{"id":13189,"date":"2026-04-05T05:27:27","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T04:27:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=13189"},"modified":"2026-04-07T08:27:53","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T07:27:53","slug":"loss-brings-clarity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=13189","title":{"rendered":"Loss brings clarity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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SOUTHAMPTON, ENGLAND – APRIL 04: Max Dowman of Arsenal is fouled by Caspar Jander of Southampton during the Emirates FA Cup Quarter Final match between Southampton and Arsenal at St Mary’s Stadium on April 04, 2026 in Southampton, England. (Photo by Mike Hewitt\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

As the subject of this match review, it was tempting to choose from so many proverbs and witticisms around the failure and its, often paradoxical, implications. \u201cThere is no success like failure, but failure is no success at all.\u201d \u201cSuccess has a thousand parents, but failure is an orphan\u201d. \u201cFailure is success in progress.\u201d \u201cFailure is the condiment that gives success its flavor\u201d. Etc.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I don\u2019t think we need to reach for too much of an insight from a loss in a football match. It’s a charmingly\/bewilderingly\/notoriously unpredictable sport, and this was neither the first time nor would it be the last time that Arsenal would lose an FA cup match against a lower league opposition. Cliched as it may sound, the \u201cmagic of the FA cup\u201d has always been an endearing footballing reality, and once we can shake off the initial disappointment of the result (and the sub-par performance), it is best to simply congratulate Southampton and acknowledge that they were more efficient in both penalty boxes, and beyond all the analysis, statistics, theorizing \u2013 all of which have their rightful place, naturally \u2013 the fate of a match is often decided by this very simple fact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have chosen to put together some impressionistic thoughts \u2013 and not terribly structured or even thematically consistent \u2013 about Arsenal\u2019s quarter final loss to Southampton F.C. away at the English seaside, avoiding the annoyance of recalling the performance and the manner of loss, and hopefully saving you from the displeasure of reliving what couldn\u2019t have been a particularly enjoyable couple of hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was the first time in the season we lost in two consecutive matches. The fact that they were both cup matches, and punctuated by a two week long international break in between, doesn\u2019t make us realize how singularly good we have become in overcoming disappointments and bouncing back quickly from losses. It is a trait worth remembering, by players and supporters alike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t follow much of the incessant conversations about football in general and Arsenal in particular in the media outlets \u2013 including in the social media \u201cdiscussions\u201d \u2013 and as a result, I am (thankfully) spared much of the noise that some of the contributors in this blog (rightly) lament about. Football and Arsenal are important to me, but I try my best to refuse to let the inevitable ups and downs of the team\u2019s fortunes dictate the tone of my relationship with my own self and the world. And understanding rather too well how the content machine works, profiting at the expense of others\u2019 valuable time and invaluable emotional wellbeing, I try my best to not fall into the traps. It is not easy, but it has become easier over the years as one learns more about oneself and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, I have been able to avoid most of the discussions about quadruples and trebles etc.  And whenever I have heard those mentioned \u2013 typically in the commentary while watching the matches \u2013 I felt that anyone who brings that up doesn\u2019t have Arsenal\u2019s best interest in mind. Even when we were playing very well in the late summer and early Autumn, it seemed to me that we are well set-up to really fight for PL and CL, and hopefully win at least one of them to build the habit and confidence in this squad, but we should rotate more and give academy players more chance in the domestic cup competitions. To have started following Arsenal since the early Wenger days, I could never really take the League cup seriously \u2013 the League cup may turn around and say that she\/he\/they\/it also never takes Arsenal seriously \u2013 and while our unique history of success in the FA cup and the romance associated with this oldest football competition in the world means that I always enjoy a long run in this competition, I didn\u2019t think that we are a squad that can seriously fight for all three competitions until the very end. We need to get a PL and\/or a CL trophy over the line first, and subsequently make some more fine tuning to both our personnel and playing styles, before we can become the kind of all-conquering team that can go on and win the three most important trophies in the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our league position this season has been built on the basis of defensive solidity, a methodical control of games, greater efficiency in both boxes, tactical and psychological dominance in key passages of play, and a rugged willingness to leave no stones unturned in search of a result. And I loved it. It has been instructive, and despite the many nerve-wracking days, enjoyable in its own strange ways \u2013 demonstrating the values of those innate human qualities that never fail to inspire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, we also must not delude ourselves into thinking that we have shown the kind of inventiveness, insouciance, originality, sharpness in our attacking play that can see out bad days in office against well-drilled oppositions by the sheer verve of football. This is not a criticism of the players or the manager or the coaching team, but just a simple observation. There may be many reasons for that \u2013 a lot of new players settling in, injuries to many key players, individual losses of form,  opposition teams mostly choosing to defend deep \u2013 but I have no problem accepting the reality that this season we haven\u2019t really sparkled in attack. The fact that we still have scored so many goals in PL and CL, and topped the group in CL, speaks eloquently about how extraordinarily good we have been in all other areas of the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there would be days when not all of these other qualities of the team would shine, not all the moving pieces that work meticulously together will connect, the defense will make the kind of mistakes on long balls over the top that have become extinct from the Arsenal form book and hence all the more jarring when they reappear, and that missing sparkle in the attack will mean we will find it very difficult to simply overpower the opposition and score more goals that they do. Keeping those days to a very minimum should give us an excellent chance of winning the league, but the very possibility of those days mean that our cup runs would require us to be more or less flawless in exhibiting the core strengths of the team in every single match. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today was not one such day. That really I think is all there is to say about it. Hopefully we will avoid a relapse in CL, and I continue to retain my optimism for our CL run. I have my reasons, but all of those center around the hope that we would be able to play the game we want to play in each of our remaining CL matches, starting with Sporting Lisbon away in a few days, and put on the kind of flawless efficiency that I think is the defining character of this team of their best days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The PL would obviously be a mighty grind. We Arsenal fans will all probably go through quite a few days where the gap between catharsis and despair would hinge on a VAR call, a last-ditch tackle, a sublime finish out of nowhere, a last minute corner kick that would concentrate all of our breaths into one single hopeful outcome. I have no illusion that the next couple of months would be a challenge to our nerves. But if we are to simply rationally look at the possibilities, and expect that the team would continue to do very well the things that they have mostly been excellent at, we would still be able to remember all these frantic days with a fondness and joy that binds us all together for life. Millions of people world over \u2013 across all the divides this divisive species of ours had dreamt of in its short sojourn on this planet \u2013 would feel connected over a shared experience of achievement, maybe for a short moment most of us would be reminded that we are all so very similar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe it would be a Max Dowman goal that would confirm the league win for us? If there was one player today who deserved to win, it was him. He was the best player, by far, across both the teams. His technical skills have already been noticed by all, but his strength and conviction today were impressive. No one can know what the future will bring for him, but we as Arsenal fans should feel privileged to witness the emergence of a special talent through our ranks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Southampton 2 (Stewart 35\u2019, Charles 85\u2019) \u2013 Arsenal 1 (Gy\u00f6keres 68\u2019)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the subject of this match review, it was tempting to choose from so many proverbs and witticisms around the failure and its, often paradoxical, implications. \u201cThere is no success like failure, but failure is no success at all.\u201d \u201cSuccess has a thousand parents, but failure is an orphan\u201d. \u201cFailure is success in progress.\u201d \u201cFailure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"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\/13189"}],"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\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13189"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13201,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13189\/revisions\/13201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}