{"id":8328,"date":"2023-09-07T05:14:26","date_gmt":"2023-09-07T04:14:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=8328"},"modified":"2023-09-16T16:45:08","modified_gmt":"2023-09-16T15:45:08","slug":"coping-with-the-loss-of-a-fan-favourite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=8328","title":{"rendered":"Coping with the loss of a fan favourite"},"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\/102836153\" 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:73.40067% 0 0 0;width:100%;\"><iframe src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/102836153?et=oRF62_UbQL1jZSScTc4LSA&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=RH_VDIPutuz4814e4mi7-64xYm0CuJGl1r8N5acZBMU=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"594\" height=\"436\" style=\"display:inline-block;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;margin:0;\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>The recent departure of Harry Kane and its impact on the fan base of our beloved North London neighbours started me thinking about moments in our history when a player (or players) has departed and they seem irreplaceable. The loss of a superstar says many things, as I suspect we will see in this article, but perhaps the biggest is a sense that a club lacks ambition and that other clubs hold greater attraction. In a cheesy sense it is like being passed over by a girlfriend for a richer, or better looking, new beau. This rarely happened to me because of my innate sex appeal but I have tried to put myself in the shoes of those who did suffer such a fate!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Over the course of my Arsenal-supporting life there have been moments when the departure of a star player seemed to represent a watershed; a moment when the club needed to reset or at least step back and look at why such a departure had occurred. I\u2019ve picked what I think have been the most significant (and depressing) exits of Arsenal superstars in my supporting lifetime. Some situations are depressingly familiar, some could have been avoided with greater ambition and some have been, as is so often the case in football, the result of a gigantic personality clash between manager and player. The first such example came in January 1966 and cast a giant shadow over my mid-teenage years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>1966 &#8211; The Baker and Eastham exodus<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Other than to go fishing I can only remember being woken up early three times by my father, who was a night worker and arrived home in the small hours. Once was to surreptitiously get me up to watch the first Clay\/Liston fight (without my mother knowing), once to castigate me for what he considered an under par performance in my O levels, and most importantly a morning in January 1966. Dad used to bring home all the papers (although he was the proud publisher of the Times) and he gently laid on the bed the Daily Mirror. It contained the genuinely shock news that Arsenal had transfer listed George Eastham and Joe Baker following an ignominious third round FA Cup defeat at Blackburn . For younger readers it is hard to get a parallel but imagine Arsenal deciding to get rid of Saka and Odegaard at one fell swoop and without any warning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To&nbsp; give some context that Arsenal team under Billy Wright, an English football idol (think an earlier version of Bobby Moore)&nbsp;but making a porridge of his first job in management, were woefully inconsistent and had not won silverware for thirteen&nbsp;years. The FA Cup was one of two real opportunities to do so and we\u2019d flunked our opportunity at the first hurdle. Wright\u2019s reaction was to drop and transfer list by far the two best players in the team:&nbsp;George Eastham, who was what used to be known as a schemer and was to form (an unused)&nbsp;part of England\u2019s winning World Cup squad later that Summer; and Joe Baker, who was a prolific goal scorer and, as I have mentioned before, an idol of Dave Faber as well as myself. They were the star players at Highbury and to compound Wright\u2019s folly the team went on a dismal run of defeats after the decision, which created real concerns about possible relegation. To visit Highbury in the second half of that season was a miserable experience. The team was devoid of confidence, inspiration, and method. Some older fans will recall a crowd of just over 4,000 gathering for a 3-0 defeat at Highbury by Dirty Leeds right at the end of that season. The crowd (what there was of them) chanted almost continuously at home games&nbsp;\u2018Wright must go\u2018 and in the Summer mercifully he did,&nbsp;to be replaced by the physio, Bertie Mee. The rest is history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Joe Baker was immediately snapped up by a very good Nottingham Forest side and made them even better although he wasn\u2019t able to maintain top form for too long. Eastham stayed for the rest of the campaign, without playing, and moved to Stoke the next season where his biggest achievement was to score the goal that won them the League Cup, beating Chelsea in the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\u2019ve seen examples of stands taken by managers against players many times. But the lesson is that if you do this you must improve the side not leave the best players stewing&nbsp;on the bench (or in this case in the reserves) while the team plumbs new depths. Billy Wright was a speculative appointment