Between Thoughts -Intellectual Musings

Perhaps the title or subheading  should have been : On Doing Your Best. No Ultimate Prize.

I am an Arsenal fan. I am fluent in pain, hope, and faith — in that order.

Football is a religion. More attendees than church-goers. More prayers for a win — or a sports betting slip — than “save our souls.” Football loyalty is predictably irrational. In the courtroom of reason, this faith would not survive cross-examination. Not because belief is stupid. But because football faith — like its Abrahamic cousins — is the only domain in human life where the absence of evidence is rebranded as a virtue.

We walk into the house of football and are told that the highest form of human intelligence is the suspension of it.

I hold a PhD. I sit in the 1–3% of the global population that does. Majors in Statistics and Economics. By every conventional measure — I am not a fool.

And yet. As an Arsenal fan — formerly Kaizer Chiefs (KC) — my IQ drops to clinically delusional levels. Not metaphorically. Literally. My executive function, built over decades of rigorous training, evaporates the moment the referee blows the opening whistle.

The Amakhosi (KC)  Divorce

I left Kaizer Chiefs not because of the losses. Not because Amakhosi had gone years without a league trophy. I left because the founder’s son was offensive and rude — and crossed a line that loyalty cannot survive. He forgot that it is my eyeballs that prop up KC’s sponsorship value. My wallet attracts the brands. He carelessly stumbled on a boundary. It started feeling like Football Based Violence — and phantsi nge FBV.

Deep down I still love the club. And I irrationally refuse to migrate to Pirates, Sundowns, or AmaZulu — the way my friend Jola did. Jola is sane. Wiser than I am. He moved to Pirates, proudly wears the Buccaneers jersey, and says “we won.” My irrational mind refuses. I would rather be a football orphan — following Robert Marawa’s voice, tracking Pitso Mosimane the way I track Guardiola: everywhere he goes.

The Drought

The last time Arsenal won the Premier League was 2003/2004. The Invincibles. Ninety points. Thirty-eight games. Zero defeats. A perfect season — executed by a team so good they became mythological.

What followed is a 22-year case study in how to travel from Invisible Unbeaten Champions to Visible Trophyless Performers.

 Wenger — the Professor of Football — exited May 2018. Then Emery (May 2018 – November 2019). Then Arteta (December 2019 – present). Ljungberg served briefly as interim — a footnote history will be merciful enough to forget.

But before we hang Arteta for 22 years of Premier League drought — read the indictment correctly. Wenger’s last 15 years account for nearly 70% of the trophyless era. Arteta and Emery share the remaining 30%. Most of the blame lives at a different address. Arteta must be judged over his tenure — not handed Wenger’s receipts and asked to settle the bill.

Arteta’s era began with genuine promise — FA Cup 2019–20, FA Community Shield 2020 and 2023. Yes, some of you believe the Community Shield is not a real trophy. Just a utensil. A decorative bowl. Fine. Keep your opinions. 

Arteta moved Arsenal from laughing stock to respectability. From clowns to contenders. But no Premier League trophy. Many near misses. Close encounters of the trophyless kind. Arsenal perfected the art of winning Number Two — history’s most expensive participation trophy.

The past two seasons delivered something worse than failure. They delivered a mirage. A Man City fan — who has only ever known City as trophy winners — delivered the verdict with the casual cruelty only banter permits:

“Arsenal — the Gunners, now the Gonners without bullets — didn’t experience a fake mirage. You experienced a psychological hallucination. A real optical phenomenon: the irrational bending of hope and faith as it passes through layers of nothingness — air with different temperatures.”

He was not wrong. He was just rude about it. Which is the entire point of banter.

The Podium No One Talks About Honestly

No one remembers Number Two.

The saddest athlete in the history of sport is the silver medallist. They trained identically to the gold. Wanted it just as badly. Came this close. And stand on the podium looking like someone who has just read their own autopsy.

But Number Three? Number Three and Four in football  is God’s favourite child. They are Champions League contenders. 

