Morning Grovers, firstly, can I just confirm that whining doesn’t always get you what you want. The only encounter I’ve had with a fox since yesterday is the bastard that deposited a strategic turd on a house plant I’d placed out in the back garden. If there were a sport of the species, Foxes would be national champions at strategic shitting…
Firstly, I just want to share the bad news. Barca can’t afford Ribery, so they’ve decided to go for the cheaper option of Cesc,
“Ribery was a player we were interested in at a logical price but Bayern don’t want to sell.
“If they are interested in selling, we are interested in buying but if not, then we will look to Fabregas.
“Compared to him there is no available alternative left in the market, so we will see what happens.
So, Cesc is apparently the only player left on the market… a great confidence boost that he is seen as Barca’s last resort. Oh, and they seem to think they can pick him up for a more logical price than Ribery? How deluded is Laporta? Cesc is 21, on of the best talents in Europe, he has a Spanish premium on his and a 8 year contract… and he wants to stay?
What an idiot…
Anyway… the sun is shining and it’s Friday, so I thought I’d send you into the weekend on a high note. So today, I will be mainly focusing on the scary possibility of ‘satisfaction’.
Imagine it Grovers, finishing the summer… and you’re satisfied with the business that’s been done?
Imagine heading into the season and thinking,
‘You know what, I think the coach has done a great job in the window… and if anything, our squad might be a little too deep?’
Wouldn’t that be grand? Wouldn’t it give everyone a buzz?
It would me. I’ve always said that as long as Arsenal put the maximum effort into the summer and the team looks capable, I wont be too disheartened if we don’t win the league. A sustained challenge on the Premiership is what we’re looking for next season – players that are good enough from the off is what we’ve craved for so long… being in the mix for every competition should be the goal.
That’s the way a club of Arsenal’s stature should be run.
It bores me to tears when I read that I am part of the ‘I want it now’ generation.
I’m part of the generation of Arsenal fan who believes that if you’re going to do something, do it to the best of your ability. Last season, swathes of Gooners saw the writing on the wall in August… that’s why there was so much anger and resentment in May.
The sense of urgency shown by the fans should never be frowned upon… and I think if Leonardo Da Vinci was still around, he’d agree…
‘I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.’
If urgency is good enough for a Teenage Mutant Hero Turtle, then it’s damn well good enough for me. Jokes aside, it’s a serious point… the time for knowing and talking about potential has gone… it’s time to start showing.
Last summer many critiqued Le Grove for the predictions forecast… those people never came back to eat humble pie, did they? Instead they blamed us for the negativity (Can I just say, I truly believe it is farcical the power some people apportion to blogs)!
Well, hopefully we wont have to make miserable predictions this year because the way things are going so far this summer, I don’t think we’ll need to.
We’ve bought a centre back of a ripe age… I don’t know too much about him, but from what I’ve seen… he looks to have the grit and edge we’ve lacked last season. If rumour is to be believed, we’re also on the trail of an unknown ex French under 21 captain who we’re about to pluck from relative obscurity… firstly, I’m excited because it appears after snaring the captain of Ajax, we are about to lure in another leader. I found this report on him (That’s such a lie… one of the Grovers did),
‘Matuidi would bring a great footballing brain, stunning awareness, solid midfielding defensive, a superb partner in the center midfield for Cesc Fabregas and his best aspect is his perceptive passing. Arsenal really need all those traits that Matuidi has, and he would be sure to fill the role of Patrick Vieira and Gilberto Silva.’
It also looks like we’re doing our best to shift on Senderos and Eboue. Marvellous. Its about time Wenger started getting ruthless with players who clearly aren’t going to make it. We’re a football club, not a charity.
I’m also excited to read that Theo might be played more centrally. I think he found an edge to his game towards the end of last season… against Chelsea, he was all over the place, shooting, tackling… making runs. This should be his year…
Carlos Vela will get more games. He is the real magic in the strike force. Even RVP can’t match him for the outrageous… if he can stay tactically disciplined and work on the defensive side of his game, he’ll be immense.
Adebayor should be off… I’m hoping his departure will release the weight hanging off Nik B’s shoulders… in the same way it did for the Togan when Thierry left. I’ve always thought there is a great striker waiting to break out… and I think we’ll see that this year with some hard working performances… I reckon he’ll get 20 this year!
I think we’ll see more of Rambo. If Eboue goes, I think that gives Wenger the chance to blood the young Welshman out wide for a year. He has pace, trickery and an eye for a screamer. He’ll toughen up this summer and I’d expect him to lay down his marker for the year ahead this coming preseason.
There are also all the other players that will ramp up their performances this year. Arshavin will be with us from the off, Rosicky will be contending again (I’m not impressed that his come back date has already been pushed out till autumn… especially as he was moaning he didn’t get to play in May), Eduardo will demonstrate his Croatian form in the league and we have the likes of RvP, Cesc, Clichy, Nasri, Sagna and Willy G who will all hopefully do the business when surrounded by top talent.
Then there is the token kid who comes through. This year it was Gibbs… next year I am hoping for Jack Wilshere to make an impact somewhere along the way. If not him, maybe JET, maybe Tom Cruise… can you imagine the headlines I could make up if Tom Cruise and JET played together… if only we had a player called Goose…
So… I’m getting excited, and hope you guys are to! I don’t think we’ll be worrying about August 31st blues this year!
Have a great day Grovers, I’m off to hose down my pot plant… Geoff will be back with a ripper of a post tomorrow!
P.S. Ryan sent me in a picture of a table his girlfriend made him for his birthday… you’ve got her well trained Ryan… see here!
It won’t happen though, because it seems footy is in a little bubble of it’s own, not affected by the relities of the real financial world!
Leeds made the error of spending large amounts on dross, at least these other clubs are buying decent players.
