When Highbury Was Home Podcast

We’ve Always Known How 1 Week In Football Can Change A Whole Lot, Yet This Past Week Reminded Us All Of Just How Much That Age-Old Adage Rings True In Our Beautiful Game - The Briefly Lived Initial Launch Of A Long Rumoured European Super League Rocked Football To It’s Core, With Some Of The Biggest Global Football Brands Banding Together To Create An Elitist League Owned & Controlled Solely By Themselves, A Reality We Were Momentarily Spared From Due To Fan Protests, UEFA Threats & Broadcaster Outcry - The Arsenal Board Have Some ‘Splaning To Do, As We The Fans Have Now Seen Them For Who They Truly Are... A Bunch Of Money Hungry Leeches Who Bought Into The Most Profitable Football Club In The World To Raid Her Of All Her Profit & Neglect To Invest In The Long-Term Fiscal Sustainability Of The Club... When The Kroenke’s Begun To See That Their Cash-Cow Was Causing More Beef With The Fans Than It Was Creating Profit, They Threw A Hail-Mary Pass In An Attempt To “Build Their Own Ranch” Through The ESL, Now That Their Plan Has Come To Naught, It’s Worth Taking A Moment To Ponder What Mr. Aliko Dangote Would Do. You’ve Run This Race As Far As You Can Kroenke’s, Cash In Now & Sell To Mr. Dangote While The Asset Still Has A High Resale Value. If Arsenal Aren’t Sold In The Next 12 Months, It’s Hard To See How We Will Actually Rebuild Our Once Great Football Club Under The Current Quasi Money Laundering “Sustainability-Based” Financial Model Being Instituted By The Egg-Faced Kroenke Family.

There Comes A Time In All Our Lives When We Are Against The Kosh, Forced To Showcase Some Degree Of Fight In Order To Survive & Advance, Tales Of Weathering Those Inevitable Moments Of Adversity Are Often Very Characteristic Of Every Great Champions' Life Story... Our Beloved Gooners Have May Have Made Their Bones By Being Tested Through The Fire, Over The Past Decade & A Half, Yet This Europa League Quarterfinal 2nd-Leg Is The Ultimate Test Of Their True Survival Instincts, As Our Entire Season & Even A Few Arsenal Careers Are Riding On The Outcome Of This Result (And Winning The Europa League).

It’s 90 Seconds To Go In The First Leg Of A Europa League Quarter-Final, And Your Team Can Take A Lead Into The 2nd-Leg Away From Home By Merely Seeing Out The Game, Yet You Are Still Not Comfortable As A Fan... That’s Because Arsenal Have Made A Habit Of Bottling It When The Pressure Is On, Especially When They Come Up Against Teams That They Really Ought To Be Beating. The Prague Game Is Proof Positive That These Current Lot, For The Most Part, Aren’t Good Enough For The Arsenal Still. Leno, Bellerin, Xhaka, Willian & Lacazette Aren’t Good Enough To Start Games Regularly For My Arsenal Team, Simple As... We’ve Accepted Them Over Th Years, Due To Our Dire Fiscal Standing, Yet They’ve Now Become The Reason Why Our Team Now Has Very Little Room For Improvement Even After 18 Months Under A New Manager. If They Don’t Deliver In The 2nd-Leg, And Go On To Finally Win The Europa League This Season, Then It’s Time To Bid Farewell To Mikel Arteta & The “Experienced” Players That He Trusted To The Hill Until They Inevitably Let Him Down, As They’ve Done To Arsene Wenger, Unai Emery Freddie & Ljunberg In The More Recent Past.

Losing Is A Necessary Part Of Sports & Life, One That Allows Us To Learn From Our Mistakes And Set Us Up For A Comeback Or Meteoric Rise To The Top... The Only Issue With Losing, Is The Manner In Which You Lose - You Can't Learn Much From A Failure Caused By A Situation In Which You Didn't Try Your Level Best - Our Beloved Arsenal Are No Where Near Knowing How Far They Are Away From, An Albeit Fallen On Hard Times Heavyweight, Team Like Liverpool... Which Intel That We Should Be Using To Gauge The Efficiency Of Our Rebuilding Process Thus Far. So Much For That!

