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Tottenham, Envy and the Price of Silver
According to recent reports, Spurs manager Martin Jol finds it difficult to comprehend why Arsenal boss Arsene Wengers work continues to attract generous praise in spite of the fact that the Gunners have not won a trophy this season.
Jol is not alone in that respect. It is a common problem amongst the more intellectually challenged, for whom even simple arithmetic can present apparently insuperable difficulties and with that in mind it is obviously unreasonable to expect a profound understanding of the game.
In the interests of education and good will, perhaps we can help. To begin with, whilst the acquisition of trophies may be the principal aim of top clubs (Arsenal included), it is not the only yardstick by which success may be measured and if it were, it would condemn the vast majority to failure, and in particular clubs like Tottenham Hotspur who have invested heavily and yet find difficulty in recalling the last time they won a North London derby, much less a piece of silverware.
The truth is that there are only four trophies up for grabs the Premiership, the Champions League or UEFA Cup, the F.A. Cup and the Carling Cup and if any club wins more than one, it becomes even harder for the others (or in Spurs case, well nigh impossible). Since Arsene Wenger arrived in 1996, Arsenal have won the Premiership three times, the F.A. Cup four times, secured two League and Cup doubles, and picked up the Charity/Community Shield four times. In addition, they have gone an unprecedented whole season unbeaten, been finalists in the Champions League, the UEFA Cup and the Carling Cup and, most significantly of all perhaps, played the best, most exciting and most entertaining football this country has ever seen, often while bringing through a team of predominantly young players.
Thats an awful lot for people like Martin Jol to be envious about and apparently too much for many of them to grasp. Fortunately, there are still lovers of football who would prefer to watch Arsenal lose (which they dont do very often) playing their brand of football rather than endure the relentless, mind numbing, robotic version of the game perpetrated by Chelsea in the grim pursuit of silverware.
In the end it comes down to this. Is silver all you covet or do you prefer gold?
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