As much as I would love to see Real and the Chabs and citeh fall on their arses!
I think we should sell Cesc now.
Why risk him having a shit season and decreasing his value, for when we inevitably sell him next summer when he looks to jump ship to a proper club that actually wants to win things?
Sell him, let Wenger fuck about with some daft replacement, watch us have another disappointing season, and pray that we have a new manager for 10/11.
LOL. Great responses… those are the moments when they all choke up and stare into their beer.
Cesc is on a 8 year contract. Even if he has a bad season he’ll have to stay with us ’cause Barca won’t want him after a bad season.
If he demands to go, we’ll let him go.
It really is that simple Mayank.
And, after another mediocre seaason, I’d be staggered if he didn’t demand a move. He’s a brilliant player – he deserves better.
SO you’re solution is to sell him now so we lose for sure and the others leave the next year. You’re ambitious.
*your
I hate it when people confuse the two
“Why risk him having a shit season and decreasing his value, for when we inevitably sell him next summer when he looks to jump ship to a proper club that actually wants to win things?”
You risk it because he’s one of our best men and we’re trying to win a trophy. Sounds as if you want to throw in the towel already, which is certainly your freedom to do. Suggestions on a new manager?
Hopefully none of our players read LeGrove
I hope they don’t know what the internet is personally. I believe every single player has been berated beyond belief at some point of time. And if they realise these are the expectations the fans have from the club i’m sure they’ll just think ‘fuck it, i’d rather play for man city, at least the fans are positive’
after such a positive post from goeff y this negative vibes????? we’ll win this year for sure….one DM signing and thts it!!!!!!
plus i jsut saw thomas rosicky clip…..aaaargggh didnt we miss him…waiting to see his glimpse on the pitch doing what he does the best
I don’t think we’re moving any further forward under Wenger. It will be year after year of 3rd / 4th until the inevitable happens and we invite financial ruin on ourselves by finishing 5th.
This isn’t a strategy for the future, it’s cowardice and some perverse idealism.
Getting rid of Wenger is the only way this club can really move forward.
Who to put in charge, if not Wenger, Jimbo?
the person who wrote ‘yaya & eto’o for cesc’…you taking the absolute piss? i’d take just one of those for cesc and i’d gladly give money to barca as well, both are clearly better players than him…cesc is too slow, nasri can easily take his place and then we will have more pace through the middle instead of 1 mph man…so fucking slow, did you see him during the confederations cup? a complete embarrassment especially as he was playing beside a much more gifted player like xavi…yes cesc can chip the ball through to the attackers every now and then, but arshavin was our main assist maker since he signed and nasri filled in well for cesc whilst he was injured…so I would happily bet anyone that we won’t miss him once he’s gone, infact our team would improve(the best position we’ve achieved with cesc being a main starter is 3rd…just incase someone says he’ll be a big miss, he clearly won’t when we’ve won nothing with him in the team)…and with 40million we might actually buy a decent defensive midfielder for the first time in 13 years.
Who’s available PW?
Jimbo i dont think getting rid of wenger is the answer. besides its hard to get rid of someone satisfies everyone but the fans. if it was the otherway around i.e. satisfies the fans and not the board then adios. but i think he is doing what his employers pay him to do at the moment.
Having a handful of negative comments on one of many fan blogs is more than offset by a roaring crowd of 60,000 at the Emirates. And really is there a club out there that doesn’t have supporter blogs opining and making negative comments in similar fashion? Now, booing on a large scale at the stadium is another story. Point is, players have better things to do than to bring themselves to our lowly level.
Jimbo, I don’t know who’s available. I’ve not thought about it since I’m, admittedly, a Wenger supporter. But I recognize each fan’s right to their opinion and am curious who people sharing your opinion wish to have in place of Wenger.
A lot of managers wouldn’t even want to work with this board. Besides Ivan, everyone seems a cunt
LD, i don’t go for calling people names but you’re a fucking prick!
Well JW, the problem is, I don’t know who else is available either.
I’ve come out with a list of suggested names on a few occasions – people like Moyes, Rijkaard & Deschamps are usually near the top. But it really depends on who we can get
You don’t think we’re moving forward do you? Then we should definitely replace him. I think most gooners don’t realise that Arsenal is not as big a club as Barca, Man U etc. and we don’t have some divine right to win. The only way we can progress as a club is by becoming a footballing giant. Sure we can appoint Mourhino as our coach and Usmanov our owner but will that guarantee success? It will perhaps increase the chances but the only thing it’ll guarantee is that if we fail to win in those circumstances, the only way we’ll go is down. We’re on the right track we have a hell of a stadium, the best academy in england and one of the best scouting systems around this guarantees we have a steady stream of players and don’t have to rely on the whims of a sugar daddy to provide us with stars. On top of that we have a footballing ideology instated in the club by Wenger that will continue to attract players and give us good football. To sack Wenger now will ruin all the good work and push us back as a club.
Still no signings… Meh!
lol Rijkard is shit
Mayank – all Wenger has created is a club that is constantly rebuilding, constantly a few pieces short and a manager who refuses to do a proper job replacing because he’s obsessed with promoting his kids, rather than actually putting out the best team he can.
At best, we’re going to be a club that’s ALMOST good enough for the rest of his tenure, but alwasy going to finish 3rd or 4th.
At worst (and with Man Shitty building most likely), we’ll be out of the top 4 in a year or two, and we’ll bring financial ruin on ourselves. A year or two out of the CL would cripple us, and the way Wenger’s going, highly probable.
Fire Wenger, save the club.
So, Jimbo, your biggest issue is that Wenger refuses to splash a ton of money out there a la Real Madrid? Or is it more tactical?
Well OK Pat, you may not rate Frankie – that’s your perogative.