It’s With A Heavy Heart That We Bid Farewell To A Legendary Arsenal Fan, Claude Callegari, Who Passed On From Natural Causes Aged 58. As An Avid Arsenal Fan TV (AFTV) Viewer, I Grew To Admire The OG Claude For His Unique Viewpoint & Candid Takes On The State Of Our Beloved Football Club, We Will All Miss Claude & Ty’s Banter In Studio. Rest In Power Gooner!

It’s Been A While Since We, As Arsenal, Went Into A Run Of Games Knowing That, Regardless Of How The Season Has Gone / Is Going, We Still Have The Power To Dictate How The Season Is Remembered Through The Manner In Which We Finish The Race Regardless, Of Our Final Position Or Lack Of Silverware Attained. The League Is Seemingly A Foregone Conclusion, With Manchester City Having To Collapse Right At The Finish Line To Blow Their Lead This Season, Yet Our Beloved Arsenal Are Still In The Europa League Round Of 32 & Just 6 Points Off The Top Six In The League... While There’s Still Quite A Bit Of Football Still To Be Played, These Next 3/4 Games Could Easily Define Arsenal’s Season From A Bigger Picture Perspective And Possibly Buy Mikel ArTekkas The Opportunity Cost He Needs To Kick-Start This Stalled Rebuild Process.

The Teething Stage Is Rumoured To Be When Infants Tend To Be At Their Most Unsettled, Disgruntled & Annoyed (Read Annoying) Of The Early Childhood Phases, Which I May Not Be Able To Vouch For Yet But I Can Still Use That External Perspective To Juxtapose That Early Childhood Occurrence To The Current State Of All Things Arsenal Related... As Things Currently Stand, This Is The Most Unsettled We’ve Been As A First Team Squad, As Disgruntled As We’ve Become As A Fanbase And As Annoyed (Annoying) As The Results Have Been For The Manager, After Looking Like We Had Fully Turned The Tide And Begun To Grow Into Who We May Be, Post A Decent Run Of Form That Coincided With The Boxing Day Beating Of Chelsea Last Year. This Has To Be The Culmination Of Our Valley, There Needs To Be A Series Of Peaks From Here On In As We Are Due A Positive Turn In Fortunes, Before Job Security Becomes More Than Just A Mikel Arteta Issue... As Eyes Will Inevitably Begin To Turn Towards Edu, Vinai, Josh Kroenke & The Players Themselves As Co-Defendants To The Charge Of Continually Failing To Improve The Arsenal During Their Tenure's At The Club.

Giving Up The Good For The Great Is A Tradeoff That Many Struggle To Fully Come To Terms With, Before Seeking To Master That Art And Afford Themselves Some Increased Opportunity Cost To Trade In For New Opportunities. The Rebuilding Of Arsenal Has Been A Process That Many Of Us Had Been Calling For Since 2010, Yet It Took Us Having To Fall To Newfound Lows Before We Could Have An Opportunity To Rise Back To Our Rightful Standing Within World Football. As We Enter The End Of Mikel’s First Full Season In Charge, It’s Time To Fully Buy Into What The Team Is Building Under The Current Regime... For Us A Arsenal Fans, The Road To Redemption Is Well Worth The Travel Time, Stopovers & Baggage Claim Issues.

There Is Nothing Like A Good Beef To Light The Weekend Football Fire... When One Thinks Of Arsenal Versus Manchester United, They Think Of A Modern Battle That Goes Way Beyond A Football Game; The Historical Impact Of This Fixture Dates Back To The 1800’s, With The First Competitive Match Coming In October Of 1894; Their Previous 233 Ties Have Seen Arsenal Win 84 Times, With 97 Losses & Just 52 Draws Shared Between The Two Great Rivals. While The Result Of This Game Has Often Had A Large Impact On How Each Side Views Their Seasons Accomplishments, Merely Winning This Game Can Also Help Define A Teams Season, Especially When Both Teams Are At Their Peak, Or Thereabouts.