Holding out for a hero!

Have you heard the lyrics to the Ella Mae Bowen song with the same title as this blog entry?

“Where have all the good men gone

And where are all the gods?

Where's the street-wise Hercules

To fight the rising odds?

Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed?

Late at night I toss and turn and dream of what I need

I need a hero

I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night

He's gotta be strong, he's gotta be fast

And he's gotta be fresh from the fight

I need a hero

I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light

He's gotta be sure, he's gotta be soon

And he's gotta be larger than life, larger than life”

The script is getting annoyingly familiar. Come to think of it, even the Arsenal summer pans out like the season. The league campaign starts with early promise, fancy footwork and memorable goals before it fizzles into another overhyped non-affair; the team getting knocked out of one cup competition after another. Then they gather pace, fighting valiantly in the home stretch, only to secure last-gasp Champions League football for the forthcoming season. Fourth place is like a trophy declares Wenger as the players rejoice like they’ve won a trophy. Five trophyless years, they say. Five became six. Six became seven. And seven just became eight.

What follows is just as monotonous. The summer begins with talk of marquee additions. We have the financial power to buy, assures the board. Wenger reiterates that if quality is found, money will be spent. Cue for the media to begin speculating.

But just like there is no silverware at the end of a campaign, there is no stardust when the summer ends. Players arrive but none of them world class.

This summer however had one glaring difference. Wenger mentioned names. Higuain, he said. Rooney. Suarez. The names rattled out one after the other.

So I began to dream. I won’t forget the theatrics that wrongly stopped the unbeaten run reaching the half-century mark. But if he switched sides, maybe just maybe, he could begin to make amends. He would play with a point to prove to his old employers, I told myself.

And then, talk of Rooney cooled. The Higuain signing gathered pace. Practically his entire family and support staff confirmed that the Argentine had agreed teams with Arsenal. Everyone was speaking of his impending medical and unveiling. That is until he joined Napoli.

So the attention turned to Suarez. Him and Giroud upfront in a 4-4-2, I thought to myself. The Arsenal attack will never want for bite, we began to joke. Call us toothless one more time…

But May became June. And June became July. And July became August. And August will soon become September.

But where are they? No one has arrived. No one, unless you’re going to count Sanoga, a hitherto unknown who arrived on a free. So where is my hero? Where is the Hercules who will win us the league? Where is the white knight who’ll prevent eight from turning into nine?

Time is ticking. The season beckons. Like Ella said: I am holding out for a hero!

How badly do you want to be a footballer?

Nike ran the campaign during the Euro 2008 build up, the same tournament where it all started for Andrey Arshavin. The irony was that the advert had Arsene Wenger asking the question.

Having just guided Zenit St Petersburg to UEFA Cup glory, Arshavin took Euro 2008 by storm, leading Russia to the semis. Ending the year sixth in the Ballon d'Or poll, the world was at his feet. Courted by Barcelona, he signed for Arsenal after a much protracted transfer saga.

At 28, he arrived at the peak of his powers. He took to English football like a fish to water; the maiden goal against Blackburn from an acute angle after a jinking run was followed by the infamous four goals at Anfield. Arsenal had a new hero.

In four and a half seasons with Arsenal, he scored 31 goals. But his career never took off. He did have his moments: the assist in the Carling Cup final, the winner against Barcelona, the assist for the returning Thierry Henry against Sunderland. But he never touched the heights Wenger had predicted. The Frenchman had even likened him to Ronaldo and Messi.

There was nothing wrong with his technique. His dribbling was flawless, his shots had virtually no backlift and his balance was immaculate. The problem, however, lay in his attitude.

Arshavin never looked like he wanted to try. He wanted to play football. But he did not want to try too hard. Training, tracking back, defending… these things didn’t interest him really. He just wanted to turn up and score. But football doesn’t work that way.

There is no denying the talent he possessed. He was one of those few gifted players who had an uncanny knack of coming up with something out of nothing. And for a while, he thrived on that. But even the best in the business put in hours training and toiling to become the complete footballer. The Russian simply didn’t want to try.

"My talent, my technique, is God-given and all I do is keep it going. It is a natural talent. I knew I had it from the first day of training at the age of seven, because I found football easy," he once said. That suggests how he rated himself. In his head, he was a star, better than those around him. He expected to just turn up and dazzle. It worked for a while and then it vanished.

What he lacked was not skill or application. He knew the play, he performed it too. But his heart wasn’t in it. He lacked desire.

I am going to miss it all. His tiny frame scampering around the Emirates turf, jinking and jostling, wrong footing opponents. The powerful shot that fired off his boot, irrespective of which foot he kicked with. That finger to the lips celebration as he scurried towards the corner flag every time he scored. They were far and few, but he did have his moments.

And so he leaves Arsenal, nothing but yet another entry in the list of what might have been. But unlike others who fell prey to injury, bad luck or circumstance, his sorry plight is of his own making.

After all, for all the talent and all the opportunities, in the end it boils down to this… How badly do you want to be a footballer?