The problem is, getting a manager in will depend on who’s available at the time. Rijkaard (if you ask me) is good, and would also be available. But, as I don’t haev a list of cellphone numbers, I don’t nkow who else we could possibly get.
I support Wenger, but if something were to happen:
Laurent Blanc (Although he’ll probably end up as SAF’s replacement)
Hiddink
Bould
I also want to see how well this Martinez bloke does with Wigan. I’ve heard great things about him, but its still early and he’s still young for a manager.
No PW, I’ve outlined my problems with Wenger already – not that he won’t spend LOADS of cash, it’s just that he absolutely doesn’t seem capable of finishing the job and building a COMPLETE squad.
I just want to sign Matuidi and start preseason already
Martinez is an interesting shout Pat, as is Bould.
As for Hiddink, he’s a short term manager, which is the problem with him. We’d get a good year out of him, maybe two, but he wouldn’t last with us long.
Jimbo Wenger has built a club whose fans think that 4th is a failed season in comparison to pre-wenger when we’d be delighted by it, he’s built a club where you can say players like Walcott are not good enough to start, he’s built a club where the fans can bitch about just making the s/f of CL whereas pre-wenger we’d probably be over the moon if it happened. Also Wenger has given the club a footballing identity which makes players like David Villa and Arshavin put us in the same bracket as Barca.
http://www.goal.com/en/live-update/47/live-debate-has-arsene-wenger-lost-the-plot
has any1 read that? Some bloke, who has nothing to do with arsenal is telling us what we should and shouldn’t do in the transfer window, to remain one of the big four and not slip down to “everton standards”.. How about **** off u mug!
BUT he does make a valid point about us spending 10m on vermaelen when we didn’t really need a centre back..
We still haven’t sold any of senderos, eboue, diaby, toure or adebayor to generate funds for a top class purchase of a centre midfielder, so we’re left with a 3-5m purchase of matuidi who is NOT much better then song…
I don’t want Cana nor melo at the price that’s been touted about because for 20m you can get toulalan.. M Diarra from Madrid at 10m might be worth a punt.. Other then that we aren’t going to get any1 else…
Infact i’ll bet a good money we actually do not buy or sell any1 else..So we might as well start talking squads and formations with what we’ve gt rather then with what we haven’t…
Blanc did very well with Bordeaux for 2 seasons now. 2nd place in 07/08 I think and Champions this season. He’s new to managing as well.
I like what Bould did with the youth. Its always a huge positive when the youth plays the same type of football as the seniors. Easier to adapt for the youngsters.
Martinez did what very few managers at Championship level could do. In a league thats very, very sloppy, his team played quite attractive football and got 7th(I think??) in their first season after being promoted.
We’ll have to keep an eye out on him cause Wenger’s departure will come eventually.
Mayank it’s only you who thinks forth is an achievement then.. I bet you’ll tell your kids it’s the taking part that counts when they are labelled losers..
Maybe it’s folly, but the year before last, that team was championship caliber. And then Eduardo and Sagna got hurt and the wheels came off a bit. Injuries happen, and I wish the team would’ve held up better, but they didn’t. Especially after coming on the heels of Henry’s departure, that was a damn good team. And, LD, Cesc had an incredible year that year. Now, we’ve had one year down from the prior year. Granted we’ve not won trophies in a handful of years, but I can’t sign up for one year down from the last year equating to a trend or firm direction downward.
With tougher challenges from Villa last year, Everton the last few years, and now Man City, don’t you think everyone that supports a top 4 club is nervous? If you’re any big club in the EPL this year thinking it’s going to be a cakewalk finishing in the top 4, then you’re crazy. Arsenal’s got issues, and we feel the anxiety over them, but I know fans of all the other clubs and they’ve got their own problems.
Mayank,
You don’t need to tell me what Wenger has built, I’m well aware.
As I said before, it’s whether or not he’s still taking us FORWARD that’s important, and as far as I’m concerned he absolutely isn’t.
Rev, Matuidi is worth the money. I think we’d pay 5-10 million for him.
yeah pat he is.. That’s why he’s rated in the 5-10m bracket… You get what you pay for and paying 10m euro and 5-6m sterling on two players means you’re competing in the spectrum of the transfer market with sunderland and stoke..
Well said Mayank… Wenger is partly responsible for transforming Arsenal into a Super club! We all expect to be first and the competition is fierce and in some respects we have reinvented the game which attracts these multi-billionaires into the race to buy a club like Man City and make it their hobby to be better than the rest by buying the best just to satisfy their self-obsessive egos!!
I don’t expect us to spend 50-60m every season.. We only need 1 player ffs and that’s a cm… Surely we can go above wenger’s danger figure of 16m…
We lost out on ribery 2 years ago because of it, alonso last year and now melo.. It’s a fucking joke! Somewhere down the line the board have got to take a gamble with a transfer fee.. We don’t even need to bust the wage structure.. it isn’t like we’re trying to haggle for e’too are we..
yep sunderland and stoke do spend more than us.
Wait, did someone above say we didn’t need a central defender? Granted we’ve got more than 2 of them on the squad, but still…..
Also, who really knows anything about Matuidi or whether or not he’s better than Song, Denilson, or maybe my mum? Recent purchases have seemed to turn out okay, so I’m inclined to put my faith in the scouts.
Well trophies are not the only way to judge whether we’re moving forward. The club as a brand is growing constantly and we’re one trophy away from being a footballing super-power. And i think the most successful manager since Herbert Chapman is capable of delivering us that one trophy that will give us the momentum we need for the club to carry on being a big club.
ReVELAtion i never said that being 4th is an achievement if you read carefully. I said that Arsene has made arsenal a big enough club for us to consider 4th a failed season.
Jimbo i think at the end of this season we will find out whether you have a point.At this point we have a great team that just lacks a DM
sorry mayank, but the ponce on goal.com ha sput me in a foul mood..
