Exactly. Let's see how they hold up against good sides before we crown them champions. Dortmund was their first real test and they flopped. I wouldn't really put too much into the Spurs game either considering it was early into the season and their squad had just gotten several new additions whereas Arsenals was largely the same ... Next month will be telling
Reading this response, I must say it's pretty frustrating to read as an Arsenal fan. No proper fan who isn't a total wum has been saying Arsenal are champions-elect, or even League cup champions! Fans are happy that the club finally appears to have some positivity to it. The first thing to remember is that
everybody loses. Even Barcelona under Pep with his best XI lost against some pretty average teams, it is part of the game and expecting every game unbeaten is something which is almost unheard of.
What sustains you as a fan of a club in transition, such as Arsenal or Liverpool, is that you feel nostalgia for former glories, to feel that your club can, no - will - come good again. That either means in terms of success, but also in less tangible aspects such as the way it is run, the style of football and to have a team you identify with, made up of players who seem to enjoy playing for their club as much as you enjoy watching. As a fan, you understand you have little chance of winning anything, and that you likely have a painful collapse or two to watch during the season; but you want to have that tempered by hope; something which allows you to actually cheer for your team and identify with fellow fans.
In recent years, it has been pretty hard to cheer for a new stadium, because that is all the club has achieved. New corporate boxes? The crowd most certainly
isn't going wild. New sponsorship deals? Corporate hospitality? ... The terraces are as silent to that, as the visiting businessmen eating prawn sandwiches in those shiny new corporate boxes.
Yes, as a fan you understand the potential of such things, you understand this adds to the stature of the club, and it is great that the stadium can be expanded (already partially done during the close season, with a potential upwards of 80,000), it is great that the brand of the club is strong, that the global fan base is still colossal despite not winning anything in ages.. but as a fan I cannot cheer for that. It says a lot, that on the Arsenal facebook page, where there are lots of "new" Asian and South African fans (amongst others), even they took to writing "Spend some ******* money!" in pretty terrible English after year after year of frustration.
What is finally starting to look better, however, is the ambition of the club gradually matching the fans'. Wenger understands he doesn't have another 17 years to build a team, as he said in a recent interview, and his brilliance at hiding our net spend being lower than 80% teams in the league yet still qualifying for the Champions League like a croissant-scented metronome. I think that the signing of Ozil, signing a top class player in their prime, something which hasn't happened at Arsenal for
eighteen years marks a substantial change; perhaps not in the first XI or the squad this season, but in the momentum of the football club. Allowing players, and fans, to believe that the potential is there.. that other top class players will follow. That first trophy, whatever it is, is going to be an awful lot sweeter having been through this journey of transition. The problem with flying so high is that you fall further, and Arsenal for a long time have been a pale shadow of the Invincibles both in terms of mental steel and skill.
Watching Arsenal pick apart an admittedly poor Norwich; enjoying Ramsey doing his Zidane-turn-into-dribble and Ozil finding players with superb pin point passing, I felt the team were almost daring myself to believe that the club you supported could be on its way back, that the perennial seasons of missed opportunity could be drawing to a close. The performance almost made me feel the players recognise that, the confidence that they can win tangible.
When I see "flopped", I was immediately stuck with the feeling you didn't watch the game, and I felt a little disheartened you want to break down the performance to a caricature. That you're desperate to find that same brush that has been well worn for the last eight years, to take up painting the same picture of just failing at the last moment. In fact, both goals in that game came from confidence. Ramsey's overconfidence that he can do anything in his current form, and Sagna providing an overlap he didn't need to whilst wanting to push for a win, to push for that glory of actually breaking the cycle of being there, but not quite on the top of the pile. There was good heart in the team, some great play, and this is against a top side in great form, under a fantastic manager.
This is why fans are positive; nobody is already cheering the premier league trophy. It is that regardless of the wins or loses, shockingly bad performances or brilliant ones - that over arching factor.... that glacial sense of progression, that feeling of making you want to dare to believe; to believe it could actually be the start of something new. Perhaps not this season,; but undoubtedly the club is finally gaining momentum and appears to not be perpetually stalled. To feel that momentum once again as a fan is a glorious thing, and it makes both fans and players want to re-gain that place at the top table and make it their own.