THE HORROR, HILARITY, AND REALITY OF THE EUROPA LEAGUE NIGHTMARE
You’ve come here this morning because, as I understand it, you’ve had to witness some extremely weak behavior on your FYP and in your group chats.
Accusations of cuck behavior around the fanbase are up 276% since Spurs beat Manchester United with one shot on target in the Europa League.
If you want some reassurance that you haven’t totally lost your mind—that people pining for Europa are actually pathetic—then you’ve landed in the right place.
Let’s just lay down some football realities.
The game is all about trophies, no doubt. But… there are levels to this sort of rhetoric. There are tiers when it comes to trophies. There are ways of winning those trophies that give them more context. You have to consider your lifestage in a project. You also have to be brutally real about the type of players you have and what’s important to them.
Arsenal had the banter years, and the reason we’re all still here to tell the story is… FA Cup wins. Arsenal won four between 2014 and 2020. It took the edge off the truth: we were shite, going nowhere as a club, and if we’re being really real… it kept Wenger in a job he didn’t deserve in a period that saw Klopp and Pep Guardiola choose new clubs. Those FA Cup wins killed our progress, dumbed down our squad, allowed the parts of the fanbase that called Wenger ‘daddy’ to thrive, and led to the loss of some very good players who deserved better from Arsenal.
Do I like winning FA Cups? Yes. My Uncle Russ, a Leeds fan, always says, “Football is about parties—the more parties you have, the more successful you’ve been as a club.” But the same man also says, “It’s more fun being in the Championship as the best team than it is slogging it out as relegation fodder every year.”
When you talk about your jealousy of Spurs winning a subpar trophy, you are touting the idea that you’d be happy to see a regression of a UCL semi final team, just to see Arsenal lift hardware. That is a ridiculous notion, and if that’s your e-notional state right now, we’re not having a private chat about that, I’m calling you out in front of the work leadership meeting.
So let’s talk about Manchester United. They sacked EtH after a diabolical summer that saw players like Zirkzee, Ugarte, and De Ligt join them in a £220m disaster-class spending spree. EtH was fired. They nabbed the very best coach out of Portugal. The fight over who to sign was so bad they fired the best English Sporting Director (Dan Ashworth) because he said Amorim was meek and would fail—as he pushed for… Gareth Southgate. The result? Their worst Premier League run in history. They’ve lost 18 games. They’re 16th in the league. Amorim’s points-per-game ratio over 26 games is worse than Paul Jewell’s at Derby the year they got relegated, and worse than Gary Neville’s at Valencia.
Amorim, who just lost to a generationally awful Spurs—won’t get sacked.
Now for Spurs.
They hired a manager who always wins a trophy in his second season. He started incredibly well last year—the best start ever NOT to make top four. He went from being the most interesting man in media to a laughing stock with the thinnest of skin. When Spurs fans cheered City beating them at home, he basically called them losers and said they were part of the loser culture that has lumped the club with their own special word for being shite.
This season? Things got worse. Spurs have lost 21 league games and 25 games total. They sit 17th in the Premier League. Ange has a higher post-game fight ratio than he does Premier League wins. The media know he’s extremely reactive, so every presser, someone basically calls him a defensively naive failure with no friends. He reacts. Then gets flamed. He was literally fighting in the pre-game presser about being called a clown. Ange has told everyone he’s done at Spurs—but he doesn’t give a fuck, because he’s a winner, and he has a beautiful wife… and guess what, bitches… he was right.
Ange just pulled in £100m for Spurs by shithousing United with 1 shot on target over 97 mins… and he’ll probably be fired for it. Spurs landed their first trophy since I was born, and the guy that delivered a miracle beyond Conte and Mourinho is about to get let go.
Don’t make me fall for this guy… but look at him, standing to the side so the players can have their moment. Now we know he’s going… that’s kind of class, man.
Anyway, let’s get back to how this does NOT relate to Arsenal.
If you’re sitting here begging to be poor again so you can feel alive—click out of this site right now. We can’t be friends.
We’ve slummed it in Europa. We’ve tasted the rough streets of the secondary cities in European no-go areas. To get to the final, they had to beat AZ, Frankfurt, and Bodo. This was the first year Champions League clubs didn’t drop into the comp—and it showed. Two shite teams contested a £100m opp.
Arsenal didn’t win the league and I’m jealous of Liverpool.
Arsenal didn’t win the Champions League and I’m jealous of Inter and PSG.
But if you expect me to start crying over a Europa League, you’ve got the wrong blog. Get some standards. We are not at the stage where winning League Cups or FA Cups just to satisfy the purists is the way forward. The only two trophies that matter to our ability to retain the very best players are the UCL and the Premier League. The rest? Nice days out—but they don’t move the needle.
Call me a hater. Tell me I’m desecrating winnertivity. I don’t care. The reality of our situation now is that we’re playing with the big boys. We are very close to the promised land. And the only way to sustain the next five years is with a major trophy. Don’t take it out on me—take it out on Saliba, Timber, Saka… those guys will tell you the same. All they want are the big trophies. Europa League medals aren’t coming out at speaking engagements if you want a £100k fee for showing up.
Here’s the other thing that will make you choke on your Declan Rice Krispies… Champions League for Spurs is fantastic for the money, but a disaster for their growth. They. Are. Shite. They’ll finish in a humiliating position in the league. Arsenal had to spend £800m to go from 8th to 2nd. But we did it out of Europe, over five years. Spurs have to manage a transition under a new manager, playing three games a week from September. That is going to be VERY difficult for them. The new coach will have no time to… coach. If they keep Ange, we’ve already seen what his methods do to players without Champions League. Imagine the collapse when you can’t play a second-tier team until March?
“That’s just sour grapes.”
I said it when Conte pipped us. I was right. Am I a hater? Yes. But I’m a hater with a good track record when it comes to Spurs. I said they’d blow up under Ange. They did. A historically poor season… but people will tell you the trophy will Men In Black zap the reality of where they are as a squad… game day 37, not even at 40 points, they. are. shite.
Arsenal moved on. We are better than them. We are close to the promised land. Don’t let “any trophy” cucks convince you they’re in a better position than us—because I’ll tell you for free… those folk crying over Spurs were the same ones telling you Europa League was a joke four years ago.
So, suck it up. Channel the hate appropriately. Pray Big Ange gets a new five-year deal.
Ok, Therapy Session later. x