Not because they prayed hardest. Not because they lived righteously. But because they asked for so little that Heaven could not possibly disappoint them.

Number One is a tragedy waiting to be announced — they wanted everything, got almost everything, and will spend eternity mourning the gap.

Number Two is in therapy. Quietly. Expensively.

Number Three and Four  woke up expecting rain, got drizzle — and threw a party.

This is the Abrahamic miracle no theologian will preach from the pulpit: the gospel of managed expectations. The beatitude left out of every Bible

“Blessed are those who expect nothing, for they shall never be disappointed.“

Faith is most potent in its smallest doses. The person who prays for survival and survives is a walking testimony. The person who prays for the championship and finishes second is a cautionary tale in a post-match interview.

Number Three and Four  has cracked the code mystics spent centuries searching for.

Want less. Receive little. Call it grace.

Theologians call it contentment. Philosophers call it Stoicism. Psychologists call it lowered reference points.

Number Three and Four  just call it Tuesday or Champions League and more budget. 

The Banter Classroom

Rivals built an entire vocabulary of derision around Arteta’s Arsenal:

“Set Piece FC” — scoring from set pieces is apparently now morally inferior to losing elegantly.

“Bottlers” — for the 2022/23 and 2023/24 collapses. Filed under: accurate.

“Small Club Mentality” — for celebrating too intensely. Joy, it seems, requires a minimum trophy threshold before it is socially permitted.

“Arteta’s Babies” — too young, too soft, insufficient scar tissue.

“The Process” — deployed sarcastically every time the process produces a defeat rather than a trophy.

Then the chants. “Champions of Europe, you’ll never sing that.” The memes. “Same Old Arsenal.” The TikToks mocking Arteta’s touchline passion — a man perpetually trying to call a timeout in a sport with no timeouts.

And yet — banter is the unlikely classroom.

Psychologists will charge you R2,500 an hour for what a football stadium delivers for the price of a ticket. Emotional regulation. Resilience. The ability to laugh at yourself without dissolving.

The football terrace is the world’s most democratic therapy room. No couch. No credentials. No psychological safety. Just 90 minutes of unfiltered humanity — where your team humiliates you in front of thousands and your only survival mechanism is your sense of humour. Say “I’m triggered” on the terrace and you receive more banter, not affective empathy.

Rival fans will find your pain. They will set it to music. Sing it back in perfect harmony.

And somehow — you survive. You laugh. You come back next week.

This is psychological conditioning of the highest order. The ability to hold your identity loosely enough that mockery cannot shatter it — that is emotional maturity. Most people spend decades trying to acquire it. Football fans learn it by halftime.

Spin doctors could never survive the terraces. 

You cannot reframe a 5-0 defeat. You cannot call a goalkeeper error a “strategic repositioning.” The banter arrives before the spin machine boots up.

Football banter is radical honesty dressed in humour. You are not so important that you cannot be laughed at. Neither am I.

In a world drowning in curated personas and manufactured dignity — that is the most countercultural lesson available.

The Premier League Is a Pareto Distribution

In life as in football — there are far more Artetas than Guardiolas.

The Premier League is not a normal distribution. It is a Pareto Distribution — what sociologist Robert K. Merton called the Matthew Principle, borrowed from the Gospel of Matthew 25:29. 

Allow me to translate it for football:

“For to every club that has trophies, more will be given, and they will have abundance. But from clubs like Arsenal and Leicester that have not — even what they have will be taken away.”

Matthew was clearly a Manchester United fan.

Since 1992, only 7 clubs from 51 have won the title. Four clubs — United, City, Liverpool, Chelsea — account for over 80% of all championships. The remaining 86% occupy the long tail. Zero titles. Competing loyally. Going home empty. Of 314 managers who have taken Premier League charge, only 10 have won the title in 25 years. Ten out of 314. A 3% success rate. The odds make a PhD look attainable.

In life as in football — the distribution is Pareto, not normal. Most give everything. Few win everything. The long tail is not failure. It is the condition of the majority.

