How do you feel?

[Marc Overmars]

I noticed the build up for today's match was pretty much non-existent, there was no pre-match talk, no excitement, no anticipation, no nothing. This was Arsenal vs Manchester United, a classic fixture if there ever was one.

Post-match; a damaging defeat but our overwhelming feeling is essentially "meh". Some of us didn't even watch the game because we had better things to do or we simply couldn't be bothered.

Personally, any ounce of optimism I had in me has gone because the enjoyment factor is just not there anymore. It has been sucked dry by a hapless manager and his grossly under performing players. We might get 4th, who knows, who cares.

Do you even care anymore? Does it make us bad fans? Are we right to feel like this?

I don't want this to be a mud slinging thread or discussion about tactical rubbish, just want to gauge the general feeling because I don't quite remember having such strong feelings of apathy before.

[Munchies]

just gotten used to it I guess.

[hobson's choice]

Honestly for me, I've kinda felt apathetic for the past 4 seasons. There's really no surprises anymore with this team, on the pitch. You know what to expect. We all know(whether we want to believe it or not) by now before the match even kicks off what the result is gonna be.

Barring few moments, this team doesn't excite me, its just so dull.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

I don't know

Part of me feels that defeats like today break through a whole new barrier of low

It cannot be said strongly enough what a poor Man United side that is, two kids playing at centre back but actually performed monumentally better than any of our defenders barring perhaps Chambers

A team that should have been obliterated in the opening thirty minutes, set up by a manager as tactically inept as ours.

This was a team literally begging us to fuck them over, but we passed up the invitation and drew the target sign on our own bum hole instead and unlike us they don't have to be asked twice.

They barely strung together a decent attacking move, didnt even know what fucking formation they were playing first thirty minutes....what else did we need? A little gift tag saying Dear Arsenal lots of love from Louis.

[Niall_Quinn]

The club is a corporation now in every sense. The absolute desire to win has long gone. The absolute desire to milk every conceivable profit is thriving. It's still fun to watch players like Alexis and Ox, but the fun is offset a thousandfold by everything else at the club. Our manager stopped taking responsibility a long time ago, he did the same today. He tried to pretend we were just unlucky (for about the 20th time against Utd).

As it turns out, this club died when we switched stadiums. The business blossomed into a monster though. Arsenal is becoming a powerhouse in terms of finances and the team will continue to hover around the also-ran spots. But there's nobody at the club with the will to drive things forward, on the pitch at least. If you look at it from the outside, as fans increasingly have to do these days, you have owners, board members, senior staff and a bunch of kids (the players) all rolling around in more cash than they know what to do with. Meanwhile the rest of us enjoy "we are all in it together" austerity measures and half of us are priced out of the games even if we wanted to go. This is what happens when money becomes the purpose of sport.

It's not just football. Boxing, what a joke that is now. Formula 1, the double points farce happens tomorrow. It'll be the first time I won't be watching a race for longer than I can remember. I don't think anyone cares who wins the driver's championship, just as I doubt anyone bar the plastics themselves give a damn whether it will be the chavs or gypos who end up top of the pile. Football got bought from under the fans and now it's not football. Just look at the quality of the players on display. Some of them can't kick a fucking ball and they;re being paid millions not to be able to do it. It;s a farce. Eventually even the most ardent fan wakes up to it.

even if we went on a winning run until the end of the season, if we're still playing the same shit we have seen so far then I'm not interested. My primary requirement from any sport is that I be entertained, preferably on the edge of my seat with heart pounding and barely able to watch. Just how far away are we from that ideal at the moment? about as far as we can get. This team is unrecognisable from what we became used to when the trophies were rolling in and, much more importantly, the football was a joy to watch. There's nothing to watch now, except maybe the odd moment from the odd player. We've seen the same old shit so many times it just fades into the grey, corporate background.

We need football to collapse into one giant ruin and then struggle back to a much more humble version of the sport that's connected to the fans. Not sure if it can happen but with the likes of FIFA in charge there has to be a fair change of at least a giant ruin.

[Munchies]

Just listen to that

[Ernesto]

I think this one is à bitter pill to swallow. The statistics are one thing- us losing at home for the first time in the league for 15 months, the inogminy of them winning away from home for the first time this season, the fact that they still managed to win with their first shot on target coming in the 85th minute and this being our worst start to a league season for 32 years (incidentally the same time span that observers Call the worst in our history). That's one thing. The

[Ernesto]

Damn! Had a whole post written only for it to delete when I was asked to log in again.

Essentially, as ridiculous as it sounds, why didn't we play for a draw? Wouldn't have garnered much of a different reaction on here, but as least the league table would have made more pleasant reading. We're competing with Manchester United now for champions league places and, barring successive midweek replays in the FA Cup from the 3rd round to the QF, they're only going to play once a week until May.

We've just handed them the initiative. No matter how badly we want an Arsenal without Wenger, an Arsenal without Champions League football wouldn't attract the highest calibre of manager.

This defeat will rankle for a while.

[LDG]

My love of Arsenal, like the love of anything in this life, comes from a mutual and unspoken respect. The reason why fans suffer with a club, is because the club used to suffer with them.

Win, lose of draw, the manager, the players and the fans were in it together.

That has long since been lost from football, especially in the top flight. You can identify with something that doesn't give a fuck about you in return. In the same way you don't admire a theif or a bully.

My connection with Arsenal has been more about friends and family who have a shared affiliation with the club, these last few years. My connection with Arsenal is only there because of the past.

Much like any money orientated, plastic product designed to placate mindless couched potatoes, Arsenal has become everything I hate about modern society. The one thing that kept me watching was that hope that the team would somehow cut above that sewer of corporate slime and do it for me / us.

Sadly, those days are gone too. How can you love something that doesn't give a fuck back? That's what really hurts. Results are just results.

[Ralpheroo72]

I feel the same as I did after the last pile of steaming shit. In 10 years we have gone from Invicibles to Wincibles. I cant watch anymore, as it is so predictable.