Arsene Wenger, if you believe the popular press, is "embattled", has "lost the dressing room", and has "lost the plot". The big question is, how did he get here? How did he go from revolutionizing the game to being a man who has supposedly lost the plot in such a short period of time? Many of the things you'll read in this piece are nothing new, they're familiar criticisms - I just wanted to assemble them all in one place and attempt to...well, I'm not sure what. I can't solve his problems, I can't know what's going on in training, I just want to better understand what I think I know. So, here is a list of what I see as Arsene Wenger's major issues at this point.

1. Tactical Rigidity. As we all know, Arsene Wenger is not a man to tinker. He has a way he likes to play, and he plays that way come hell or high water. When he has a team that can play in his preferred way, Arsene's method is unstoppable - it flows, it destroys, it makes people ooh and aah in appreciation and it's a joy to watch. Problem is, when he doesn't have the horses, he can't run his race - yet he still tries to, with obvious (and painful) results.

2. Resistance to evolution. Arsene Wenger revolutionized the English league when he first arrived. He seemed to be the only one to understand that fried food and copious amounts of beer are not a good post-training regimen, and that players shouldn't smoke; he introduced nutritionists at Arsenal and improved (and personalized) training regimens, and it created a super-fit team who ran past everyone for several years.

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This has been a tough week. People are frustrated. Opinions will be vented over the next week, until Sunday's game probably, and many of those opinions might be both contrary to what you think and somewhat inflammatory in tone. Both of these things are perfectly OK. If you come across a comment that you disagree with to the extent that it makes you angry, do not attack the commenter - be cool. Discuss. Don't fight.

Thank you.

If Arsenal's defeats on Wednesday and Saturday marked another year of Arsenal being trophy-less, the manner of the defeats also suggested a deeper, more serious malaise. AC Milan and Sunderland are two vastly different teams, but both defended deeply against Arsenal, snuffing out creativity through the middle, and, through pressing, making it difficult to spread the play into wide areas. This defensive system, though, is hardly revolutionary; Alex McLeish used it in last year's Carling Cup final, Manchester City weren't terribly adventurous in the Carling Cup this year, and Alex Ferguson played Rafael and Fabio as wingers in last year's FA Cup quarterfinal. Home draws against defensive minded sides like Sunderland, Blackburn and Liverpool, along with losses to Bolton and Stoke effectively ended Arsenal's title challenge last season, a challenge made harder by a home loss to a very defensive Newcastle. Arsenal's struggles against these sides have been well documented and have occurred for quite a long time.

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We all lived through yesterday, and we all read the SBNation piece about Arsenal's perceived status in the Big Club Club this morning. There's nothing more to talk about there. I'm choosing to turn those frowns upside down, and choosing to write about how Arsenal are still, and will always be, my favorite non-baseball sports team.

I've been a fan since 1992ish. I've seen a lot of awesome things, and a lot of not-so-awesome things. This is the nature of sports - there's always good and there's always bad. But the other constant is me - I have been a fan no matter what. I express my displeasure - and I'm sure my non-soccer friends from the early days are thrilled that I now have the internet to bore with my ramblings rather than boring them with things they dont' care about - but at the end of the day, I'm still watching Arsenal all the time, I still read news about Arsenal, and I still care very deeply about something that can by its very nature never care about me in return. Is that weird? Sure it is, but it's also a lot of fun.

Sports are supposed to be fun. They're a diversion, an entertainment, a way to forget the bills and the mortgage and the cat vomit on the carpet and the annoying coworker and all that stuff. The problem is, sports are also tribal; my tribe is better than yours, your tribe is all a bunch of losers, etc. Those two concepts don't jibe for most people - they can't get past the tribalism because they see it as part of the fun.

Don't misunderstand me - I can be as tribal as the next person. I am, after all, the person who changed the desktop of the computer of a person I had never even met at a friend's office one night because it had Tottenham wallpaper on it (I put up a big picture of Tony Adams. It was brilliant). But at the end of the day, I take that for what it is - a bit of fun. If he had done the same to me, I would have laughed.

I guess what I'm saying is, when you read articles like this morning's SBN piece, read it and disregard it. Do not let other people define how you see your favorite team. Do not worry about how other people feel about Arsenal, or where other people see Arsenal's place in the fictional strata of Big Clubs or Top Four or whatever else. All that matters is how you feel, and all that's important is that, no matter what, you are still an Arsenal fan. That's what's important.

Arsenal are us, and we are Arsenal. Nobody else matters.

If you see a troll, please do not feed that troll, no matter how tempting it is. Notify one of the four of us and we'll take care of it.

If you are a troll, please take your trolling elsewhere. We don't come to your house and take a dump on your carpet, and we request the same courtesy from you. Friendly banter is fine, but dropping by solely for the purpose of pissing people off is not.

If you are a member here and feel the need to troll someone else's blog, please don't. It reflects badly on TSF as a whole.

One of the cardinal rules of this site is, to paraphrase, "don't be an ass". That applies to guests as well as regulars.

Thank you.

In his post-match interview after the FA Cup victory against Aston Villa yesterday, Arsène Wenger had this to say:

[Interviewer:] You named a very strong team for the FA Cup today; are you going all out for the competition this year?

"We have to, you know? And uh...as well I felt that we couldn't...lose another game, because it would just be mentally too hard to take for the players, and that's why I felt as well it's a competition where we have a chance, so let's go for it".

That is probably the most conclusive statement Wenger has made in the past few years about the FA Cup. In years past he has tended to deflect this kind of question by saying that the League is always the top priority, followed by the Champions League. Follow us after the jump for more thoughts:

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I've been far too negative about the Arsenal lately, both in my mind and on the blog. So, herein and below, I shall only list the positive things I feel about Arsenal right now.

Everyone listening to the above? Good. Here we go:

1. Arsenal are NOT queueing up for soup and scabby sores.
2. Bacary Sagna is back in full training.
3. Kieran Gibbs is not far behind him.
4. Jack Wilshere, when he returns, will be fresh and angry, and he's just what Arsenal need in the center of midfield right now.
5. Thomas Vermaelen may soon get to move back to center half next to Laurent Koscielny.
6. Arsenal have no flappers -- at least not in the starting lineup! Hey-o! Fabianski joke!
7. Robin van Persie is still a deadly finisher.
8. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is a fun guy to watch run around doing football-related things on a football pitch.
9. He is also very good at doing those football things like kicking footballs hard and passing footballs accurately to his fellow football guys.
10. Gervinho isn't gone forever and offers some things Arsenal could use.
    
11. Arsenal are above approximately 150 other professional English football clubs in the table. Things could be worse (could be stabbed).
12. Arsenal have a ton of money, which is more than most clubs can say.
13. Arsenal are not the Minnesota Vikings.
14. If they play their cards right, Arsenal will slowly be able to clear choking wages off their books and slowly build a new wage structure.
15. The players are holding team meetings to try to sort things out.
16. Arsenal are still in the Champions League (I can think of two clubs that are no longer in the Champions League).
17. Nico Yennaris.
18. Still have home matches against Spurs, Chelsea, City, and Newcastle.

STAY POSITIVE

I don't know if you heard or not, but Arsenal lost yesterday. I know! Third loss in a row! Crazy, right? Anyway, there were a number of things that came out of that game, and are coming out now that Arsenal have lost three games in a row, that are interesting and warrant further discussion, and here I am to tackle one of them. Sorry, boys and girls - detailed discussion of Wenger's substitution patterns will have to wait for another post. Today, I want to talk about booing.

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