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“I’m
leaving this club because I want to win trophies”. It’s perhaps acceptable for
a footballer to use this kind of line if they are at a club who are clearly
happy to be languishing in mid-table or below, not looking to spend money to
improve with little ambition anywhere in the club - just accepting their
position in the hierarchy of club football.
But
for a player who was distinctly average for a fair portion of last season, who
played for a team who challenged for the league title but, again, didn’t win it,
to come out with this sentence, this clichéd excuse – well that’s lazy and,
quite frankly, lame.
It’s
quite a basic and already common reply to the excuse, but football clubs lose
football matches because of the footballers that play. Yes, Arsenal need to
invest, their manager is clearly reluctant to spend any sort of big money on
players he doesn’t think fit into his system, regardless of how desperate the
pleas from fans become for a new centre-back, a top-quality striker and, basically,
a new spine for the team.
But
the simple fact is – Samir Nasri isn’t winning football matches and, as a consequence,
trophies at Arsenal because of the team, a team that he is a part of. If he
wants to be a winner, he needs to show that in his performances. Nasri went
missing in too many games last season. You want to win things, Samir? Then play
better.
With
Cesc Fabregas apparently set to move to hometown-more-than-a-club Barcelona,
the opportunity is there for Nasri to prove that he is the winner that he
claims to be, to really thank Arsenal Football Club and Arsene Wenger for
supporting him through some tough times in his career.
Nasri,
it seems, doesn’t want to have the team built around him after Fabregas leaves;
he’d prefer to slot straight into a side that can already win various honours –
he’d rather be a part of a winning team rather than be the main protagonist who
inspires a side to victory. Some would see this as the midfielder taking the
easier option; others would see it as the Frenchman purely looking after his own
career.
How
many times have we seen players haul their respective teams to victory?
Cristiano Ronaldo at Manchester United immediately springs to mind. United were
labelled a ‘one-man-team’ but, with the Premier League trophy firmly in their
hands, did it really matter?
There
have been many more examples of players over the years, desperate to win
honours or the equivalent, proving themselves to be heroes. Gerrard for
Liverpool, for one. To some extent, Tevez at Manchester City, Henrik Larsson at
Celtic, Andy Johnson at Crystal Palace, Roque Santa Cruz at Blackburn – these
players carried their teams. They might not have all been battling for the
league title, but they’ve all fought for their relative victories. They wanted
to win.
You
see, Nasri could be a hero at Arsenal. He could drive them towards their first
Premier League title since 2004. He could be the conductor of the new Arsenal,
a new generation that sees silverware come to The Emirates Stadium for the
first time since 2005 – other than the Emirates Cup.
But
he doesn’t want that, he wants the easier life and he wants the quick fix of
glory. And, in order to leave with some dignity, he walks out of Arsenal, with
his head held high, claiming that he wants to win trophies, with a line that always
leads many to sympathise with glory-stricken, and force all Arsenal fans to question
the ambition of the club.
If
you want to win trophies, fine. But don’t leave a club that, despite having a rather
lacklustre squad that missed vital players at key moments last season, finished
fourth and were at one time very credible title challengers, questioning their ambition
in the process.
Samir
Nasri isn’t leaving Arsenal because
he wants to win things, he could do that at Arsenal if he really wanted too –
he’s leaving because it will possibly be easier
to win things at another club, and he’ll earn more money in the process. And no
one can blame him for making that choice. But a little bit of honesty, and a
little less laziness in reasoning, really wouldn’t go amiss.
