Sport: Arsenal, the Unravelling

So, the Gunners now have a win under their belts, and the seemingly disastrous transfer window now shows some glimmers of hope, with help form la Liga (and the Spanish economy).

Hooray.

Forgive this writer for not jumping and cheering. Underneth the sighs of relief, there is that feeling of "same crap, different season"

Another opening day. Another loss. Comprehensively beaten 4-3 by a marauding Liverpool side that included a familiar bane to Gunners in the form of Sadio Mane. Then on to a drab, scoreless stalemate at Champions Leceister City that might well have had a different result had a penalty been awarded for Bellerin's "professional" foul late in the game.

The truth is, Arsenal, for its seeming upswing, in in the throes of a long unravelling that is especially painful for fans. Season after season, the team underachieves, losing games that it ought to win, and i n some cases embarrassingly so.

And things are about to get worse. Old Wenger nemesis Jose Mourinho has taken the reins at Manchester united, while his bitter rival Pep Guardiola (who some had as a potential Wenger successor) is settling in for the sheiks at Manchester City. a massive Manchester Derby looms in about two weeks. Italian maestro Antonio Conte is leading a revitalized Chelsea squad untethered from the toxic relationship with Mourinho that torpedoed their title defense last season.

And Arsenal? Still plodding along with a manager stuck in the past, and propped up by a Board too busy milking the cash cow that the club has become.

Has Wenger been great for Arsenal? Without doubt. And the club has clearly benefitted form his tenure, both i n the footballing and the financial sense.

But Wenger has been making a string of inexcusable tactical errors ove the past few seasons. The most egregious being against Liverpool i nthe season past; Wenger, with a 3-2 lead and minutes left to play, he inserts Arteta into a game that we ought o have taken full points form; Arteta almost immediately gets caught out, allowing Joe Allen to run on to the loose ball and slot past a helpless Cech. And the less said about the Champions league tie against Barcelona, the better.

its easy to call for a manager's head i n the Premier League; money's being sprayed left right and centre like water treatment on a grass pitch, but it should be clear to even the most hardened loyalists that the end of the Wenger era is at hand.

to the Board: do it now, when there's less pain and there can - unlike the departure of Pellegrini at City - be some dignity; a proper farewell.

let's not let the team disintegrate before we do something

Sport: with Villa 'out to lunch" Gunners, Wenger leap into history

Going into today's FA Cup final at London's Wembley, Arsenal was a team on the cusp, in several repsects.

A win would mean no other team would have as many trophies (12), no other team would have notched back-to-back wins on two separate occasions (the gunners previously did it in the 2002 and 2003 seasons) and no other manager since WWII had notched more than 5 wins.

Well, all those conditionalities were soundly resolved today in one of the most lop-sided victories in over a decade, as the resurgent Gunners thumped a strangely out of touch and out of sorts Aston Villa 4-0, in a game that could easily have seen two or three more goals for Wenger's men.

Walcott opened the account with a fine volley 5 minutes from the interval, justifying the manager's faith in starting him over Giroud.  Then, ironically five minutes into the second half, Alexis Sanchez delivered the coup de grace, a thunderous 32-yard screamer that dipped exquisitely to chip in under the crossbar and effectively remove any residual resistance from a clearly resigned Tim Sherwood and his squad.

A towering Mertesacker header and a simple tap-in from late sub Giroud (who now has 4 goals in consecutive matches against Villa) slammed and sealed the coffin and sent the trophy back to the Emirates for at least another year. Deserved jubilation for Arsenal and dejection for the shell-shocked Villans and their fans, the latter no doubt expecting much more of a contest than materialized.

It may not totally wipe taste of losing both the Premiership (to Chelsea) and the Champions League (to Monaco, subsequently wiped out by finalists Juventus), but it sure speaks volume about Arsenal's potential as a dominant team, both in England and in Europe, come next season.

The players will surely be off to a well-deserved summer break.

localjoe.myorganogold.com