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A Voice Of Reason Amongst The Pancake Tossers

By The Boy -

Another cracking Guest Blog from Arcane.


Good to see that I can rely on my favorite haven of alt-right, libertarian, conspiracy theory-sucking, pancake tossers, to indulge myself in some comforting repetition of familiar themes.

Levy’s a c—. Indeed.

Do we really still need to go over that?

Poch’s a beaut. He is. Oh yes he is. You’ll see.

If you’re increasingly worried about following the Arse model, I’d say first, that’s the football equivalent of ‘first world problems’, so our worries seem to be rapidly improving even if our performances aren’t.

I agree that it’s an unacceptably stagnant model to aspire to, and don’t doubt for a moment that it’s the very height of DL’s limited footballing ambition – maximum financial gain for minimum risk.

F— him – Levy controls the bottom line, but he’d find it a more difficult model to copy than many seem to think, because as always in football, so many factors are involved and all are constantly in flux.

In this case a conservative financial policy is still entirely dependent on the quality and performance of the manager.

Wenger is unique in several respects – longevity and consistency most obviously, which includes his ability (albeit now probably waning) to bring in rising talents, and maintain his (recently limited) success on a comparatively low-budget.

I’m not at all concerned with any similarity that suggests with Poch, because there is an over-riding all-important difference between them. Wenger won his trophies early on, and in doing so cemented both his reputation, and his philosophy – a philosophy that has proved too inflexible to adapt to changed realities. He is old, set in his ways, and has for a long time had nothing left to prove, barring CL success.

Poch, on the other hand, knows full well that, while his reputation is now very high, he will have to win things to confirm it.

He is young, and anyone who doubts his burning desire to do that is frankly, more than a little blinkered in their desire for instant gratification.

So he will have a bottom line of his own. As long as he feels he can at least make incremental progress toward significant trophies, it seems he may well have the rare and admirable patience and good sense to stay at THFC.

This season has seen him voice more frustration, and more coded and not so coded messages to the chairweasle, that we lack the necessary quality – that he’s reaching the limit of his ability to overperform with a squad that is still significantly weaker than the competition.

Yes he may be playing a longer game than you have the patience for, but his game is certainly about winning.

Of course I’d have loved him to be able to force football realism on Levy faster – but that was never a possibility. I love the calm, measured, subtle way he’s been handling this process – towing the party line where necessary, praising Levy where possible, but saying enough to make his position clear to both sides.

If Levy continues to fail him in the transfer market, and progress becomes impossible, then no doubt he will go – and be successful somewhere else. But then, without him, the prospect of following the Arse model would likely be a pipe dream anyway.

At some point soon, something will have to give, between the Levy illusion, and the ambition of Poch, the players, and the fans.

I see no danger of us bumping along in the top 4 for 10 years without winning things, and HH finally getting to polish his trophy.

If Poch stays, it’ll be because he can, and will finish what he’s started. If he goes, anything could happen, but most likely the project will fall apart, progress lost, players leave, and the pressure will be on Levy.

Meanwhile it’s March, we’re 2nd going on third, exceeding all my expectations after the traditional summer transfer window debacle, and with plenty to play for.

Hoo- bloody-ray and up she rises.

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