The Plan to Make Arsenal Invincible Again

Photo: AP/Getty

Once again Arsenal took a hiding in Europe, and once again the violins are well and truly out in North London. Social networks are a mad mélange of disappointment and bloodlust, with every possible scapegoat being blamed. It’s not the first time, and, sadly, it won’t be the last. As an impartial observer, it shouldn’t affect me, but it does. This maudlin mewling has gone on far too long, and it has to stop. Now.

The only way to end this is to give the fans what they want. There are too many calling for change and their number grows each time their demands are ignored. Below is an action plan designed to satisfy those supporters and return their club to the good old days. If this plan is followed, Arsenal will soon regain their rightful status as kings of the world and the noise will go away. They will beat Real Madrid at the Bernabéu, put five past Inter in the San Siro and win loads and loads of shiny silverware. Since Arsène Wenger has never once provided glory of this kind, it’s time for him to fall on his sword and for us to re-embrace the values which originally made Arsenal famous – or, at least, values espoused by the Emirates faithful.

The Plan to Make Arsenal Invincible Again

To go:

Arsène Wenger – Obviously. The guy’s insane.

Stan Kroenke/Alisher Usmanov – Sitting on a pot of gold big enough to buy eleven Messis and not spending a penny. Take a hike, boys.

Colin Lewin – The head of the world’s most laughable physiotherapy department and a curse on the club.

Gervinho – As a frustrating Francophone from a war-torn African nation, he could barely be a more Wenger-type player – but he’s a failure on a more basic level than that: no-one with that haircut should represent the Arsenal. Ever.

Aaron Ramsey – All potential, no product. So unpopular at the Emirates that some Gooners are forming plans to Shawcross him themselves.

Per Mertesacker – In addition to a lack of pace so crippling that he often resembles a tranquilised elephant, it’s worth pointing out that Arsenal are going to war for their future here – and Germans lose wars. (Podolski is Polish: he can stay.)

Santi Cazorla – Spanish playmakers are very much en vogue but let’s cut to the chase: he’s not good enough for Barça or Real and doesn’t get in Spain’s first team, so he’s not good enough for Arsenal. Also: look at him. When enemy shells are raining down in the trenches, do you want to have to rely on an Iberian midget to save your bacon?

Mikel Arteta – See above.

Bacary Sagna – He’s never won a trophy for Arsenal and wants to leave. Let him go: more watchable options are available.

André Santos – The worst player ever to play for Arsenal bar none.

Marouane Chamakh, Andrey Arshavin, Nicklas Bendtner, Sébastien Squillaci, Tomáš Rosický, Laurent Koscielny, Johann Djourou, Denílson, Vito Mannone, Park Chu-Young, Łukasz Fabiański, etc – Not fit to wear the shirt. If a buyer can’t be found, give them to Oxfam or Joseph Kony depending on your mood.

To come in:

Andy Carroll – Good in the air? Check. English? Check. Well-publicised fondness for a drink or twenty? Check. He’s practically the new Tony Adams before he’s started. A few hours learning his new position on the training ground and he’ll be as good as Mr Arsenal himself.

Ryan Shawcross – The perfect partner for Carroll. The Emirates faithful may take a while to warm to him given previous transgressions, but all will be forgiven once they see an actual no-nonsense centre-back doing his job. Plus, with Rambo gone, dressing room issues would be minimal.

Lee Cattermole – The leader Arsenal need. The sort of soldier you want covering your back. The key player in a midfield so nasty that visiting sides will be scared to leave the dressing room and step onto the field.

Cheick Tioté – An ideal back-up for Cattermole given the likelihood of lengthy suspension being incurred. Regrettably French-speaking, but a veritable psychopath and proven in the Premier League. A proper Arsenal player.

Mohamed Diamé – Six-foot-plus, Senegalese and capable of killing a man with a single stare. Finally, an adequate replacement for Patrick Vieira.

Ashley Cole – Controversial, but with his contract up in June and Chelsea looking to shift him, it would be madness to leave the best left-back in the world to sign for another club. Let bygones be bygones, stump up the cash and bring Ashley home.

Fraser Forster – Did you see him in Camp Nou the other night? Exactly. No further scouting required.

Phil Jagielka – Passion. Commitment. Desire. Fans love a trier and the Everton man is effort personified. A symbol of the new Arsenal.

Tony Pulis – The manager all Gooners secretly want. Arsenal fans hate his Stoke side simply because Stoke are the club Arsenal once were: unashamedly long-ball, uncompromising at the back and viciously physical. Pulis is the modern day George Graham – minus the bungs, I imagine – and the perfect figurehead to lead Arsenal’s rebirth.

Lance Armstrong – As previously stated, being much worse than Colin Lewin is a big ask. Armstrong presents no such fears: he’s a man worth appointing for his contacts list alone, and one who will give the squad a shot in the arm – perhaps more literally than is ideal. Recent revelations mean this one will probably have to be kept quiet.

Mark Zuckerberg – Someone’s gotta pay for all of this, you know. It may as well be a billionaire everyone’s familiar and happy with already.

