Of late I have been thinking more and more about doing a series of write-ups about that song which other Premier League teams sing at us as we travel around their grounds.
The sentiment behind it implies that we have not been challenging or fighting for trophies, we have not been close in the league or finals, we have simply been doing enough to finish 4th and get by as a club.
This is false information as we all know, we have challenged and been close to winning the title, we have been in finals and have been closer than people know to collecting that coveted first trophy since the move to Emirates Stadium. I want to cover the seasons since that last trophy, the FA Cup win against Man United, to show how close we have become and what scuppered us in the final stages, where we fell down.
We are closer than ever this season to being able to win the league, we are fighting as a team in every game and showing we deserve to be in the run in, lets remind ourselves of past seasons where we did the same and see what went wrong.
Unfortunately after that opening to this review, the first season covered was not a competitive one in the league. 2005/06 was the first season after we won the FA Cup and we did well to scrape into the top 4 after a last day disaster for our North London neighbours at Upton Park.
It was the last season at Highbury and we had sold Paddy Vieira to Juventus with Thierry Henry taking over as captain.We had signed Alex Hleb and Nick Bendtner most notably in the summer, with Diaby, Adebayor and Theo coming in the January window.
It was an indifferent start to the campaign losing away at Chelsea in our 2nd game but being 2nd in the league after 5 games. Who could forget the infamous penalty attempt by Pires and Henry against Man City when they tried to replicate Cruyff and Olsen’s genius penalty for Ajax, it ended in disaster when Bobby touched the ball twice.
Our title charge ended before Xmas with 3 defeats in a row, the first time under Wenger that this had happened.
The main thing that grabbed me in scrolling back through the results for this season was our games against the other top 4 teams. Against Man United, Liverpool and Chelsea home and away we only won 1 game, against Liverpool at home, and drew at home to Man Utd. This is clearly not going to win you the league, especially when you are losing to teams such as Middlesbrough, West Brom, Bolton, Blackburn and West Ham.
We finished the season well losing only once in our last 11 games. The last day win at home to Wigan meant we finished 4th after Spurs had lost 2-1 at West Ham, the now appropriately named Lasagna-Gate controversy.
The one shining light was our Champions League run, we got to the final for the first time in our history, we went to Paris to see our team play in the most prestigious competition in world football. I was there to see it and ill never forget it, to see your team play in that game, to be in the stadium watching your club compete in that game is something special. I wasn’t distraught that we lost, I stayed and clapped Barca off the pitch but there are regrets there for me. I wish the ref would have let play go on and let them score instead of sending off Jens, keep 11 men on the field so we could compete in the game. Henry could have won us the game when we were winning 1-0, he could have put us up 2-0 and I think we would have held on but it wasn’t to be. I was proud to be there. In the run to the final we played some big teams and put them out, one of the most famous wins was Madrid away with Henrys goal, again I was there to see this and its simply something you will never forget, winning in the Bernabeu is a great feeling. It was ultimately the thing that kept our season alive, doing well in the Champions League gave us the momentum to finish the season strong and get into the top 4.
In the domestic cups we went out in the Semi Finals to Wigan and out in the 4th round in the FA Cup away at the hands of Bolton.
In Summary, it was the first season after we had won the FA Cup, we sold our captain and didn’t have a good league season only finishing 4th on the last days results. We got to the Champions League Final but lost, still had a chance at winning a trophy only the first season after winning our last.
Cheers for reading
Norby
Follow @mattwigley
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 
Regardless of “fond” memories and looking back trying to find scraps of satisfaction in our past 8 years the real fact is….. There is none. It’s been 8yrs of nothing. And as the saying goes no one remembers 2nd place and in our case no one remembers 4th (apart from wenger and us fans)
This season is going well, better than expected if honest but it’ll all be for nothing if come the end of it, all we can do is look back on it fondly while opposition fans get a new song… “9 years and we’ve won f*ck all”
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The point of me doing this is to try and change peoples views that we have done nothing for 8 years, as a fan surely you must know that we haven’t just faded into the background and not competed? I agree that there are no medals for 2nd place but I’m just trying to show that we have been there and challenged. Its not scraps of satisfaction, lets remember what we have actually done rather than just the 7 words of that song that other fans sing to us.
