Five Reasons Why Arsenal Are Not A Great Club
No, this is not some sort of practical joke and I am more than aware of the fact that April Fools was over two weeks ago. Your eyes are not playing any tricks on you and you have read it correctly. Arsenal are not a great club.
This will certainly cause a stir. Many people might have already dismissed me as a delusional buffoon just by looking at the headlines, but there are various reasons as to why the North Londoners just cannot be considered a great club. I am not going to beat around the bush or mince my words, instead I am going to get straight to the point.
So, here are my five reasons for believing that Arsenal are not a great club:
Lack of European Success
One of the things that unites the elite European clubs is them winning the European Cup/Champions League.
From Real Madrid to AC Milan, Liverpool, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Ajax, Manchester United, Inter, Juventus, Borussia Dortmund etc. they have all won it. In fact, even smaller clubs such as Nottingham Forest, Aston Villa, Steaua București, Feyenoord and Red Star Belgrade have won it. However, Arsenal have never won it at any point in their entire history and have only come closing to winning it just once.
Furthermore, throughout the history of European football, there have been four main cup competitions: The Champions League/European Cup, UEFA Cup/Europa League, UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup and lastly the UEFA Super Cup.
The most European cup competitions won by any club is Real Madrid with 19 trophies in total, but Arsenal on the contrary have collected only one European trophy. This was the Cup Winners’ Cup, which was won 26 years ago!
The Gunners winning just one trophy means that they are currently behind IFK Göteburg, KV Mechelen, Dynamo Kyiv, Hamburg SV, Anderlecht and Aberdeen.
Moreover, it puts them level with Dinamo Tbilisi, Slobodan Bratislava and FC Magdeburg. Have you even heard of these clubs? I most certainly haven’t, and I know that many of you are likely lying if you said that you have. The mere fact that Arsenal are being mentioned in the same breath as these unknown, inconspicuous teams speaks volumes.
Funnily enough, Tottenham Hotspurs, a club that Arsenal fans have mercilessly derided for decades about supposedly being a small club with no history, have more European silverware (3) than Arsenal! If this is not the textbook example of hilarious (and not to mention ironic), then I really don’t know what is. This will be certainly music to the ears of all Tottenham fans.
As for the most successful English clubs in Europe, Arsenal are ranked in joint-seventh place with West Ham and Ipswich Town and are behind Liverpool (13), Man United (7), Chelsea (6), Nottingham Forest (3), Tottenham (3) and Aston Villa (2). This is quite simply unacceptable for a great club.
Inability to Get Past the Champions League R16
Arsenal played Champions League football seven times in the last 10 years. Despite this, they never made it past the round of 16!
To put things into perspective, Leicester City have made it past that stage of the tournament more times in that same period even though they played Champions League football just once. To add insult to injury, this was in 2016/17, the season where Leicester spent most of their time fighting for survival down in the bottom half of the table!
Arsenal fans will argue that this is because they have been drawn mostly against Barcelona and Bayern Munich. Whilst this is true, they also need to remember that in 2015 they were drawn against AS Monaco, but still failed to make it through to the quarter-final.
You have to ask yourself whether they are truly a great club if they crash out of the Champions League round of 16 every single time they face one of Europe’s giants. It is at this stage of the tournament when the men are separated from the boys.
Even prior to 2010, their record was still below par as they were knocked out of the group stages four times and exceeded the quarter-finals just twice in 12 years, which is substandard at best.
Recent Away Record
There are no words in the dictionary that can eloquently describe just how appalling Arsenal’s recent away record is against the rest of the Premier League’s top six sides i.e. Man United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester City and Tottenham.
Since August 2004, Arsenal have played those teams a combined total of 96 times in all competitions. As it stands, their record is 19 wins, 25 draws and 52 losses. This means that they have an overall win rate of just 19.79%.
Some of those defeats include Arsenal getting extirpated 8–2 and 4–0 to Man United, 5–1 (twice), 4–0 and 4–1 to Liverpool, 6–0 to Chelsea, 6–3 to Man City and 5–1 to Tottenham. I cannot help but ask, will a great team constantly get drubbed by such hefty margins? I very much doubt it.
Arsenal’s last away victory in any competition against one of the league’s top six sides was on 23rd September, 2015 against Tottenham at White Hart Lane in the League Cup third round.
In the league, their last away victory against a top six side was on 18th January, 2015 against Man City at the Etihad. This was 2,021 days ago which is the equivalent of approximately 3,031.5 hours and 181,890 minutes in football! The fact is this record is what you would expect from a mid-table team or lower.
But it gets much worse. Wolves, despite being absent from the Premier League for 6 years, have more away wins in the league against the top six sides than Arsenal have in the last 5 years.
Selling Club
Whenever a bigger club comes calling, Arsenal’s best players demand a transfer and more often than not, end up leaving and becoming successful. It has happened throughout the entire century and the number of players who have done this is almost endless.
This extensive list includes the following: Emmanuel Petit, Nicholas Anelka, Marc Overmars, Patrick Vieira, Thierry Henry, Ashley Cole, Emmanuel Adebayor, Mathieu Flamini, Samir Nasri, Cesc Fabregas, Gaël Clichy, Bacary Sagna, Alexander Hleb, Alex Song, Thomas Vermaelen, Robin van Persie, Alexis Sánchez, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and lastly Aaron Ramsey. Quite a list of players to say the very least!
As we currently speak, Pierre Emerick Aubameyang still has not extended his contract and with every passing minute, the rumours about his transfer intensify and look more likely.