to create buzz and glamour but he was not able to galvanise a club in the shadow of its North London neighbours. A fit of pique aimed against two of the very few superstars in that team just cut the heart and soul out of the club. But it didn\u2019t take long to recover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>1980\/1981 The loss of an Irish genius (or two)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In Bob Wilson\u2019s last game as an Arsenal player in May 1974, we limped to a 1-1 draw with QPR at Highbury. Alan Ball broke his leg but on an otherwise depressing night Arsenal fans left the ground with a sense of optimism because of the performance of a young Irishman who scored his first goal for the club. It was Liam Brady, and he went on to become one of our finest-ever players. I often see him making his way to the ground nowadays, a portlier figure than in his heyday but with the same pleasant demeanour and cheeky grin. Liam was the hub of an Arsenal side that went from relegation candidates in the mid seventies to a team that&nbsp;by the end of the decade had appeared in four cup finals and were genuine contenders for the league title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Very left-footed (but note his right-footed cross to Stapleton for our second goal in the 1979 Final) he was the best player in the league for several seasons and was voted PFA Player of the year in 1979. It was worth the admission money just to see Brady orchestrating a young and improving Arsenal side and he understandably attracted the attention of the best clubs in Europe. He expressed a desire to experience continental football and Serie A then was a richer and more glamorous league than our First Division. But he also loved Arsenal and wanted to be part of a side that took us to the title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019ve spoken to several people who know Liam and some who were involved at the club when he left. They believe that if the board had shown greater ambition we could have retained him at least long enough to bag that elusive title.  But the response of the Directors to renewing his contract was too passive to keep him from the clutches of a Juventus team we\u2019d just knocked out in the semi-finals of the European Cup Winners Cup. So we lost a genius and the heartbeat of the team to Italian football and despite struggling to establish himself over Platini at Juventus, Liam enjoyed a long and successful career with clubs like Sampdoria and Inter Milan after Juve. He had been expected to return to Arsenal after his Italian sojourn but George Graham turned down the chance to resign him and he ended up at West Ham. Subsequently he came back to serve with distinction as the man in charge of our youth development and it was good to see him back at the club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We sort of replaced him with Clive Allen (who we then swapped for Kenny Sansom) and finished third the next season. That wasn\u2019t enough to convince our Irish striker Frank Stapleton that Arsenal was a better place to continue his career than Old Trafford and he left to join Manchester United in the summer of 1981. The main reason apart from a better contract was the lack of ambition we\u2019d shown in trying to retain Liam Brady. The third member of our Irish triumvirate David O\u2019 Leary rejected many overtures and stayed with Arsenal until 1993. Having spent a lot of my life in Ireland I know the hold that United and Liverpool have on lads over there but one feels that&nbsp; had we retained Brady, Stapleton would never have left either. The club plunged into a frustrating period after that seeking to replace Stapleton with the likes of John Hawley and Ray Hankin! It was a frustrating period to be a Gooner. If the accusation was that we lacked ambition we would have found it difficult not to be judged as guilty. What made it particularly galling was that we were close to having a very successful side prior to the big departures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>2011 &#8211; The inevitability of a long-delayed Adios<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We jump forward thirty years past the Graham era and well into the Wenger years for our next moment of real loss.&nbsp;Cesc Fabregas was a prodigy, 16 years old when he joined us, spotted and developed by Arsene Wenger and parachuted into a team that had just gone the whole season unbeaten. He was an incredibly mature player forged in La Masia and London Colney probably the two finest football cauldrons of that era. To move from Barcelona at that time and at that age was a sign of Cesc\u2019s confidence, ambition&nbsp;and ability. It didn\u2019t take him long to establish himself as the fulcrum of a side which Wenger was remoulding. There was understandable angst when Vieira, Henry and Pires left but we obtained excellent fees for the first two and there was a sense that their best days were behind them. In the&nbsp;Champions League quarter final first leg in 2006, Fabregas dominated Vieira and underlined the wisdom of Wenger\u2019s decision to move Vieira on and replace him with Fabregas.