What gives him the right to have an online debate and tell arsenal fans what we’re missing and why we will sink into mediocrity when he has absolutely nothing to do with the club…
He lives near the stadium apparently.. If i find out where he lives i’m going to set fire to house with him inside it..
Mayank,
You really think our reputation is growing, despite finishing 4th in the Premiership every season?
What is our ‘brand’ tied to, if not our success on the field, and if it’s not what we’re doing on the field then how is Wenger growing it now?
This seems like a spurious argument to me, I’m afraid.
Wenger’s had 4 years of grace now, and at best we look like having an outside chance in the Champions League provided we get lucky in the draw and don’t face another English club. He’s had plenty of chances, plenty of leeway, and he’s basically fucked it all up.
Cut him loose, let him go and start his academy, or ruin Real Madrid, or whatever else it is he wants to do.
Also I’m not saying that Wenger is solely responsible for everything good at Arsenal, a major part are the fans who’ve filled up 60000 seats every week and the worldwide fanbase too. As a matter of fact there are many factors in making us a BIG club but i think that it wouldn’t have been possible without Wenger.
I think Wenger’s ambitions for the club exceed us winning trophies in his tenure.
What’s funny or interesting is that here in America, if a manager or coach had won three titles in twelve years, and had he continued a long streak of relative success, he’d be lionized and worshipped by the city and given the benefit of the doubt for quite some time past year #12. Not saying it always has to be that way, but it’s the context within which us American supporters of the club view Wenger.
I can see where Jimbo is coming from, the board(wenger) are seriously taking the piss out of the fans with there lack of ambition, always nearly signed him ,just missed out there, same old same old its like a stuck record its time we started acting like a big club no point of having a great stadium and a mediocre football team ffs just a couple of signings then we will compete.
PW, structure of sport’s very different in the states though, isn’t it.
No promotion or relegation, and most sports have mechanisms in place to regulate the dominance of individual teams (like a salary cap, or a ‘draft’ system). In addition, each sport has a lot more teams – therefore sustained success is a lot harder to come by.
Jimbo you’re talking in absolutes, yes we’ve not won for 4 years but have we never had a title winning side? I think that’s all you can ask of a manager, to build a winning side. Our CL final reaching squad was the better team and last year bar some unforeseeable bad luck we’d have won. Replacing Viera has always going to take some doing so a transition period was inevitable.
Back to my last comment, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised by the clamoring for Wenger’s head given this is a league were Avram Grant was fired after losing the CL final in a shootout.
Just a reminder, we were in the CL semifinal and didn’t really have a lucky first half in the home leg. To the detractors, would having made it to the final against Barca been enough? Or would we have had to beat Barca in the finals? Or would that even have been enough?
reggie 57, spot on….
Gazidiz is just from the sam “spule bullshit” mantra as fiszman & wenger… I’m not inhaling all this nonsense…
They think any1 but themselves actually gives a shit about running a sustained business model like they run it out of their houses and keep receipts when they use public transport.. This is world renowned fucking football club where people get 80,000 quid a week is normal….
If we need to dip our toes in the red so we can “invest” 25m in a top quality centre midfielder so be it.. We’ll be happy and if we still don’t win anything, no one can have any complaints…
But if we do, it’ll be because we spent some money for once instead of being the nerd group at school who get’s bullied by the big boys, who in turn then invite the nerds who get popular to hang with them leaving the rest of nerds to their own little corner…
Jimbo, good points on the league structures. Still, if there’s a big 4 in the EPL, then 3 titles in 12 seasons, I suppose, is par for the course? Granted Chelsky hasn’t always been as rich.
PW – luck had nothing to do with those CL games against United.. We got shown up for what we are.. A youth experiment gone wrong against a footballing juggernaut..
FIFA / the Prem Reps need to take some control back over these foreign entities because the game is in danger of impoding within… as soon as a big club folds then maybe finally the powers that be might notice that they needs more control over these capitalist approaches before the game suffers further exploitation.
At least in principle we are trying to run our club on the level… and I am proud of that fact even though I like every other fan would love to see at least 2 new signings before the new season begins.. preferrably Matuidi and Hazard – come on Wenger he’s worth gambling on!
you think a 22 y/o and 18 y/o will make us title contenders redbearer? I don’t..
It’ll just esculate when on the first day of the season everton beat us 3-1 at goodison..
adebayor will start and play shit as will song…
Mayank,
You’re still talking about the past.
I’m not diminishing anything Wenger’s achieved historically for us, btu since 2005, the direction he’s taken the club has been a joke, and he’s showed no signs of fixing his ways.
If he wants to leave Arsenal with the reputation he could have had, he should step down immediately before his out of control ego and idealism completely ruins us, OR completely change his atrocious philosophies which are leading us nowhere.
People talk about a ‘transition period’ as if we’re moving towards something. Well, Wenger’s had 4 years of transition, longer than anyone would have had anywhere else in the world, and we’re still a mess. Why? Because he’s still obsessed with proving to his bunch of spineless cunt kiddies like Denilshite that they have what it takes, when quite blatantly, they don’t. This isn’t a transition. This is modus operandi at Arsenal now, simlpy because Wenger’s totally out of control.
The only way forward if you want to compete in the circus football is becoming is for one of our rich investors to completely take over the club and invest hundreds of millions into the club.
Other than that we’re fine, asking for another manager to come in, is fine, though I doubt it’d make much difference, unless the above ideal comes to frution. Unless someone can name a manager who spends less or the same as Wenger and achieves the same results ? Even then I doubt we’d find someone with the same pull for players or with the football the team would end up playing.
No-one wants a new manager or a fucking sugar daddy billionaire.. All we want is to get rid of adebayor and buy a central midfielder for more than wenger’s 16m roof fee. who is class and worthy of the shirt… That’s all.. Not fucking rocket science is it!
