Arsene Wenger Today: Hero or Villain?

Arsene Wenger, dubbed 'Le Professeur' by the British media has been, without any doubt, one of the best managers to have entered England! Ever since he joined the Gunners at Highbury in 1996, the face of Arsenal and even that of English football has changed, completely. His most notable achievement has been the 'Invincibles' campaign of 2003-2004 when we finished the league unbeaten!

Things were all rosy till after the season of 2003-2004. This was the time when Arsenal began the slide! After 2004, Arsenal has not seen a single season-finish at the top of the table! Another distressing fact has been the leaving of star-players leaving at the end of every season. True that we've qualified for the Champion's League each and every season since then.....but it's just not the same as winning the Champion's League or the PL. And consider the present scenario! We finished third in the 2011-12 season and then a sad fourth the last season. Our most influential and top players and most importantly, our former Captains, Fabregas and RVP left the club. And guess what!! They've won trophies at their new clubs! And at the beginning of the season, we lost to Aston Villa at home! Man, that's some embarrassment. This does seem so familiar to most who follow the PL. It seems that we're going down the same road as Liverpool, another club with a really rich history, but is in the process of a steady-decline over the past six seasons or so.

So what is the problem? Is it that Wenger is just playing around with the club? I mean is this all a joke to him? Or is it that his mentality and attitude isn't suited to the present day footballing scenario? That he feels that cheap and budget buys like Yaya Sanogo(free transfer actually) will help us beat the likes of Man. City or Man. U or even Chelsea(read loser)? He might say that he hasn't had enough budget to spend the past couple of seasons due to the construction of the Emirates. But what about this transfer window huh? There was a huge rumor that he had a war-chest of 70 million pounds and that he was willing to buy top players and compete with the likes of Real Madrid. But what happened? He got beaten by Napoli in signing Higuain and then Gustavo signed for Wolfsburg! Even FC Shakthar beat them for Brazilian starlet Bernardo!

But Le Professeur stumped all his detractors with a 42.5 million pounds transfer of none other than Mesut Ozil! Wow, finally a world-class player makes his way to Highbury, rather than away from it(ha ha ha!). And yes, things turned around. We're now at the top of the table, we became the first team to ever beat Dortmund on their home ground-the Signal Iduna Park! Ramsey is in the form of his life, Giroud is finally living up to his potential and the veterans Rosicky and Sagna are playing in such a away that shows that football is a young man's game and for the first time in the past so many years, we Gooners are truly happy. Looks like Wenger has finally got it all right!

Well you might say that we're not even through half the season yet, and we just lost to Man U last weekend. But well, in the Capital One Cup tie we lost to Chelsea, absolutely out-classed(I admit!). But what was our reply? We beat (a resurgent) Liverpool and the mighty European heavy-weights Borussia Dortmund. That says it all!

So at the end of this lengthy monologue, it's basically a question of common sense. Le Professeur has managed to hold afloat a cash-strapped team among others with many millions to spend. And now that he has the money to spend, he hasn't gone all ballistic like Tottenham and instead chose to buy a proven star. And the result is clear! So in my opinion, Arsene Wenger is, was and will be the best thing that ever happened to Arsenal, a true hero!

I love you....a teenage syndrome!

Love, true love etc..... what do these words actually mean? What is that 'wondrous' feeling that people get when people fall in love? History has been witness to hundreds and thousands of sagas of epic-true love stories, some meeting with a sorry ending....while others with a super-cute happy ending! In this short nearly-20 years old life of mine, I've thought saying those three words to many girls, but as always I just couldn't bring myself to voice that thought. Why? Simply because I didn't know the meaning of that word "love". Just in the same way, I have oft ridiculed my friends, those who profess to have fallen in love. Why? Because those duffers don't know the meaning of that word! I feel sorry for those teenagers in the dating-phase and tell each "I love you" and exchange the soppiest of gifts(that sometimes makes me sick)! Why? Because I can give in writing, on Rs. 500 bond-paper, the exact expiry date of such relationships......LOL!

Now I'm sure almost every person who reads this post will consider me the ungodly cynic, rather than the philosopher, especially those of you who are die-hard, hard-core and extreme romance-enthusiasts, those of you who watch movies like Valentine's Day, (the #EPIC) Titanic and of course, the Notebook and (#waste) spend your time reading Mills and Boone's romance novels! Well for starters, let me tell you, I'm just one of you, one of those hopeless romantics who is waiting for that special someone to walk into his/her life, always daydreams of being that knight-in-shining-armour for his paramour and one who detests sad-endings in books and movies!

So why this kinda attitude you ask! Well let's just put it to experience. Luckily, I've never had the misfortune of having assumed that I was in love with someone else, I've experienced this vicariously through most of my friends! Well all of them have told their respective BFs and GFs those three so-called magic words! I'm sure that it does induce the mood for a steamy make-out session, but that's as far it goes folks! In the beginning of a teenage relationship, I'm sure that there is that "magic", you can't bear to spend time apart, your message pack gets over within a couple of days and your Dad will shout at you for having x10'ed the telephone bill....LOL! There is a reason why it's called 'Sweet-Sixteen' you know! But what happens in like 5 months? 

You realise that you actually like his/her best friend! You get super/hyper-jealous when he/she talks to a person of the opposite sex! You feel that you aren't getting enough of your BF/GF....well that's where it gets ugly! What's worse, he/she might pressure you into certain forms of physical intercourse with them....why? Because they "LOVE" you! Not so rosy eh?

So all you teenagers(technically I no longer am :P), has your perspective of relationships changed at least a little bit? Well let's just put it this way: Relationships at your age are good! Shocked? Well yeah.....my point here isn't that relationships are injurious to health! In fact, I support teenage relationships! Why? Well because they teach you many things....like tenacity for one! It also gives you lessons in sharing, caring and most of all consideration! So all my teenage friends, if you truly "like" someone.....just go for it, in the words of Sir Richard Branson: "Screw it, let's do it"!(wrong context, I know)

But then, what have I been blabbering about all this while? Why am I saying that I support these relationships when I'm like down with teenage love! Look, we are brought up by parents in an environment which is filled with love, the kind of intense love that our parents shower upon us, the kind of love we know until......! 

Until we come across our first movie, where the hero tells the heroine, "I love you"! And that's it, we're so screwed! We confuse parental love with movie-love and into to the picture comes our first crush! So we're worse than scrambled eggs(my fav preparation btw)! We then confuse infatuation with movie-love and parental-love with this infatuation and that is when "shit happens", literally! Now this is where most teenagers find themselves. 

My point is that teenagers cannot possibly know the meaning of true love! So when they bring that word "love" into their adolescent relationships, they set high standards and expectations for the relationship, obviously because of their previous experiences with love, parental love! These expectations are so hopelessly high that they go into depression because their opposite numbers aren't able to live up to those lofty expectations while not noticing that they are doing just the same thing! So what is this now? A sure-shot recipe for disaster, in colloquial terms, break-up!!! 

So my advice to teenagers: enjoy life, too much seriousness at this age isn't good for your health and yeah, for heaven's sake, don't ever say I love you before you turn 21(2 years for good measure :P)!