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Excellent article, I look forward to the others!
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There are many who think a trophy is everything. Each game has a purse and each season ours has been huge. There are clubs who have spent fortunes, won trophies and show a loss – a huge financial loss. That is not winning!! Trophies won with prudent expenditure is true football management. Arsenal have shown a business acumen that is second to none because of Wengers economic sense.
Anyone who thinks trophies are worth millions can buy one in the high street for a few hundred pounds. What you cannot buy is the bottom line in the profit / loss columns of your clubs accounts. Please get yourself educated so that when you say ‘Fu*k all’ you understand the true meaning (you can always ask a spurs supporter what ‘fu*k all’ really is).
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Surely you have not aimed that at me?
My whole point of this article and the others that will be posted is to show people to stop worrying about the 8 year thing?
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Have you actually read what Ive written? Or my other comments? lol
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Rubbish.
We’ve won a lot.
Year after year a coveted place in the CL.
Every year, fourth place or better in the EPL, the toughest league in the world.
World-wide admiration for the attractive way we play
Admiration in the finance world over the way we have built and paid for our new Stadium.
I wouldn’t swap any of the above for a piece of silverware
Think about it…………
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At the end of the day Admiration in the finance world means chuff all. Are Barca, Madrid, city or even Chavski, worried about Admiration in the finance world? NO! are they worried about winning Trophies…YES!. This is a good article dont get me wrong, but its the acceptance of us consistantly falling short of trophies that i cant fathom. Football is a trophy business, like any sport. You compete to be the best, to be the champion and frankly we simply havent done that, infact we’ve struggled over the last few years to even get 4th. I can accept not winning trophies if we are competing to the end, and we miss out just…..Like the CL final you mention, although that final didint make up for what was effectively a P*ss poor season, i mean what will the the highlight of the 2010/2011 season?? the loss to Birmingham in the League Cup final…oh but its ok becasue we at least made a final?? I appreciate what you are trying to do but for me this is part of AFCs problem as a whole…. Failure has become the accepted norm when it shouldnt be, and teh more the fans accept it the more the AFC wont make changes to become a winning team
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Yer completely understand what you mean, I agree with everything you say and just because I’m writing these articles its not me accepting not winning. I don’t spend money on ST and away tickets to finish 4th believe me, I want to win.
I just wanted to highlight the fact that we have been better than what everyone would rather have you believe. There has been some bad seasons yes, but there has been good ones too, unfortunately we just came up short.
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But better by who’s standard? Not mine thats for sure. 4th is not good enough,especialy as we scrape 4th. like i said i wouldnt be happy with second but if we’ve fought long and hard and lost it simply becasue the other team were better i’d accept it, but for years the failings have been due to us not competing on any level……. People can argue all they like saying city, chavski and lesser extent utd have brought titles BUT we’ve had money to spend to compete and we havent, and that has led to poor performances on the pitch. Even this season we spent well below what we couldve and infact what we shouldve spent.
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Well that’s where the difference lies, I don’t believe we have had money to go and do what we wanted to do. He went down the youth line which didn’t work out, we kept top 4 and got through that period. Now we have money again and will go all out to do as much as we can I think.
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we’ve got a bloke on our BOD whose worth 4 billion dollars…he couldve invested if he wanted to but yet has choosen not to….Wenger said this season (along with Gazidis) that we had a war chest of at least £80m….we spent 40m….what happened to teh other 40? and the other monies saved from the deadwood we cut off? What happened to the funds from the selling of the likes of Henry, Veira, Cesc and of course RVP? year on year we’ve made silly profits, and year on year we pay the most ridiculous ticket prices….no money????? really?
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Can’t believe some (most?) fans still buy that “we have had no money until now” stuff.
Arsenal have failed, both off the pitch (transfer market) and on the pitch, as a direct consequence.
Sorry, as much as I like the optimism of yours, failing consistently to deliver silverware doesn’t make us better than the rest, it makes us worse.
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