If Football Is Life, Arteta Is the Curriculum

Arteta inherited a club finishing eighth. He found a soul that had gone missing. Arteta did not merely rebuild Arsenal. He delivered a masterclass in what it means to lead without guarantee, build without certainty, what it takes to lose and show up on Monday after Sunday’s humiliation.

Lessons learned; 

1. Culture before trophies.

Something had gone rotten. High-paid players were thinking about their next property purchase rather than the winger in front of them. Arteta’s first act was not tactics. It was standard. He removed the rot before he built the cathedral.

Lesson: You cannot build a winning team on a comfortable culture. Culture eats strategy for breakfast — and trophies for dinner.

2. Courage is a transfer policy.

Mesut Özil — club-record signing, £350,000 a week, the man who supplied CR7 at Real Madrid — left in ignominy. Arteta cut him anyway. No sentiment. No nostalgia. No hostage to sunk cost. Arteta understood that in football, unlike basketball, – individual brilliance will win you a game but it will not win you a tournament. It takes a team to win a tournament. Look at what happens to PSG, when  Mbappe  moves from PSG to Real Madrid. The team wins the Champions League tournament. Barcelona plays as a team and with La Masia youngsters they win the Laliga. 

Lessons: What you tolerate, you endorse. What you endorse, you become. 

The job of the leader is to be effective, not liked. You are not money. You are not Tik Tok. 

3. Proximity to greatness is not greatness.

Arteta sat next to Guardiola for three years. Absorbed everything. Then came to Arsenal and nearly got sacked in his second season. He remains one bottled league from the door in 2026.

Lesson: Mentorship gives you the map. The territory still has to be walked alone. The contagion effect does not apply to trophies. 

4. Second place is the loneliest address in sport — and in business.

Arsenal finished two points behind City with a club-record 89 points — and still came second. Excellence without the trophy. Brilliance without the medal.

Lesson: The market does not reward effort. It rewards outcomes. No one remembers Number Two. Keep going anyway.

5. April is the month that exposes you.

An eight-point lead. Then April. Collapse. We find ourselves again — 2026 — nine points clear with City chasing and a game in hand. Please, god of football — stop loving Pep this much. He already has the EFL Cup. Probably the FA Cup. For once, bless Arteta. I am being greedy. It is a gluttonous prayer. Forgive me.

Lesson: Leads are not victories. Comfort is the enemy wearing your jersey. It is not done until it is done.

6. Rebuild in public. Lose in public. Stay anyway.

Arteta did not hide. He explained. He owned it. 

At times he explained badly — sounding like excuses wearing the costume of analysis. But he stayed. His exam paper is publicly marked daily by armchair critics who pay their hard-earned pounds to watch Arsenal. They deserve their opinions — which are always delivered as facts.

Lesson: In bad times, the leader must be optimistic. In good times, the leader must be paranoid. Resilience without visibility is just stubbornness. Lead out loud.

8. Quitting is also a virtue.

Delayed does not mean denied. At times ot means exactly that.

Six years of near misses. Six years of almost. And now — nine points clear.

People say patience is a virtue. What they do not tell you is that hurry the hell up is also a virtue. And so is quitting. A leader must know when they have reached their ceiling — when Number Two is the best they can deliver. Grit for six years, yes. But know when to hand the baton. Quitting in the best interest of the institution is not a weakness. It is the highest form of leadership. Whoever replaces Arteta inherits a cathedral. Their only job will be to win the trophies the builder deserved.

Lesson: The greatest leaders know the difference between perseverance and overstaying. One builds legacy. The other erodes it.

The Summary

The Premier League does not care about your intentions. Only your points tally. And ultimately — you are immortalised by the trophies that matter.

Arteta walked into ruins. Refused the easy excuse. Dismantled what was comfortable. Built something the world said was impossible. And may still not win the ultimate prize.

Sometimes all we can deliver is our full effortfulness. Our absolute best. And still — the trophy goes elsewhere.

Football is life. Life is the Premier League.

And the Matthew Principle does not negotiate.