Jimbo – Why has Wenger been allowed to get away with it ? I mean surely you can find plenty of examples of teams across Europe that have gone through the same transition seemlessly and won their own League and countless other trophies at the same time ?!
ReVELAtion – Are you sure no-one wants that ?! What would getting rid of Adebayor and buying a Central midfielder accomplish ?!
Has anyone noticed our so called list of targets is getting smaller each day(not in height)Benzema,Mello,Dzeko all out of our so called price range, what players will be left? i tell yeah damaged goods which the BIG clubs have rejected and then next season we will be discussing the matter of having a fit squad, ring any bells!!
Keyser – It’s because they don’t worry about killing denilson, song, diaby, eboue, ramsey, gibbs, walcott etc.. with bringing in better players.. They just want to win at all costs…
ReVELAtion – Who wants to win at all costs ?!
Keyser – That’s simple.. It’ll
a) get rid of the biggest cunt ever to wear our shirt bar ashley cole
b) Get in someone who is top quality to play in the centre of the park with 1 of our only world class players and captain..
God, Cesc must feel really lucky to have to play with denilson and song week in week out.. The amount of times he’s had to come out and confirm his love for arsenal is starting to wear a bit thin, because it’s just said out of obligation now more then anything..
Keyser, I’m leaving the office now so won’t be around for a big debate, but take last season.
Anyone who had ever watched football, apart from, aparently, Arsene Wenger, could have told you that Denilson was at best not ready to play regularly in the Premiership, and at worst not good enough full stop.
And yet Wenger throws caution to the wind, in a crucial season, and chucks him in anyway. I mean, how brass-knecked is that? It’s like telling the fans to fuck off, because his own little personal agendas are more important than actually putting together a competitive team, because he wants to do it all with kids. We’ve spent over £25mil since then on Arshavin and Vermaelen, so it’s nothing to do with money – it’s Wenger’s pathetic idealism.
Any manager who makes mistakes as fundamental as that isn’t fit for this club. I don’t really care about pertty football (as if we still play it), or a consistent record of finishing 4th. IF, after a decade in charge of this clbu, the man thinks that he can get away with such pathetic decisions, then his ego is totally out of control.
The boos and the jeers at his pathetic team this year were well justified. I feel sorry for the players, crucified by an inept manager in being asked to meet expectations that they were never capable of, but at the end of the day the message was there for all to hear – Denilson, Diaby, Eboue, Akinbayor simply aren’t good enough, and just because Wenger was good 4 years ago, patience has, rightly just about worn out.
Keyser – The teams who go through transisiton periods.. They usually only last 2 years, our has lasted 5 and we’re still in it..
Safe to say folks may disagree when the transition started? I view it having started when we sold Henry, and we’ve had only two seasons go by since then. And one of them was pretty successful in most folks’ eyes.
Anyway, I know I wanted to sell Ade before last season and I wanted some help in the midfield next to Fabregas and it didn’t happen. Nasri helped offset Hleb’s loss to a minor degree, but Arshavin’s purchase more than made up for that void. Coming into this offseason, I was feeling similar to those that wanted us to go out and buy Benzema or Villa, but I didn’t forsee Real Madrid’s craziness or the extent to which Man City would put its $ where its mouth is. So, yeah, you guys, I, like you, wish for us to replace Adebayor with someone better. But, at least for me, at this point I’m not wanting to sacrifice Wenger in order to make that happen.
Transition started when Wenger sold Vieira and decided it would be a good idea to start the season with Gilberto, Fabregas and (the then shit) Flamini as his only 3 central midfielders.
The man was out of control from that time, and almost had his arse handed to him by Spurs, of all people.
That mistake alone would have got him fired at a lot of clubs – we had patience, and now it looks like we might have been better off just getting rid there and then.
charybdis1966 Says:
July 10, 2009 at 14:51
I have to disagree with you there Pedro – to be one of the” greats”, like Pele, Bobby Moore or Beckenbauer you have to be respected on and off the pitch.
————————————–
sure but his career isnt over yet ,there is still a LONG way to go , once he matures as a human being he might get a personality that is likable ..
if his career ended yesterday id agree with you .
Jimbo – Don’t worry about replying we’ve got ages till some real football comes about, I’m sorry I didn’t reply to your last post about O’neill the other day, but it was pretty obvious you have an enormous soft spot for him, I didn’t want to shatter any illusions you have.
I really don’t undertsand how you come to the conclsions you do, suddenly it’s not about money because after 4 years of being prudent we’re spending some ? I’ve heard that a few times now and it gets harder to believe each time, obviously every year that goes by and we generate the money we do from the Emirates whatever financial constraints we were under would ease.
Also Denilson is one player, we must have had countless injuries last season, but then you’ll get people saying we can’t keep blaiming injuries, of course we can, it’s part of being a football team and considering every other club above has spent hundreds of millions on there squad we’re doing quite well.
You keep coming up with these assertions that Wengers mistakes are catastrophic, like I said find other examples of clubs facing the same sort of transition and see what you find.
It’s just odd how you can deride Wenger sOo much yet Champion O’neill at the same time, I see you’ve stopped mentioning his name in the same context as other managers you’d like us to have, thank god, but realise you’re only holding your tongue because of the monumentous cock up he made of Villa’s season last year.
I know I go on about it, but it sums up your thinking for me, I’ll be around from now on, we can carry it on some other day, Enjoy the evening.
I’d really hate if Madrid won fuck all, because then we’d have wenger and ivan spouting all types of bullox..
Im not asking for AWs head all in asking is someone on the board to grow some and bring him to task, ask why we dont sign experienced players, why are we constantly in transition,what are the fans booing for
questions that any company would ask!!
