Losing is My Religion

It's difficult to keep track of whether Arsenal are having a time of glory or a massive crisis. They seem to flit from one to the other almost seamlessly and breathlessly, several times throughout the course of a season. Sometimes it manifests itself as a title challenge that goes completely awry in the midst of Spring. On other occasions, a shoddy start to the year is met with a strengthy revival. Always, an injury is attributed to the bad times and a hero to the good. Always, they seem to end up about fourth.

It's been a running theme for maybe five or six years now, with Arsene Wenger having his job scrutinised with a steady increase of pressure. This year was maybe the worst start he's had to a season since his Arsenal tenure began, with embarrassing defeats to Man United, Blackburn and Tottenham peppering the smiles at the Emirates. However, the resurgence was swift and brutal, with Arsenal going on a run of 8 league wins in 10 games. Robin van Persie found his feet in spectacular fashion, scoring a hatful of goals effortlessly and looking like the world-topping genius he'd always threatened to become.

Now Arsenal are having a period of indifference. Well, I say 'now' - I mean prior to last night (but we'll get to that). A few turgid defeats mixed with a couple of decent wins (including a 7-1)... it's not exactly the form of champions, but over a year their current spell of form probably represents today's 'average Arsenal'. They are inconsistent, unreliable and don't have the solidity required to win trophies.

Then we had last night's horrific defeat in Milan. With the Premier League title out of sight, Arsenal only had this and the F.A. Cup to go for. They can now write the Champions League out of their wishlist, as they folded with a disturbingly frank submission to the Italians. At no point was the necessary fight and determination on show, with AC Milan (not a team on top of their game in recent years) destroyed the Gunners.

One begins to wonder whether, after years of vain attempts to win trophies, the Arsenal squad of today has acquired a losing mentality. It seems that Wenger's team, like no other in their position, allows the collective head to drop significantly when things go wrong. It's a trend that seems to have begun back in the 2007-08, but let's go back further than that. Their last trophy was the F.A. Cup victory of 2004-05. In the following year, Arsenal were disappointing and finished fourth. However, that seemed somewhat insignificant given that they had reached the Champions League final.

As Arsenal tends to be a younger squad, it's easier to expend effort more harmfully on certain competitions, and I'm of the belief that the core of Arsenal's team had been channeling their energy into resilient European performances. Let's not forget, they had to battle past Real Madrid and Juventus in their run to the final, so the league performance might have suffered as a result. Therefore, a lot of hope was on the shoulders of the Champions League final for that squad, and when they failed they may have set themselves a harmful mentality from then on.

Now, you may argue that most of the players from that season are no longer at the club, but these things have a way of passing on through a team. Just look at United's continued drive for success as an instance. Arsenal's 2006-07 season was more disappointing, as the key members of the invincibles started to leave or turn themselves down a bit. Henry had a much weaker season than usual, and players like Pires, Bergkamp and Campbell had found new pastures. It was a time of transition for Arsenal, and a year without a trophy is never too harmful in these cases, especially considering Wenger managed to maintain the levels of performance well enough to keep the side in the Champions League.

As I said before though, 2007-08 was the breaking point. The squad's youngsters were now beginning to play major roles in the side, and things began working well. Arsenal found themselves in pole position to win the Premier League, but everything came to a shuddering halt late in February. Just a few minutes into Arsenal's game away to Birmingham, the Gunners' rising star Eduardo suffered the most horrendous of leg-breaks, and the Arsenal team couldn't cope. After seeing the traumatic injury, the Arsenal team nearly managed to pull together a victory, going 2-1 up against Birmingham. However, the Blues won a last minute penalty and scored it. One of the most striking things that day was captain William Gallas' reaction. He desolately sprinted to the other side of the field as the penalty was being taken, and reacted with outlandish agony when it was scored. As the senior-most member of the team, that set a terrible example for the rest of the squad - that when things go wrong, you can lose your head.

Although I can't know for sure, I think this is where Arsenal's mentality broke down. If you look at their squad today, there's few players who were brought into the team at their senior years, so there's few outside agents to set a real impression of confidence on the squad. Instead, we have a lot of players who have been through plenty of near-misses in their time, and don't really understand the thrill of winning a major trophy. It was so important for Arsenal to have won that Carling Cup final last year, but another setback only serves to re-emphasise the notion that will be plaguing the youngsters' psychologies - that they can never win.