The Invincibles (2013/14 edition):

Football fans don’t ask for much: just a constant stream of beautiful success, preferably achieved by passionate players to whom they can relate. This side delivers that and then some: a home-grown English spine; a return to the traditional 4-4-2 formation; a midfield duo that kills first and asks questions many years after retirement. It’s all there.

Best of all, it guarantees the development of its own icons. Theo Walcott will become the player Thierry Henry could have been if only he wasn’t so French-speaking. Injury-free Jack Wilshere will be so brilliant that most Gooners will forget that Dennis Bergkamp ever existed. Lee Cattermole will become the first player ever to be imprisoned for a murder committed on a football pitch. Put simply, this lot will be invincible.

Arsenal fans: you have been given The Plan to Make Arsenal Invincible Again. I personally guarantee its success. Now it is down to you to make this a reality. Failing that: shut up.

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Tell Rob he's wrong here.

The Football League: A Hindrance At Best

There is, it seems, an increasingly popular distaste for the Premier League and its band of expensively-assembled foreign mercenaries. It is, to my eyes, entirely misdirected. It’s not the Premier League's fault that the influx of money into the division has had the apparently corrupting effect it has. By far the more important failure is that of the bloated, out-dated and debt-ridden Football League.

I say this as someone who was a Cambridge United season ticket holder for several years. I’ve seen games in every tier of English football bar the biggest one. This weekend, as luck would have it, will see me visit Stamford Bridge’s away section to see my first Premier League match. I say this in order to give the following context: I am not some EPL fanboy blind to the lower leagues’ existence or their merits.

There is a common argument that says two things make English football unique: first, the popularity of the game; second, its scale and therefore its accessibility.

On top of the ninety-two professional outfits in the Premier and Football Leagues, there are now several professional clubs in the fifth tier of the league pyramid. All-in-all, England has more football clubs than any other country: around forty-thousand according to FIFA’s 2006 ‘Big Count’. The Championship is the fourth best attended league in the world, behind only the Premier League, La Liga and the Bundesliga – and famously ahead of Serie A.

This popularity and scale, the argument goes, is irrefutable proof of both English football’s quality and its health. Actually, it is the exact opposite. We have the highest number of clubs in the world, but a staggeringly low number of qualified coaches. No world-class players or managers, but two or three clubs capable of winning the Champions League. The fact is, English football is diseased and has been for decades. The Premier League didn’t cause this. It has merely highlighted the fact further.

Its critics argue that the Premier League has long been in decline as a spectacle, that it will continue on its downward trajectory and that the quality of the national team will decline with it unless there is a revolution in youth coaching. A necessary step in solving all of these problems – arguably the most important one – is the extensive reformation of the English league system.

Unfortunately, blocking these reforms from happening are the scores of lower league clubs and their supporters who would suffer because of them. These clubs are vital components of the local community, they say, and their pain is passed on, intensified, to their loyal fans. Well, I say this: balls to the lot of them.

If English football really cares about emulating the achievement of 1966, then it should take all of the professional clubs in Leagues One, Two and below and dissolve them all immediately. Give all of their funding to Championship clubs. Next, transfer all of the youth players at these sides to their nearest Premier League academy for trials. Obviously there is a moral and legal issue involving the owners of these clubs and their compensation, but seeing as the majority of these clubs are practically insolvent as it is, the owners would be wise to simply sell the land that the clubs occupied and pursue other business ventures.

Next, enter all willing reserve sides into a division below the Championship, and allow promotion and relegation between the two as of the next full season. Clubs cannot be relegated from this new division, but may leave voluntarily if no benefit is being gained from a footballing or financial perspective.

This is a rough plan, which I (clearly) have not spent much time on. However, the benefits to my eyes are numerous: most importantly, youngsters will not have to go to financially-stricken shitholes in order to earn their stripes. Away from austerity, short-termism and odious lower-league footballing theory, English youngsters might finally get the game-time and patience necessary to develop their games in the manner desired by the national team’s supporters. The fact is that these foreign mercenaries so vilified by anti-EPLers only dominate the top echelons because English footballers are miles behind in terms of ability. Where do the majority learn to play? At clubs existing on a day-to-day basis, where resources are thin and coaching ability is a distant second to relying on motivation and commitment - "passion", if you read The Sun.

With a bit of luck and a full tonne of Utopian thinking, the resources possessed by English football’s behemoths would allow them to cap ticket prices for reserve and youth-team matches. Fans who still gain more pleasure from watching “a game of football with a cup of hot bovril in the traditional English way” as well as seeing home-grown contemporaries rise through the ranks can continue to do so at these games.

Unfortunately, the top flight of English football is and will always be ruled by the team with the biggest budget. This is now an entrenched trait, and no amount of tinkering and reform will change it. However, an alternative is available. The fact that the standard of the alternative is basically obscene is overlooked by people ready to criticise an easy target. The Premier League is not without its faults, but make no mistake: it is the greatest thing to happen to English football ever – hands down. It has given us the financial platform with which to implement structural change, and now we must. It would benefit everyone.