{"id":10678,"date":"2025-01-20T05:33:27","date_gmt":"2025-01-20T05:33:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=10678"},"modified":"2025-01-22T10:38:48","modified_gmt":"2025-01-22T10:38:48","slug":"always-look-on-the-bright-side-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=10678","title":{"rendered":"Always look on the bright side of life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color:#fff;display:inline-block;font-family:Roboto,sans-serif;color:#a7a7a7;font-size:11px;width:100%;max-width:594px;\"><div style=\"padding:0;margin:0;text-align:left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2194574072\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" rel=\"noopener\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div><div style=\"overflow:hidden;position:relative;height:0;padding:66.66667% 0 0 0;width:100%;\"><iframe src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/2194574072?et=jhT8zN5KSa948wz1DCb0Wg&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=b1FitZ_ixBXdKog5lkbEVIdPd6M2vEfgbSXAl3fqFs0=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" style=\"display:inline-block;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;margin:0;\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Why do we love Arsenal?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And why do we care about them as much as we do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These are questions we have all asked ourselves at various points over the course of our Arsenal supporting lives. As with supporting any football club, there are highs and lows no matter the size or expectations of your club. And the thing is, expectations change over time. A good season for your club in 2025 may have constituted a poor season for your club in 2005 or 1995. We have experienced this expectational shift in recent seasons. If we are to finish second with no silverware the reality is many would consider this as a poor or underwhelming season. As recently as 2022, this would\u2019ve been considered a tremendous season. If you had told an Arsenal supporter on the final day of the 21\/22 campaign, in which we finished 5th, two points behind our local rivals in brutal, gut wrenching fashion, that the following season we would unexpectedly challenge for the title and ultimately finish second, they would\u2019ve been over the moon. And yet when that did indeed transpire, many of us were beside ourselves with disappointment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I suppose the point I am trying to make is sometimes you need to stop and take stock of the journey you are on and relish the progress you have made and will continue to make. Saturday\u2019s 2-2 draw at home to Aston Villa was a major blow to our title aspirations, but at least we have title aspirations! The same cannot be said for most of our rivals. At Arsenal we strive for the big trophies which have eluded us for 20 years and one of them has eluded us for 139 years. But it doesn\u2019t stop us believing. Three years ago we would\u2019ve been ecstatic with fourth place. Now, second feels like a disappointment. That is progress. Has our progress stagnated this season? At this moment in time, possibly. But that\u2019s precisely what football is made up of; every goal, every tackle, every shot that goes miles over the bar is a new moment in time. If you go 1-0 up in the first minute do you refrain from celebrating because you might concede in the next 89\u2019? Of course not. You can never know what is around the corner. Football imitates life in that sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We let a two goal lead slip at home causing us to drop vital points in the title race. That is not a good thing. But it happens. Another contentious VAR decision prevented us from winning 3-2 and here I am sitting here trying to be philosophical about it all. I would much rather be talking about how we followed up our morale boosting NLD win with another three points against a fellow Champions League side. But I\u2019m not and I am surprisingly ok with that. We can still win the league, it\u2019s just become even harder for us now. As fans we can give up if we want and attempt to accept that it\u2019s not going to happen for another year. But I&#8217;ve tried that in the past and it just doesn\u2019t work. Getting angry and blaming the referees won\u2019t make you feel better either. If your happiness depended on the competence of the hapless PGMOL, you\u2019d spend life in some sort of uninhabitable purgatory, constantly stressing over whether or not a bald Tranmere Rovers fan from Wythenshawe was going to ruin your weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Without belief and hope, we are left with very little to strive for. And Mikel Arteta has reignited our Arsenal supporting lives with those two things and I am confident that I speak for all of us when I say, we are grateful to him for that. The Maths tells us we are unlikely to win a trophy this season. We trail Liverpool by six points in the league. We are 2-0 down to Newcastle at half time in our League Cup semi final. I believe we are fourth or fifth favourites to win the Champions league. But there is a very big difference between unlikely and impossible. You have to be pretty good to be second in the Premier League after 22 games. You have to be quite good at football to be third in the humongous 36 team Champions League table after six games. And let\u2019s not forget we overcame the footballing giants Bolton, Preston and Crystal Palace to reach the semis of the Obscure Energy Drink cup. Arsenal are probably the fourth or fifth best team on the planet and that means we are capable of winning lots of football matches which we have done in recent years. It also means we are capable of winning the Premier League and Champions League. Most teams are not. And without the efforts of Mikel and his players in recent seasons we wouldn\u2019t even be in contention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have constructed my \u201cmatch report\u201d in this way because I have seen and heard of much displeasure within the fanbase towards the manager, the board and certain players in recent weeks. I could go over where we went wrong against Villa, who was at fault and why the ref is an obnoxious oik. But that\u2019s not going to make me feel better, nor you, the reader. So instead I have opted for a piece I hope will offer fresh hope and belief following this very emotional and fragile period of the season. Ultimately, it just is not that bad. Of course expectations are always high at a huge club like Arsenal but winning trophies is not the be all and end all. Football is not \u201cwin a trophy or bust\u201d. Contrary to our Amazon doc a few years back, it is not <strong>All Or Nothing<\/strong>. I think football, much like life, is not black and white. You can not win a trophy and have a successful season. In any case, winning trophies only makes up 1% of supporting a football club. It is the journey that Mikel has referenced that makes up the 99% of following your team whoever they are, no matter how good, bad or mediocre they play. And that is my message: enjoy the journey. It is nowhere near over and there will be ups and downs as we have already seen many times. And maybe it won\u2019t have a happy ending. And even if that is the case, what next? Will we pack up and go home? Not a chance. There is always the next game or next season. Perhaps that&#8217;s why we love Arsenal and care about them so dearly. They are a constant in a frightening, ever-changing world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Life is Arsenal and Arsenal is life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Always Forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images Why do we love Arsenal? And why do we care about them as much as we do? These are questions we have all asked ourselves at various points over the course of our Arsenal supporting lives. As with supporting any football club, there are highs and lows no matter the size [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10678"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10678"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10692,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10678\/revisions\/10692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}