and Buyern would go on to win 1-5, even adding an ! at the end when YET ANOTHER STUPID FUCKING DUMBSHIT ALEX OXLADE-CHAMBERSHIT TURNOVER landed right at the feet of Thomas Muller, who hadn't scored a goal since the Third Reich, and he was able to take a few dribbles and calmly and clinically convert the DUMBSHIT TURNOVER BY
THE DUMBSHIT for that 1-5 final result.
So that much needed confidence-killing 2-legged-endeavor would go on to reach its fever pitch on a Monday @ Selhurst Park [Crystal Pallardyce] where Arsenal calmly walked on the pitch and promptly shit the bed in a 0-3 laughter that probably should have been way way worse than 0-3. Usually with Arsenal you can point to a couple bottlings, maybe a foul/carding that should/n't have been called on either side, or at least a few rays of hope when Arsenal does their "Same Ol Arsenal" thing and shits on your dreams..... well not on that Monday! It was a good beatdown AND thorough, Jeffrey, and when the loss deposited Arsenal in 7th place that's when I was like "yep, the top-4 dream is over.... this is midtable football at it's finest! you're not going up, you're not going down, you're just going......... to the liquor store!" -- EVEN THOUGH I KNEW that Arsenal would manage to not get mathematically-eliminated from 4th place all the way til the final day of the season!
Indeed, with "Same Ol Arsenal" you can always count on them to hang around whatever relative-plateau they're trying to reach until the last possible second, cuz like, why bottle 4th with 2-3 matches left to go when you can keep your fanbase watching scoreboards nervously and sweating out every Liverpool/City non/result and set things up so if you squint you can just barely see a path to the top-4, but only if everything goes right and Arsenal manages to win out their final 4-5 PL games..... which of course they do (with at least 1-2 legit close calls of fucking it all up prematurely) and then it comes down to needing an already-relegated Middlesboro side to beat/draw-with Liverpool while Arsenal goes out and wins vs a much better than Boro Everton side. Of course, Liverpool was NOT to be Boro'd and they won like 3-0 or 4-1, so Arsenal never had a chance in the end.... but hey if they would have drew/won even ONE of those stupid defeats during the season odds are they make the CL like they always do..... but hey, C'est La Arse, No?!
So then there was still the FA Cup final to go, the ultimate consolation prize in a season without CL Football + St Totteringham's day for the first time..... well ever technically (going back to the creations of both the CL and St Totteringham's day) -- and of course Arsenal went out there and kicked Chelsea's sorry ass all over the pitch (but hey, they haven't had to play meaningful football for at least 2-3 months so give them a break!) but of course Arsenal started Welbeck and they bottled so many chances what should have been an easy 4-1/5-2 type game ended up being a taut nailbiting 2-1 triumph, where i had a kickass time at the globe and enjoyed the FA Cup in a veritable-vaccum for what it was: a consolation prize that doesn't make you "the champions of england" as much as "the team that went out of it's way to mostly-not-lose the FA Cup" -- as i postulate that for just about every FA Cup winner out there there's a majority of games [against lesser sides] that you "don't-lose" as opposed to "win", ergo the FA Cup is a cup that you tend to "not lose" >> "win" --- WELL HEY FOR THE THIRD TIME IN FOUR SEASONS ARSENAL DIDN'T-LOSE THE FA CUP!!! PUT THEM 5s UP CUZ WE'RE FIFTH PLACE Y'ALL!!!!! #CLEAROFFTHURSDAYSONYOURSCHEDULE THIS FALL!!!!!
i'm pretty sure i've talked about why i technically came out to wenger out before, so to wrap it up with brevity [for once in my [mad-libs] existence =] i'll just say that i'm convinced that Arsene is more worried about having "his guys" come good than he is winning the next Arsenal game. And when I say "Arsene's guys" I mean guys like iwobi, ox, and whoever else Arsene can "take credit for them [finally?] coming good" as opposed to, say, Lucas Perez who managed to average a goal or assist every 42 mins in his first 17-18 appearances for Arsenal. If you wanna say Lucas played against shit competition then go ahead.... BUT WHAT ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO DO AGAINST SHIT COMPETITION?!?! WHAT LUCAS DID?!!? WHY NOT TOSS HIM A START, SAY, @CHELSEA OR SOMETHING TO SEE IF HE CAN MAGICALLY KNOCK 1-2 IN CUZ YOU SURE AS SHIT KNOW THAT ALEX FUCKING IWOBI AND/OR THE DUMBSHIT ALEX OXLADE-CHAMBERSHIT [DOWN WITH PPL ON ARSENAL NAMED "ALEX" BASICALLY =] AREN'T GOING TO DO FUCKALL IN THAT FIXTURE!!!!!!!
ahh well, i dotn wanna rant on endlessly about wenger, so i'll just say that it was obvious he was always coming back all along (he won't let the public sentiment turn against him and then "take his medicine" by listening to them and leaving.... oh no, he'll leave when *HE* [read: not you] decides so FUCK YOU ENJOY YOUR TWO MORE YEARS YOU CNUTS CUZ WONGA FINNA REBUILD THIS TEAM IN A QUITE-POSSIBLY POST ALEXIS AND/OR OZIL ARSENAL UNIVERSE!!!!!!!!!
but hey, you don't get into watching Arsenal for the winning..... see, at Arsenal it's not about "
winning"-- it's much much more important than that! and win or lose 5th or 1st i'll be there next year, so onwards and [hopefully? plz jesus plz?] upwards with next season [the last "normal" one b4 heading into an always-goofy world cup year]
Forrest Gump wrote:
AND THAT'S ALL I'VE GOT TO SAY ABOUT THAT.
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