Martin O’neill is a shit manager. I hope he takes over at the theatre of cunts
The transition started with the Emirates and the decision to move to a new stadium.
ReVELAtion – What clubs do you want us to compare with ?!
There’s a few clubs in each league you could to begin with and then you’d have to look at each situation indidvidually.
It’s all too easy to make these sweeping statements, for examples look at Valencia moving to a new stadium.
reva
What if RM won fuck all but we won something?
I hope they win fuck all because they are classless cunts. they are the Jordan of football
Transition started after we left highbury.
Jimbo,
Respectfully speaking, I think it’s overstating it to say that replacing Flamini with Denilson/Song was proof of Wenger’s reckless and massive ego. I think a big ego problem would be exhibited by Fatface Fergie trying to win the trophy again by doing nothing but letting Ronaldo and Tevez go.
I agree, it was poor judgment by Wenger. But such an offence to warrant a sacking? At least it seems as if we’re trying to address the matter now in the offseason. And, yeah, Matuidi doesn’t have the recognition that Melo has, but I’m going to trust the scouts given the recent purchases.
I think Arsene has sounded different this offseason and has had more of a tone of recognition that this year, much more than the last two, is quite pivotal. I do think that he and the club may make a splash should things not work out this year. I’m willing to give them this year and it’s your prerogative to want his head on a stick. I just hope we’re all out there supporting the club and making a lot of noise at the stadium (and I’m not suggesting “boos”).
Keyser, a couple of quick points, then really must dash:
1) We’re not a cashflow business – we can fund transfers fairly easily, at any given time. In fact Wenger is developing a habit of taking ridiculous gambles in the summer and then trying to save a bit of face by spending a fair old whack in the January transfer market, as happened in 05/06 and again in 08/09. He’s sent out a pair of shambolic squads, and been made to look like a fool.
2) I think we established a few days ago that Arsenal’s injuries weren’t a great deal worse than our competitors. But regardless even of that, if Wenger builds squads of physically robust players, we can forgive the unexpected injuries they pick up. It’s the complete errors of judgement that I’m sick to the back teeth of, and Wenger’s got a fair few under his belt now.
3) Wenger’s mistakes are mind-bogglingly stupid. ‘Catastrophic’ is a word I’d use to describe what will happen when they cause us to drop out of the top 4 – which I believe will happen in the next year or two, unless we sack the guy or he changes his policies immediately.
4) Your fixation with me and O’Neill is bizarre. He’s just one of a number of names I’ve suggested. Indeed, any manager who understands the importance of central midfield would be a big improvement on Wenger in many regards. The only reason we talk about O’Neill so much is that you seem obsessed with discussing him, not because I think he’s the perfect manager!
PW – not that offence alone.
But the fact that he’s still being so mind-bogglingly reckless, and repeating mistakes he’s made in the past (look at our central midfield, after we sold Vieira) suggests that he’s a man who not only doesn’t learn from his mistakes, but doesn’t understand why people criticise him for it.
I’ll take more notice of Wenger this offseason if he starts ACTING differently, not SOUNDING differently. An absurd amount of hot air erupts from his mouth and his arse every summer. When he actually makes a half decent fist of things, then I’ll give him some credit.
reggie57 – We’ve moved stadium, we’ve kept ourselves in a competitive position and now we’ve got a great young team to build off and each year we’ll have more and more money to spend, it’s not that bad.
I don’t want to compare us to other clubs.. We are Arsenal not some mini barcelona with the spending power equivolent of sunderland…
goonermichael, if we got with what we’ve got now.. Who knows? we might win the CL as it’s a lottery, the fa cup or the carling cup.. But the prem? NO CHANCE!
I’d love if it madrid won f-all as well and it’d be sweeter if we knocked them out of the cl last 16.. However, although i’m quite confident at batting away the 2nd & 3rd tier clubs 19/20… If we get to semi’s and final’s do we have a starting 11 you’d be completely comfortable with? No is the answer…
The goalkeeper is not rally an issue anymore.. Unless we end up with a buffon, cassilas etc then any one underneath that isn’t really going to make a difference..
The glaring hole is in centre midfield next to cesc and to keep lodging square pegs in round holes is becoming a nuisance.. Let’s just replace Vieira with a player of his calibre, not some french-african kid who may or may not be comparable in 4 years time…
Gutten abend yede. Wass up yo?
reggie57
there is only one logical answer ..
he is not getting funding by the board , and there are more than just clues of that neglect ..
Highbury square is the main catalyst for the funds drying up .. 413 mil in debt is another big one
if usmanov can see we need funds , & 4 other 1st team players have came out and said it also.. the fans have been saying it for over a year , no one can be that stupid and still have a job as manager ..
its obvious to me (but not others geoff
)
that the board are used to giving wenger nothing transfer kitty wise ..
so wenger principals have stayed the same for 11/12 years at the club , but the big spending
introduced by the chevs 4/5 years ago have made wengers goal posts move so to speak ..
i blame wenger for many things but not spending money isnt one of them …
i cant believe all you grown men think wenger somehow co-signs the company cheques ~!
…
and uses the clubs funds like its his own football club
the board of directors are the money men ..
they are business men !
they wouldnt let ANYONE sniff the chicken !
ok .. so would you give a stranger your wallet ?
Jimbo – Mate don’t worry just reply next time I’m around.
1. Thats too simple, we can fund transfers, but you have to look around at how the teams around us fund there’s and at least be able to recognise what we’re up against.
2. You didn’t establish anything, our injuries were far worse, you haven’t shown anything to show otherwise.
3. I hope your as wrong with your predictions as you have been in the past.
4. It’s your fascination with O’neill, I just thought you’d have learnt something due to him, but it seems you haven’t.
All I remember is you championing him in January, going quiet for a few months with once his monumental cock ups began and then I thought I’d mention it again to see if you’d changed your mind.
