Writing an Arsenal blog for years is challenging. The constant search for new material that plagues all writers plagues me too. But my search is made every more treacherous by Arsenal's lack of variation.
August 29, 2017 09:27I could copy out word for word a blog from last season and it would be equally valid, and that is no testament to my effortlessly timeless penmanship.
* We still have a shaky defence.
* We still have no leaders on the pitch.
* And we're still being thrashed at Anfield.
Arsène Wenger is the tragic hero in a decade long Groundhog Day, except unlike Bill Murray, he doesn't learn from his mistakes, and is thus stuck in this recurring nightmare forever.
Following the game on BBC Sport from the Reading Festival, every goal felt like a punch in the stomach. By the end, I was winded. Even Connor McGregor managed to land some punches of his own.
Arsenal seemed more estranged from football than the Irishman did from boxing. Not a single shot on target for the away side. So much for the exciting front line I wrote so excitedly and naively about in my first article of the new season.
Wenger was evidently less enthused by the prospect of a reliable striker; opting to start Lacazette on the bench, only to replace Sanchez for 28 ineffective minutes at the end. Sanchez's substitution seemed almost arbitrary; not one player deserved to stay on the pitch.
Sanchez, with his primal desire to retain possession, now has a very precarious future. It is extensively reported that he wants to leave and, to be honest, why wouldn't he?
To be ridiculed in the Europa League, playing against BATE rather than Barcelona? Fighting the futile battle for fourth place, if we are so lucky, whilst being humiliated by any half-decent team we face along the way? Even Camus' Sisyphus would struggle to find the positives in Arsenal's perpetual fruitless struggle.
So it looks like I managed to get 300 words out of that Arsenal performance after all. Turns out writing can be quite cathartic. I imagine Shakespeare writing furiously after a fiery encounter with an indecisive Dane, or an incident of road rage involving an hubristic Scotsman.
But even Shakespeare could never have written the script of Arsenal's recent Premier League history. It's far too long and far too boring.