Success Within Context
By finishing third Arsenal placed above excellent Tottenham and Newcastle teams, as well as European Champions Chelsea. They finished above a Liverpool side that spent a ton of money on Stewart Downing, Jordan Henderson and others, and which had the hubris to send out Joe Cole on season-long loan. With this in mind, perhaps only penny-pinching paupers Everton and newly promoted duo Swansea and Norwich can lay claim to a greater achievement than Wenger's side this past season, if resources are taken into account. Indeed, is it more of an accomplishment to win the league with David Silva or to finish third consistently fielding Johan Djourou? Is it more impressive to win a trophy with Tevez, Dzeko and Balotelli on the substitutes bench, or to somehow qualify for the Champions League with only Marouane Chamakh and Park Chu-Young in reserve? Manchester City have a place in the record books - and justly so, with some immensely talented players who deserve to win the trophy - but Arsenal are among a handful of teams in the league that could reasonably lay claim to a moral victory of sorts. Even if you don't subscribe to that idea, dismissing it as sour grapes, then there's at least a case to be made here that Arsenal fans can feel proud of what their team accomplished in 2011-12. Arsenal arguably attained the best league position it was realistically possible for them to attain this time around. And that's the definition of success. If an Arsenal fan had been offered third place at the start of the season, they'd have taken it without a second thought. A remarkable finish, all things considered.