The Gabonese FA President, Jean-Pierre Mounguengui, pulled no punches as he urged the prolific goal scorer to leave The Emirates for a better club. In an interview with ESPN, Moungengui said:
“I don’t want to say that Arsenal aren’t ambitious, but Arsenal don’t have ambitions as high as some other clubs as far as Europe is concerned.”
This sentiment has been echoed by several ex-Arsenal players. The lack of ambition was called into question by Nasri, who told L’Equipe regarding his transfer to Man City back in August 2011:
“I have reached a turning point in my career and it was important that I joined a club with ambition. I believe I have more chance of winning titles at Manchester City than Arsenal.”
Fabregas also threw in his two cents recently by lifting the lid on his decision to leave Arsenal for Barcelona in that same month. The Spanish midfielder told Arseblog:
“Sometimes, I used to go home after we lost and I used to cry. I used to suffer. I used to suffer, I used to spend sleepless nights suffering. And then you lose a game, you’re in the bus like this, destroyed, and then you hear some players laughing, thinking about where they will be going out later. I felt Robin and Samir were the only players … who were at my level mentally and technically.”
The former Arsenal left back, Alex Santos, repeated this shocking revelation back in November 2019. The Brazilian said to Universo Online:
“I saw no ambition to win the title. When I’m in a club, I want to lift the title, but I saw that Arsenal didn’t have that ambition. They played it seems that by playing. They lost and were laughing on the bus already.”
In what will surely be a massive kick in the teeth to Arsenal fans, the greatest player and goal scorer in their club’s history, Thierry Henry, admitted that Arsenal are not a big club! After Arsenal’s away defeat to CSKA Moscow in the Champions League back in October 2006, a journalist from Sky Sports asked Henry in a post-match interview “you said it shows that you’re not a big club, what did you mean by that?” The Frenchman, who was visibly irate due to the referee’s performance along with the result, bluntly replied by saying “it means what I’m saying, we’re not a big club yet!”
Can you imagine Steven Gerrard or Ryan Giggs making such an admission about their respective clubs? It is quite simply unimaginable!
But there seems to be a pattern here and like the old saying goes, there’s no smoke without fire. Long story short, Arsenal aren’t good enough. The proof is in the pudding. The Gunners are currently in ninth place and crashed out of the Europa League round of 32 to Olympiacos at home on away goals.
In addition, if the season does resume then Arsenal could still play Sheffield United in the FA Cup quarter-final at Bramall Lane. After already losing there this season, there is no guarantee that the Gunners will be victorious in this clash.
It is therefore very likely that Arsenal could not only finish the season trophyless, but also without European football altogether.
Inability to Sign Top Players
Just as the Gunners have lost the majority of their best players to bigger clubs; they have also lost out in signing a lot of big names as well.
The most notable examples over the years have been Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Eden Hazard, Yaya Touré, Zlatan Ibrahimović, Didier Drogba, Sami Khedira, Geoffrey Kondogbia, Raphaël Varane, Luis Suárez, Gonzalo Higuaín, N’Golo Kanté, Paul Pogba, Vincent Kompany, Gianluigi Buffon, Karim Benzema and Gareth Bale. Wow, what a list!
So, not only do Arsenal fail to keep their best players, they also constantly miss out on world-class players.
Gooners will undoubtedly leap to their club’s defence and point towards Man United, who have also missed out on lots of players recently. However, this has been predominantly in the post-Fergie era where the club has constantly been in disarray. Under Fergie, this wasn’t normally the case whereas with Arsenal it has been, especially under Arsène Wenger.
Also, it is worth mentioning that United still acquire top players such as Ibrahimović along with Bruno Fernandes and Paul Pogba. The Red Devils can and still attract top players even with all their woes in recent years.
This information is very overwhelming and will no doubt stir up a fury amongst the Arsenal faithful. I can detect a furious army of Gooners getting ready to say, “13 league titles and 13 FA Cups!” Whilst this certainly is a brilliant achievement, their appalling record in Europe dents their overall success.
They will also bring up them winning the league at Anfield, Old Trafford and twice at White Hart Lane. Bragging rights aside, these accomplishments don’t mean anything. The league titles won on those grounds have the same worth as the nine other league titles that Arsenal have won.
Furthermore, the fact that Arsenal have never been relegated in their 133-year history should be taken with a pinch of salt. Both Liverpool and Man United have been relegated at some point in their history, yet in terms of their overall success, they are both superior to Arsenal on almost every platform, bar the FA Cup.
Of course, the invincible record will be mentioned. This too is a magnificent feat; however, Preston North End had an unbeaten season, albeit 115 years ago. Forest won back-to-back European Cups, one of only eight teams to retain the trophy. In 2018, Man City became the first and only English team ever to win the topflight with 100 points. These are also great achievements that can match Arsenal’s 49-game unbeaten run; so, should Preston, Forest and City be considered great clubs? Absolutely not.
I am not going to call Arsenal “a small club” because I know that this is factually incorrect. Even the most clueless fan will know that such a claim does not have any truth to it. Arsenal are a very good club and have numerous records and accolades to prove that. However, there is a fine line between very good and great. Thus, it is evident based on all the facts and figures that the Gunners simply are not the latter.
Until Arsenal fix all the areas that are holding them back from reaching their full potential and making it to the next level, they will continue to be just a very good club. In the words of Triple H, Arsenal are “a B+ player”. A harsh assessment, but an accurate one, nonetheless.
Edits made by Lisa Berrie