&nbsp;In his pomp Wenger was an uncanny judge of when to let players go. Very rarely were there examples of players released by him who came back to haunt us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But by 2011 a saga had developed. Spain had won the World Cup the year before and some of the players dressed Cesc in a Barca shirt after the match. Arsenal had won nothing since the FA Cup in 2005, but we had produced some wonderful football with Cesc at the helm of a sometimes thrilling side. But Barca wanted Cesc back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Probably only Wenger could have&nbsp; resisted&nbsp; the entreaties of a club managed by Guardiola and who were the best in Europe when they came calling for Fabregas after the World Cup. Before Chelsea made it fashionable Wenger had signed Fabregas to a seven-year contract. He made Fabregas stick to that contract in 2010 but the following year things turned to custard at Arsenal. Fabregas and and Nasri were sold against Wenger\u2019s wishes, we lost 8-2 to United at the start of the season, and went on what was referred to as &#8220;a late trolley dash&#8221; which brought in the likes of Arteta and Mertesacker but also Andre Santos and Park the Korean who joined Gervinho at the club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wenger faced big problems &#8211; a financially-doped Chelsea and Manchester City, and the continual need to repay the stadium debt which severely restricted his spending. On top of everything he faced the continued battle with Ferguson. One senses there was little clarity in football terms around him&nbsp; and that Summer I started to believe that he would never lead us back to past glories. But he still managed 3 FA Cups which is a lot better than the Spuds or almost any other club managed in the same period. Wenger\u2019s star did fade, his confidence in paying large amounts faltered without David Dein beside him but he still retained the ability to coax special performances out of his squad and never lost the respect of his players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>2012 &#8211; Robin Van Payslip departs &#8211; but can you blame him?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My misgivings about the future in 2011\/12 were clearly shared by Robin Van Persie who had emerged as the most potent striker in the league. His prevarication over signing a new contract indicated the likelihood of his moving on. Here I diverge from many of my fellow Gooners who were appalled at his treatment of the club. Many of the same Gooners were supportive of what Sol Campbell did to Tottnumb because it led to huge success at a better positioned club. While I was horrified to lose Van Persie I absolutely understand why he left. Arsenal were not in a position to challenge for the League and the move he made worked out very well for him. I don\u2019t accept that had he stayed we would have won the league instead of United. Arsenal at the start of the 2012 season were a mess. Careers are short and while it is easy to see Van Persie as a mercenary it was a great move for his career. His subsequent rationalisations (\u2018the little boy in me\u2018) weren\u2019t easy to take but Wenger did negotiate a decent price for him. His departure came because&nbsp; of the confusion that reigned in our club at that time: Ivan Gazidis was not someone who created strategic clarity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The one who should have got away<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I am closing with a player who we gave a huge contract to &#8211; a move that met with almost universal approval&nbsp;at the time and yet proved to be a big mistake. Pierre Emerick Aubameyang was the major reason why we won the 2020 FA Cup. He was out of contract and massive media pressure &#8211; and pressure from the Arsenal fan base &#8211; insisted that we retain him at any cost. Despite a recent problem with Mesut \u00d6zil, who we had rewarded (with less cause than Auba) with a very large contract and seen his performances tail off, we then&nbsp;did exactly the same thing with Aubameyang. With much the same result. Not long into the period of that contract Mikel Arteta took a very firm decision to move him on. Viewers of &#8220;All or Nothing&#8221; will be aware that this was a decision that was opposed by the rest of the Arsenal hierarchy. Arteta showed huge resolution and has been proved completely right. So was the decision to re-sign Auba wrong? With the benefit of hindsight it probably was but looking back at the post-FA Cup euphoria in 2020 it was hard to do anything else. That underlines the difficulty of signing and retaining players and being prepared to let them go. So often fans don\u2019t have all the relevant facts at their fingertips and aren\u2019t in a position to make the right judgement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tottnumb already appear a club refreshed after Kane\u2019s departure. New solutions emerge&#8230;sometimes &#8230;and over the years Arsenal have survived the loss of key players. But what might have happened if we\u2019d retained Liam Brady, Frank Stapleton, or Cesc Fabregas? We can never know, and that is part of the intrigue of football.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images The recent departure of Harry Kane and its impact on the fan base of our beloved North London neighbours started me thinking about moments in our history when a player (or players) has departed and they seem irreplaceable. The loss of a superstar says many things, as I suspect we will [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8328"}],"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\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8328"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8362,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8328\/revisions\/8362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}