NOTE: This piece was meant to be published 11 days ago. My apologies go to Ryan the writer.
> This is one of the hardest pieces I have had to write,the story so far,it should be easy for any team with huge ambitions and a top four finish the minimum expected,
> It should read something like,"the start to the season was Not as easy as we thought, but its ok we are safely in the top 4 of the table before the end of the year"
> However being fans of the mighty Arsenal,its been different,the season started the way many would have expected with the departure of cesc,and then the departure we few were expecting of nasty,from then on every so called expert questioned more then the ambition of our club!but the very soul of it,the usual fans wanted us to spend big and spent fast,these fans are clearly new to the club and must be the glory years supporters of the Henry era,which is fine,all Arsenal fans are of course welcome,fir us fans that have supported the club longer,we knew the likely hood under AW of us spending huge and fast were tiny
> AW has never done business this way,and never would,he buys clever and when he feels he must,often to the naked eye buying wrongly too,the acquisitions we made weren't good enough for all,so many quick to say that they wouldn't be enough to save our season, a season that after 3 games was in tatters,fans were actually protesting against the club
> Then at what has to be the biggest meeting the last 5 years at the club,its revealed we will stick to our current financial model,
> Basically spend what we can earn,and for a club that is not winning trophies it won't be a lot,yet still with days remaining in the summer transfer window,some fans demanded huge signings of 40 and 50 million,this was never going to happen,not because of our clubs lack of ambition,but our clubs determination to stick to its own guide lines,
> We should maybe be proud of that,AW did buy in the transfer window,and it did the job,after a poor start,Arsenal turned it round,with some massive wins,Udinese being one! Against all the odds we started to turn it round,playing with confidence and looking like the old gunners we once were,and with RVP being the most in form striker on the planet we were looking dangerous,some in the media continued the Arsenal bashing saying we are a one man team,its maybe hard to argue with that one,but those that follow the game of football know the goal is the end product of 11players working hard,its the icing on the cake,so Arsenal as a team were playing some great football,
> Still so many fans weren't happy,pulling names from the sky of players we need,like we are a FIFA12 game,these people I feel need to get real,the media still hounded our club,even the 5-3 hammering of chelsea wasn't enough,it appears any team we can beat is then in crisis!?! Its been the most obvious year for media hating arsenal I can remember,
> Despite all this AW has remained as classy as ever, and the club have taken criticism well,the players have reacted well,yes we know we are still carrying dead wood in some players,and I'm sure every Gooner reading this ,has at least 5 players they would happily sell,but for us all I'm sure that Arshavin and chamakh are the main 2!
> The club have done us all proud,we were and are never going to spend money like other big clubs in Europe,its not our style,finding young talented footballers,holding onto them nee to become a bigger priority,I have mentioned before how Arsenal need to be careful we don't become a feeder club for big clubs with big money and trophy ambitions!
> That aside, we have gone from looking like relegation fodder (according to telegraph) to being just outside the top four,yet with the wolves result the other day, the haters are all back and we are in crisis again,
> I agree we should have taken 3 point,but we didn't,I believe we are struggling as a squad because we have no winners,we have talent,loads of it,but not winners,had we won the carling cup we would be a different team,
> we all know that the Man u of old specialised in taken advantage of dropped points by other team challenging for the title,but we are a much better team then we started the season with,the second half of the season will see the return of the "winner" the king is back,wilshere will also be back ad AW will buy someone in January,I'm sorry to all the pessimistic Gooners that will say I'm deluded,but I remember the arsenal that couldn't buy a win!so for me the future is always bright,we need to look at what we have, not what we don't,for the second half of the season,if you have been negative so far this season try being positive!and let's see what we can achieve together,going forward!
Ryan
