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“It was this feeling you were wearing this big gun on your chest and everywhere you went, my word, you felt proud to be wearing it.”

Bob Wilson’s words have never felt more poignant than now. In the aftermath of that disgraceful lack of effort, desire, hunger and spirit at Anfield on Sunday it’s words which bring home the state of affairs at the Arsenal. Generation after generation previous to Wilson’s legendary double winning cohort and those which followed such as Rocky, Adams, Bergkamp were all deeply grounded with these basic values.

Things have since changed at this great club with that feeling of prestige and pride in playing for the Arsenal diminishing in the face of the modern player power and ludicrous money which has transformed the game.

Big name players coming in from abroad in the mould of your Sanchez’s and Ozil’s in recent times came here for business reasons. Arsenal simply ticked a few boxes after being made surplus to requirements at clubs they had dreamed of creating long lasting legacies. Nothing more.

Their PR team run social media platforms might convince you otherwise but the fact is that they’ve never really cared about playing for the gun and never have. They don’t experience anywhere near that buzz and tingling pride that Rocky felt when he gave his soul to win games on his own in the late 80s. They don’t have the honour felt by Mr Arsenal when he countlessly put his body on the line. These were great talented players bled in the marble halls of Highbury, who cared. There’s no comparison

We’re in the midst of another transfer deadline day evening with the predictable Arsenal fan outcry at a lack of business. Now let’s look inward for inspiration.

I’d rather watch the kids being given a proper chance. I’d rather go to a game to watch a few more of our youngsters in the line up, knowing they might have that same tingling feeling that Rocky and Adams once had. That pride, that buzz in representing the team you’ve dreamt of playing for. Too often recently we’ve seen performances of players in an Arsenal shirt who don’t care enough. That was nowhere more apparent than Anfield on Sunday as I mentioned but the same was tragically apparent most poignantly at Palace away last season.

Interestingly, it was academy product Bellerin who showed more guts than the rest of the team put together by facing the fury of the away end at the end of that game. He showed bollocks for a such a young man and on top of that showed up his supposed senior colleagues.

As fans who pay good money to follow the Arsenal home and away, caring for the shirt and playing for the shirt is what we rightfully expect as the bare minimum.

There’s a lot wrong at the club from top to bottom and that lack of desire and mentality has been the inevitable result of years of incompetence from the management. There’s no denying that. Wenger’s teams post-2006 have been steadily showing an alarming lack of spine and desire at crucial times. But we’re stuck with him for now. Coupled with that we have these wrapped-in-cotton-wool-players who seem more distant and out of touch with the normal fans than ever.

It’s a common issue with football these days but at least you have efforts from the likes of Klopp to engage with fans post game at Liverpool for example. Other managers insist on players doing laps of pitches or over to the away ends after defeats. It’s these small gestures which go a long way with the fans and increase connectedness.

Sadly there appears to be no evidence of of this kind of ethos at Arsenal. Personally, watching players who I have a connection with and who I know have a genuine connection and soft spot for the club means more to me than anything. This is what made Szszney’s non-sensical departure to Juventus earlier this summer all the more painful. It’s also what makes Wilshere’s stuttering injury hit Arsenal career so frustrating.

Yes I’d love the best players on offer to continue to come to Arsenal. Who doesn’t. But I’d take far greater pleasure watching the Reiss Nelsons and others of our squad echoing Bob Wilson’s words and playing with that same fearless desire and pride for the gun on the chest.

Yes we should’ve done better business this summer. But we must look inward and bring some soul back into the Arsenal.

Put simply, I’d rather watch us lose with a team half full with academy products who play for the shirt than that excuse of a display last Sunday.

In the wake of Wocjech’s departure earlier this summer I was reminded of the excitement I felt watching the likes of himself and Wilshere doing just that against Barcelona in 2011. Pure talent and pure heart and soul for the gun, putting Europe’s best to the sword.

We need to find our soul again.

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