So is this Arsene's fault, and should he be sacked? In a way, it is his fault. Although you can't blame him for a few of the misfortunes (such as losing the Champions League final to strong opposition, or the trauma of Eduardo's broken leg), he really needed to step in and make a change to the way things were going. He could have done this by buying players with a track record of success as opposed to untrialled youngsters or foreign talents who lacked experience. Either that, or he could have been a better man-manager. I suppose that's easy to just say, but it is important for a manager to be able to pick a squad up from defeat, and Arsenal's main problem seems to be that when something goes wrong, they hit a massive downward spiral that takes months to recover from.

It's true that the squad isn't good enough. Arsenal cries out for more competent defenders and a stronger midfield, but I still believe that the team has more talent than it shows. Certainly with the weapons they have they should not be collapsing to 4-0 and 8-2 defeats, and they certainly shouldn't be reneging on 4-0 leads themselves. Of course Wenger needs to improve the squad if he wants to win trophies, but he also has to change the way that team thinks. Whether he's the man that will ultimately do this, I couldn't possibly say. This is all just how I see things though, and I could be completely wrong.

Euro-Bore League

Europe's second string is subjected to the most deathly dull competition in football

I hate the Europa League.

Let me explain. Not so long ago the now re-named UEFA Cup was a two-legged-knockout 'anyone-can-play-anyone' type tournament, as I'm sure you'll remember. It wasn't too much of a challenge, and most any team could get a bit of luck and find themselves in the latter stages of the cup, with a genuine chance of silverware. It was exactly what a cup should be. Not a ruthless test of mettle, but a chance for a trophy to be won by a team who enjoy some form and good fortune.

Nowadays that isn't the case. Instead of two-legged knockout we have four qualifying rounds leading up to an interminably slow group stage that comprises of another six games. Then the knockout begins, where a team can find themselves battling through another five rounds before finishing the competition.

In case you weren't counting, that's a possible twenty-one games you'd have to face in order to win this competition. And we're not talking about the Champions League. No, this is the far-less prestigious Europa League. Is all the effort involved really worthwhile?

In a time where there are so many games during a season, and the physical fitness of players is more important then ever, it surely isn't fair that those teams who performed well enough in the previous season to taste the glories of Europe have to carry the burden of this extra competition, which is as drawn-out as half a league season. It bears no surprise that some managers are suspected of having intentionally got their team eliminated to concentrate on the league, and can you blame them?

It perhaps is ironic that I complain about the Europa League's group system. After all, were it not for the introduction of this stage, one of the all-time great encounters at Fratton Park would have never happened. Our 2-2 draw against AC Milan will go down in Pompey folklore, and maybe the group stages should be credited for making this sort of tie happen.

But those David and Goliath encounters aside, most games in the Europa League are beyond awful. The amount of drab 0-0's that the English clubs have been involved in this season is a testament to how disinterested the teams really are. Liverpool and Man City, this year's representatives, look like two teams still despondent about missing out on the Champions League this year, and their European encounters reflect their obvious lack of enthusiasm.

This may be unfair though, because while two teams with higher ambitions might not show much concern towards their Europa League journeys, for smaller teams the awe and excitement can take them to great heights. Fulham are the perfect example of this. The club have never really achieved much, so a trip into Europe was a historic and thrilling prospect, and they certainly made the most of it. They extraordinarily made their way through the toughest opposition imaginable to reach the final, narrowly losing to an impressive Atletico side.

These examples are extremely few and far between though. I can't see a story like Fulham's ever being repeated under this current format. Or at least, not without it having a massive detrimental effect on the club's league performance. It's a shame, because the sort of story we saw with Fulham is exactly what the Europa League should be like. We should see more hard-working smaller clubs who are going through the good times reach the latter stages of the tournament. However, when squads aren't used to such a fixture-laden season, it usually just becomes too much for them.

I still feel the tournament has life in it, although it needs to be radically overhauled. If UEFA took the following steps in the next reform of this competition, I think the interest and magic would flood back into it.

• Straight knockout. That's to say, the whole competition is knockout based and there are no group stages whatsoever.
• Single-legged games. I know home advantage plays a bigger part in Europe, but for me this would be part of the fun. It would give the smaller teams a better opportunity to knock out the big guns, make the fixtures more exciting, and reduce the number of games in the competition significantly.
• No seeding. Anyone should be able to play anyone. 
• No Champions League Drop-outs. I don't think it's fair that a team can fail at one competition and then be given a bye half-way into a much easier competition as a result. If you can't make it through the CL group stages, tough luck.

Nothing unreasonable in that list, is there? I mean, luck's influence takes a little increase, but if that makes it more entertaining, then what does it matter. It doesn't. So stop saying it does.