Quentin Tarantino’s latest film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, follows veteran actor Rick Dalton, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, and his stunt double Cliff Booth, a role for which Brad Pitt won an Oscar, as they struggle to accept that their star is waning in a shifting industry, during the late 1960s.
Not one of Tarantino’s best, for me, but in many ways it parallels where Arsenal stand in football these days: a club with an elite sense of entitlement and an expectation to keep their place at football’s top table, while no longer actually being an elite club, nor at football’s top table.
To outsiders, it’s fascinating to watch: equal parts entertaining and painful, equal measures comedy and tragedy.
In terms of Premier League positions their decline is straightforward to see. If a FTSE 100 company saw similar decline in stock value as plotted on Arsenal’s Premier League season finishes since they last won the title in 2004 (2, 4 ,4, 3, 4, 3, 4, 3, 4, 4, 3, 2, 5, 6, 5, in case you were wondering) their shareholders would be wondering what is going on.
It’s harder to tell in terms of attendances how that has affected feet through the stadium turnstiles, given they are a club who routinely announce “tickets sold” as opposed to the actual number in attendance, seemingly so as not to reveal the true extent of the turnout.
Sometimes much to the bemusement of those actually inside a half-filled Emirates when plenty of season ticket holders have opted not to turn up but “tickets sold” claim a full capacity. Perhaps that approach is revealing in itself.
Their supporters demand the Earth and expect the best, but can you really blame them? Arsenal still have the second most expensive season ticket in the Premier League – £1,768 – and their place at the top of the that list has only been taken in recent years by Tottenham Hotspur. Even Arsenal’s cheapest adult season ticket is £891.
One supporter told me they “love to hate their own club” and the strange atmosphere that creates at the club has become its modern-day identity. It is hard to tell if AFTV – formerly Arsenal Fan TV, who share popular, often viral videos of fans venting anger about what goes on – are a cause of that or an effect. Perhaps both are true statements.
At one point in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Dalton fluffs his lines while filming a scene and loses the plot when he returns to his trailer.
That was Matteo Guendouzi’s moment of madness on Saturday, when he a grabbed Brighton’s Neal Maupay by the throat following their second defeat in 72 hours.
It left Arsenal 10th, and they are staring at a fourth consecutive season outside of the Champions League.
Even their Premier League fixtures no longer have that star feel to them, unless it is against one of the sides challenging for the title or the top four.
As the doors of Hollywood studios close on Dalton he eventually has to star in Italian Westerns to continue his acting career. Arsenal, meanwhile, as having to make do with the Europa League.
Where did it go so wrong? The stars of that bygone era, Dennis Bergkamp and Martin Keown, believe it dates back to 2006, when Arsene Wenger began experimenting: playing five in midfield, moving Cesc Fabregas around, pushing more possession in the midfield at the expense of thrust up front.
Recent years of recruitment have surely, also, taken their toll. Compare their spending since the summer of 2016 to Liverpool’s. Both clubs have signed similarly priced players, around the £20million to £70m mark.
Liverpool got Sadio Mane, Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk, Alisson, Giorginio Wijnaldum, Fabinho and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (from Arsenal, during which time he has been transformed as a player).
Arsenal got Granit Xhaka, Shkodran Mustafi, Lucas Torreira. Jury is out on Nicolas Pepe. Even some of the successes do not seem enough to halt the fall.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is possibly leaving on a free transfer. Alexandre Lacazette has been okay. Kieran Tierney looks promising.
They have somehow managed to build a Europa League squad on Champions League wages.
As the financial impact of the pandemic is likely felt for years to come, will Arsenal even be able to spend their way back to the top? They were the only club in the ‘Big Six’ to have to agree wage cuts with their players when lockdown began, spread over 12 months.
For the next year at least, how could they justify spending big on new players when they are unable to properly pay their own?
It seems the only way forward is for the veteran football club to turn to youth, and hope that young blood can make them a blockbuster attraction once again.
More on Arsenal
- Cunningham: Arsenal’s players should ask for their money back after Kroenke’s £325m windfall
- Is it really worth it? Arsenal need to take a long, hard look at their relationship with this super agent
- Opinion: What Arsenal’s ‘nauseous’ statement on Ozil and China says about the club
- The road to 2024: How a new Champions League format could leave Arsenal high and dry
- Magee: Arsenal’s Europa League exit shows Arteta cannot work miracles with this squad
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/37SVs71
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