Date: 6th July 2012 at 3:46pm
Written by:

Two loyal Gooners dedicated to the Arsenal cause.....

Two loyal Gooners dedicated to the Arsenal cause.....

July 2011- A young lad by the name of Jonathan Mark Howson who grew up in Morley Leeds is given the permanent captaincy of his boyhood side Leeds United, every young boys dream growing up, surely the best moment of his life.

18th January 2012- The same young lad, still captain of his boyhood team, announces he is to leave the club, ok you think, Manchester United? Liverpool? Maybe Arsenal have come in for him?? No….. Norwich City. Now from the outside looking in I can see reasons as to this move, Howson has ambitions to crack the big time and has a better chance of doing so in the Premier League but are Norwich a bigger club than Leeds? I wouldn’t say so, put yourself in his position now, I know for me if I was captaining Man United, no matter how hard a time they had fallen upon that would be the top of the top and leaving them whilst club captain would be the last thing on my mind.

Football changes so rapidly these days that people lose their patience far too quickly and forget this, Leeds at this point still have an outside chance at promotion, Norwich are by no means safe in the Premier League, and now look at the situations, Neil Warnock, Championship promotion specialist in charge at Leeds and Lambert has upped sticks and moved onto Aston Villa. In 1 or 2 seasons who is to say where these 2 clubs will be? Don’t forget Norwich were 2nd bottom of League 1 just 3 seasons ago and Leeds were playing Barcelona in the Champions League 12 years ago!
No Loyalty to your local side- I could understand this if his local side was Accrington Stanley- languishing in League 2 and your talents deserve more but Leeds & Norwich are hardly worlds apart.

The Robin Van Persie saga this week reminded me of this and the lack of patience player’s show nowadays and getting that balance between loyalty and ambition, how many players have left Arsenal over the last 3 or 4 seasons to find pastures new? Nasri, Fabregas, Adebayor, Clichy, Toure, Flamini, Diarra- (Obviously the Fabregas transfer was a bit different to the others and you would never begrudge him that move) but if you combine this list of players with the current crop you have yourself a very strong looking team/squad indeed- throw Wilshere back in there also and I feel a title challenge would definitely not be beyond this side, yet players keep leaving citing lack of ambition or differing opinions on where the club is going….

Again I reiterate, I do not begrudge players making moves to the likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid, or even a new challenge when you have been at a club for a while but for me when I see players leaving clubs like Arsenal who, lets get it right, are a massive club with a great stadium, legendary manager, they are all but debt free and in the centre of one of the busiest most fashionable cities the world and sign for Man City, it doesn’t sit right with me, how are clubs expected to build anything anymore when players are so impatient and jump ship at the first opportunity?! Van Persie is a prime example, for so many seasons he disappoints (granted a lot of the time through injury) and then when he finally looks like the player Arsenal fans have been waiting all these years for, the player that Wenger has coached for the last 8 years to help him become the player he is today, what does he do? When’s the first bus to Manchester? (Assuming he is going to City)

For more football obsessed views follow me on twitter @stumtomkins


 

10 responses to “Is ‘Ambition’ Simply An Excuse For Disloyalty?”

  1. Blue Tony says:

    A truly inspirational article. RVP goes to MCFC and it shows a lack of patience. MUFC buy that Powell from Crewe and Fergie is a Wizard. The rags need to codify their hypocrisy, accept football is about money and you are broke. The shrinking pains are hurting. City will buy the best players in the world and beat you 1 -6 next season too. It is a joy to be a blue and read your frustration. Put up another banner, maybe indicating the number of asanine comments the reds can post in 212/2013. Hoorah !

    • Jay says:

      ha ha ha! it’s “asinine” ooh the irony!

    • mostonsfinest says:

      oh yeh, the rubbish, skint, declining united with the best defender in the league injured all season yet the ‘almighty’ man city could only beat them on GD. that tells its own story.

      city fans make me laugh, best team they ever had in their history bought for them and their fans are still bitter about the reds. cold in our shadow tony?

      19x catch up if u can

  2. VISHAL says:

    OO WOW GOOD JOB CITY. YAYYYYYY YOU WON A TITLE IN HOW LONG? do you forget that last season you had your best squad, meanwhile we had our worst squad in ages and you inly beat us on g.d?? next season is whole and new..and have ou forgotten we bought shiji which greatly shores up our creativity in midfield & built for our long term future in signing powell, while city are bidding on a 29 yr old injury prone rvp who has 2-3 yrs left in him for about 54 million (assuming he is about 220 thousand/week as rumuored for 3 years plus 20 million to arsenal) …as such what the hell are you doin on a united blog anyways…..

  3. Blue Tony says:

    Jay, thanks for that. I stand corrected . I have checked other spellings, ‘ hypocrisy ‘ ‘ shrinking ‘ and ‘ ‘ hurting’ , readers can be assured they are correct. I was minded to include a phrase that included the words ‘ fatuous and pedant’ . But I decided to enjoy a glass of Bolly to toast the 2011/ 2012 Champions instead. Hoorah,

    • Jay says:

      Have you checked ‘obsessed’? Keep commenting on United websites mate, you’re doing yourself proud. Only a City fan could actually beat United to the title and STILL be bitter.

    • karlomu says:

      enough about spellings why are you such a loser ,do you secretly support utd cos you`ve been on this site a few times making a fool out of yourself ,support your own team and represent it properly without having to be so petty your not pissing anyone off (as your intending to do) with your comments its just your stupidity thats getting to people,so please blue tony get a life if you love your club so much stop coming on here making people think city fans a retarded.

  4. PS18 says:

    Great article. If they used half the effort they put in moaning and transfer requests to actually help their club they’d be closer to where they want to be. Never ceases to amaze me how short-sighted some of them are – just wanna move to wherever the shiny lights are at that moment in time.

  5. elhair says:

    Good article but i can honestly see where the footballers are coming from. More somewhere for more money in case anything happens. If there career finishes early then I know most of them won’t have had an education to change to another career. However I do blame Agents who fill the minds of these footballers and take so much money out of the game. This is what I’d like to see change.