Our resident Arsenal fans drinking in the Football Transfer Tavern have agreed with our landlord to keep their signature yellow and navy balloons and bunting above the bar until this weekend is over, hell bent on continuing to enjoy last weekend’s FA Cup Final success over Aston Villa.
A topic on the lips of many fans in the bar this week has been whether Arsenal have truly progressed and whether they can call the 2014/15 campaign a successful season.
For the majority of Gooners, they do believe the team is headed on the correct path towards Premier League glory in the next couple of seasons with automatic qualification to the Champions League secured – they’ve finally trumped fourth – and of course a second successive FA Cup delivered, no mean feat in modern day competition.
For others however, they claim Arsenal are performing around the same level as they enjoyed in 2013/14. After all, Arsene Wenger’s men accumulated 79 points last season, four points more than the 75 they accumulated in 2014/15 so for this reason, their argument does stand up somewhat.
Despite this, our more positive Gooners are claiming that any Arsenal side with Alexis Sanchez in it surely has to be more successful than without with the little Chilean having truly lit up the Premier League in his debut season and given he was carrying Arsenal for large periods on his own, some believe it is he and not Chelsea’s Eden Hazard who deserved the PFA Player of the Year crown.
With 2014/15 now done and dusted, we have shortlisted 5 of the more outrageous moments from Arsenal’s most recent campaign.
[ffc-gallery]
Click on Arsene Wenger below to reveal the 5 most outrageous moments of Arsenal’s season.
[/ffc-gallery]
The abuse Wenger suffered on that Stoke train platform
We start with the most infamous moment of Arsenal’s campaign and to think that Gooners were lauding their French tactician and singing chants of ‘One Arsene Wenger’ at the Gunners’ FA Cup trophy parade only last weekend, it’s hard to believe that this incident occurred THIS season!
On a typically tough day for the Gunners in the Potteries with Wenger’s men going down 3-2 in the end after an emphatic 3-0 half-time scoreline for Stoke City, this period was the time in which the #WengerOut brigade were out in full force.
While the Britannia Stadium is always a tough place for Arsenal to visit, they simply capitulated on this December afternoon and the lacklustre performance was too much for the majority of Gooners who were lamenting the direction in which their beloved side were heading.
While the majority of travelling Gooners left Stoke-on-Trent irate and angry, a small minority of so-called Arsenal fans decided to take their anger to new heights while waiting for the team to board their train bound for London.
It was here whereby vulgar scenes of these fans abusing Wenger from only a few yards away greeted YouTube and social media for the weeks following the incident but it must be acknowledged that these actions were condemned as a step too far by most other Arsenal supporters.
Good vs evil on the Stamford Bridge touchline
While Arsenal fans will secretly admit inside that Jose Mourinho is a great manager, as for the man himself – well, he is the epitome of everything un-Arsenal like and a man that is a true enemy to the Gunners.
It is clear that since his arrival in English football back in 2004 that Mourinho has gotten under Wenger’s skin and with their dislike for each other seemingly growing by the season, the tension bubbling under the surface proved too much for the Arsenal boss on the Stamford Bridge touchline back in October 2014.
After growing irate at the officials for failing to send off Gary Cahill for an illegal challenge on Alexis Sanchez with the game tied at 0-0, the Frenchman was angry with this potential game-changing decision and when walking towards the fourth official, became entangled in a face off with Mourinho.
Pushing the Portuguese boss at the time, Arsenal fans around the globe were glued to their television screens, willing Wenger on in what they firmly believed was a case of good vs evil.
While the professional bodies will of course claim this kind of behaviour can’t be condoned, you can understand Wenger’s hatred for Mourinho.
After all, this was a man who clearly has no respect for the Frenchman despite what he’s done in the game, time and again calling him out in public mockery tactics.
Chelsea of course went on to win the game 2-0 and Arsenal fans are still craving a first Wenger victory over their best enemy!
Wojciech trying to forget his Southampton errors with a ciggy
The Mirror have reported recently that Arsenal’s FA Cup winning goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny has been at it again – caught smoking whilst away with Poland in preparation for their Euro 2016 qualifier with Georgia.
The question Gunners fans are asking themselves right now is will he ever learn?
The latest scoop is the series in a long line of offences Szczesny has committed but it was his smoking antics following the Gunners’ 2-0 New Year’s Day defeat to Southampton that caused outrage among Arsenal supporters everywhere.
Eventually fined £20,000 by the club after the Polish international was found guilty of smoking in the showers following the disappointing loss, what hurt the goalkeeper more was the fact that as of that day, he was effectively replaced as the Gunners number one by David Ospina who kept net until the end of the 2014/15 campaign.
Szczesny redeemed himself somewhat by competing well against Aston Villa in last Saturday’s FA Cup Final but Arsenal fans still haven’t forgot his shaky day between the sticks at St Mary’s back in January.
With Ospina receiving his own chant following the Pole’s lacklustre peformance on the south coast, it seems that Gooners’ patience with Szczesny has finally ran out with his hit and miss form, not to mention his numerous misdemeanour’s.
This is why Chelsea’s Petr Cech is so sought after this summer.
Danny Welbeck biting off the hand that once fed him!
Aside from winning the FA Cup Final itself, the best moment of Arsenal’s 2014/15 campaign as a whole?
The majority of Gooners in the tavern reckon so after Danny Welbeck completed the mother of all ‘biting off the hand that once fed you’ performances back at Old Trafford in March.
Deemed not good enough to continue at Manchester United under incoming manager Louis van Gaal, Welbeck made the Dutchman eat humble pie after he latched onto a misplaced Antonio Valencia back pass to round David De Gea and dump the Red Devils out of the FA Cup at the sixth-round stage in a 2-1 victory for Wenger’s men.
Unable to keep his emotions in check following the strike, it was refreshing to see a player truly enjoy a huge moment in his career despite Welbeck being a Manchester boy and a United fan of course.
After the final whistle, Welbeck admitted it was hard having dumped his boyhood club out of the cup but this moment has endeared him to Gooners everywhere and has levelled up the standings with Robin van Persie having of course defected to United before like Welbeck, going onto score against his former employers.
Santi Cazorla pepper sprayed by referee Jon Moss!
One of the lighter moments of the 2014/15 campaign but one that certainly fits the ‘outrageous’ category!
Back upon the opening day of the season, Arsenal flattered to deceive in an eventual slender 2-1 victory over Crystal Palace.
After going 1-0 down to the Eagles courtesy of a Brede Hangeland strike, goals from Laurent Koscielny and then Aaron Ramsey in second-half stoppage time made sure of the three points but it was an incident involving referee for the day Jon Moss that was being replayed more times than the goals themselves!
Having awarded a free kick to the Gunners and Spanish midfield maestro Santi Cazorla, it was time for Moss to use the vanishing spray that had enjoyed its debut in football at the World Cup that same summer.
Being used in Premier League football for the very first time – remember this was when fans were still cheering its use – Moss didn’t only manage to eventually mark out a line from which Cazorla could shoot from but also managed to spray the Spanish international in the face by accident.
Like a bouncer getting rid of a rowdy club goer on a boozy night out, Cazorla got the old pepper spray treatment in one of those moments clearly destined for the next batch of football funny DVDs.