What’s odd is that you have a blind spot when it comes to him, that has the opposite effect when it comes to Wenger.
ReVELAtion – It’s up to you, it’d help you understand our position better, you’d be surprised at how much Sunderland have spent.
Keyser dont you get fed up hearing how we just missed out on potential signings that could have made us champions? im sure quite a few other fans are!!!
Alright, so we’ve had three years of “transition”. First year was down, second year was up, third year was down. Not ideal, but not plunging, right? Not that avoiding a plunge is the aspiration here, but within the last three years of “transition”, there’s been undeniable promise from the core of this team.
Funny how wenger is apparently nnoyed with rosicky.. he’s at the age where wenger would probably like to sell him on at a profit and the injury has shot that transaction down to pieces..
reggie57 – Not really, it’s just the way football is, what I don’t get is that while United, Chelsea, Liverpool fund themselves from Investors, or Madrid get massive loans from banks, we blame the manager.
If all you did was worry about the players you missed out on, you;d never be happy.
Having looked at the finances, I think I tend to side with the authors of this blog in their beliefs that Wenger is the one holding back on the extravagant player purchases. But assume that the club is hamstrung financially. As much as I’m wary of Usmanov, conceptually what he and his group were suggesting seemed pretty logical. I do think his motive was to wrestle more control, but raising more equity would be the right thing following a hiccup in the club’s business. That hiccup being Highbury Square and the troubled housing market. In the business world, when a company’s got debt and the business plan does not come to fruition, typically banks will require you raise equity to help alleviate matters. In this case, raising equity would go a long way to facilitating a refinancing of the Highbury Square debt, thus eliminating this uncertainty and opening up the coffers to make one or two big transfer splashes.
lol keyser your optimism is i’ll give you that…
Fisczman at various interviews – “All you need to know is we’ve never said no to arsene”
If that’s the case, why hasn’t he (arsene) gone in the board room and said:
“I want to sign “blank” and it’s gonna cost 25m, you’re the money men, get on with it and i expect results come monday.. Now i have to go and pack away the creche and talk with steve about wilshire’s rapid development”
Somewhere someone’s having us on.. It’s always a grey area.. We have money, we have debt, here’s 100m to fund players, we don’t need it because we can afford to compete at the top level blah blaah blah…
You can’t expect us all to just accept that intwinned with paying the most expensive tickets in world football to watch song, eboue, diaby and denilson (on the same pitch on occassions) play in a team afforementioned with challenging constantly for honours.. If i had the expectations of say, an everton or villa fa i’d be exstatic with the achievements..
But, if i am told we are one of the biggest clubs in world football, i expect us to start acting like one..
*optimism is refershing*
Well said ReV took the words right out of my mouth, someones telling porkies who i dont know!!
ReVELAtion – It would be refresshing, considering the depressing angle soo many seem to take on here.
United are one of the most dominant sports franchises around and they were still bought out, Wenger’s loyal he won’t go against the boards wishes, the board want to help Arsenal through the transition to a new stadium and now what seems most likely isthat they’ll sell to Krenoke.
People can question it, I just don’t see how, like you say there’s a grey area, we know anything for certain.
We’ve spent 4 years being prudent and now you see us spending money on the likes of Arshavin and Vermaelen, isn’t that the sort of sign you want to see ?!
Also the ticket price thing, I’m going to watch Arsenal anyway, I don’t think we’re particularly being ripped off, or how would you say the prices at highbury were when we were playing the best football in Europe ? Were we getting better deals then we should have ? How do you estimate it ?! I know I like the facilites and seats at the Emirates a lot better.
I don’t buy the expectation thing, if Everton or Villa had moved to a brand new stadium and were still competing for Champions League finals and so on, I’d say you were right, but our expectations are still completely different.
i was a bit harsh on eboue, diaby, song and denilson there as they are still arsenal players.. But, at current, they are not players capable of making an impact at the highest level..
I have no problems with them being allowed to develop and come in where there are injuries or a heavy run of games as more then ever. football is nowadays a squad game and i feel that they are very useful players and in the case of some of them, they are still learning their trade and it’s at a top club where there is an immense amount of pressure to succeed..
Alot of anger is taken out on those players, but we must remember that they play for our club and we should try and support them as they are given the opportunity to do so by our manager to the best of their ability..
In, saying that, the recent so called “scrooge like” transfer dealings of our board and manager have once again turned us into whingeing kids as silly season takes it’s place again amongst us for a couple of months….
Let’s just hope we can all get a nice suprise, lay off the cana worship, get in someone top notch and wait for next season…
It probably won’t work out that way and we’ll end up with matuidi and adebayor will still be here, still i’m off out for the night to get pissed and i don’t want to be in a negative frame of mind in doing so..
Have a good weekend groovers
keyser you’re a good bloke and we both really just want our club to be successful that’s all. Albeit seeing it in alot of various, occassionally different ways..
We’ll debate it another time.. have a good w/e
TAIG, Good to hear you are coming to Kenya.
Check out http://www.arsenalkenya.com for the local Arsenal outfit and contact us whenever so that we can watch some games together and enjoy a cold Tusker.
Terry Neill is coming down this July 30 and has made contact…his second visit.
cheers!
On your points:
1) It’s not too simple. Worrying about what other teams do is precisely the wrong way to look at it. We don’t need to make massive moves, we need to make small but significant ones, but Wenger time and time again gets it wrong, pleasing a penny pinching board that has been constricting every arsenal manager in my living memory (which goes back as far as Georgie G’s arrival). And yet we don’t. We ‘convert’. We make do. We avoid killing a collection of youngsters who’ve proven nothing and never, ever contributed anything meaningful to this club beyond picking up an absurdly inflated wage packet.
