{"id":13464,"date":"2026-05-19T22:22:57","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T21:22:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=13464"},"modified":"2026-05-23T11:17:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T10:17:20","slug":"we-are-champions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=13464","title":{"rendered":"WE ARE CHAMPIONS!!!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-20-at-08.59.34.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-13471\" width=\"569\" height=\"398\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-20-at-08.59.34.png 850w, https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-20-at-08.59.34-300x210.png 300w, https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-20-at-08.59.34-768x538.png 768w, https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-20-at-08.59.34-75x53.png 75w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 569px) 100vw, 569px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Bournemouth 1-1 Manchester C115y\u2026the blue mancs pull a bottle job\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so, after 22 years &#8230;.. years of slow decline laced with financial penury, having our best talent cherry-picked, a promising youth policy aborted by predators, several false dawns, bargain basement signings, competing against financially doped <em>nouveau-riche<\/em> pretenders, poor appointments to key positions and poor signings on the field generating mind-numbing hurt and frustration but leavened by 4 FA Cup wins that confirmed the core drive was undimmed, and then, with the arrival of an energetic young coach who provided clear evidence of progress with three consecutive second place finishes and good runs in the Champions League &#8230;.. we are finally Champions again!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Worthy champions at that &#8230;.. no Russian mafia money, no creative accountancy, no injections of Arab petrodollars, just hard work, prudent team building (on and off the field) and shedding of the uncommitted and under-committed. The renaissance of the Arsenal can be attributed to one man whose commitment to the club began in a trolley dash in the dark days of 2011 when he accepted a pay cut to join a club he had long admired to try to revive a faltering giant on the pitch &#8211; that man is Mikel Arteta, who returned as a coach to an even bigger shambles than when he arrived as a player but whose ambition, drive, man management skills and tactical nous have inspired his players and won the financial support of the Kroenke family and together they have brought this success to the club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thanks to Mikel, the Kroenkes, the coaches and the squad, we are dining at the top table again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And this is just the beginning&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bournemouth 1-1 Manchester C115y\u2026the blue mancs pull a bottle job\u2026 And so, after 22 years &#8230;.. years of slow decline laced with financial penury, having our best talent cherry-picked, a promising youth policy aborted by predators, several false dawns, bargain basement signings, competing against financially doped nouveau-riche pretenders, poor appointments to key positions and poor [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12,2,14,26],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13464"}],"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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13464"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13480,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13464\/revisions\/13480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}