I couldn’t give a toss about other teams. I give a toss about Arsenal, and why our manager can get away with making such moronic mistakes.
2) Avoids the broader point, and I’m not going down this trail again. It’s dull. However, I pointed out a few days ago how almost all major teams have had to live with injury problems over the last few years. Arsenal aren’t special in any regard, apart from the fascination with one or two injury prone players that Wenger has, presumably because he thinks he’s being clever in getting a bargain with them.
3) Which ‘predictions’ did you have in mind? The only one I can remember is the Arshavin deal – however then I was only conveying what I’d heard, and where I’d heard it from. It was never a secret. Yes, I turned out to be wrong, but at the end of the day I think we all saw how the transfer was a remarkably close run thing. I suppose you’ve forgotten my prediction that Arsene had castrated the midfield in the summer, and Arsenal would struggle badly because of it? Because that’s one I definitely think I got right.
4) Again, you come back to O’Neill. He has only EVER been one of a list of many suggestions of managers who I think could come in and do a better job than the fool Wenger. He’s not even my first choice. But he’s on the list.
I have no idea why you think I’m criticising Wenger for this season. I’ve wanted him gone for 3 years, since it became obvious that he was a man on a personal crusade, not fighting for Arsenal but fighting to prove a point to football.
We absolutely MUST sack him.
I can’t wait for the season to start i feel very optomistic
Jimbo – You have a seriously odd way of looking at things and it’s precisely why O’neill comes up again and again, because it’s one of the ways I should be able to get through to you in terms you would want to understand, instead of just thinking with the same sort of blind hatred which seems to be prevalent in your posts.
1. How can you focus on one issue and not see the bigger picture, it’s all well and good making small moves, but at the same time you have to appreciate the Premiership as it is now and the teams which play in it, how can you appease yourself with small moves when in comparison teams like Chelsea and Liverpool have made giant ones to get where they are.
If Wenger or any other manager were to build gradually like you say, each move would have to be soo meticulous and perfect that it’d be almost impossible to pull off, why ? because while you make these small moves the Premiership doesn’t stand still, what did United do to combat Chelsea’s spending ? (Remember, this is a club that afforded Ferguson 5 years to sort out the club and that was 2 decades ago) They were bought out and simply outspent them when Chelsea ran out of financial puff.
It’s pathetic calling them moronic mistakes because your reasoning makes no sense, you mention Denilson as it this was the epitomy of Wenger’s errors, he’s one player, in one position, in the grand scheme of Arsenal as a club he’s just a minute blip on the radar, barely registers.
2. You can point it out all you want, again it was a poor point, not every team has the same resources, the same squad and will face the same sorts of injuries, you couldn’t show it then and it’s dull because you can’t show it now.
3. Mate, I could go back through the posts, I could be wrong, just going by your reply it tells me enough, you said Arsenal would struggle badly ? Woah thats uncanny ? How easy is that ? What is Arsenal sttruggling exactly ? Making a Champions League Semi-final, FA Cup Semi-final ? Or are we just going to go by the league ? One of the most competitive leagues in World football, with 3-4 teams who regualrly make the final stages of the Champions League.
Far more competitive then it used to be under Geore Graham or any previous Arsenal manager.
4 – Back to O’neill because I don’t understand it, 100 million pounds and he’s taken Aston Villa a total of 12 points further up the table, a team supposedly in disarray, he saved them from the brink of collapse and single handedly got them to where ? His most productive season he got them a total of 2 points further up the table then the season previous.
Yet he is championed by yourself and Wenger derided it makes no sense again at all.
Nothing has become obvious, except to yourself, it’s odd you thought far more of Wenger than even anyone of his defenders could, to you he must have been God, a miracle performer, a sage, someone wise far beyond his years, if he could cope with any sort of problem that managing Arsenal could throw at him.
We’ve been wanting to move to a new stadium for decades, we’ve finally done it, through Wenger and the boards prudence, we’re starting to spend money a little more freely, we have a young and very talented squad to build from and if we had a couple of the right players, despite having a vastly inexpenive squad to our comeptitors we could still end up challenging them in all compeitions.
Yet you want the manager to be sacked now, after all the hard work or conservatism, if the board were the problem why wouldn’t you want them out first and formost ?!
How have we still not signed Matuidi?! Maybe he’ll be unveiled on monday?! Really thought it’d happen before the end of the week, ah well
1)
Because as I said above, we only play Chelsea twice each season, and as such I couldn’t give a damn what Chelsea do. I care about Arsenal putting together a competitive squad, and when I see such blundering errors as Wenger makes, it’s pretty obvious that the real reason we’ll never compete with the Chelseas & Uniteds of the league is NOT because they outspend us, but because we’ve got a manager who is out of touch with the ability of his kids. We didn’t lose to Hull, Fulham, Villa and Man Shitty this season because Chelsea spent a fortune. We lose because we have a hopelessly unbalanced squad, with children occupying key positions.
Denilson a minor blip on the radar? The guy played 37 league games with the vast majority in the CRUCIAL position of central midfield. That’s not a blip, that’s a major fuck up. Calling it a ‘blip’ does a disservice to all the great players we’ve had there in the past.
2) I showed it then, and you went away with your tail between your legs, because apparently, all those players that Villa had injured just don’t count, because, well… Who knows why you deliberately ignore the facts?
3) I’m sorry, I call struggling getting humiliated in the league, and then unceremoniously tossed out of the cups by vastly better teams (and how anyone can think our FA cup run, against a bunch of lower league teams and the might Hull is anything to be proud of, I don’t know).
We were a very mediocre team last season.
I care about our own league more than anything else, and I’m fed up with Wenger completely underestimating the competition.
4) O’Neill has had three seasons at Villa, and brought them TEN places up the table. On top of which, he has a certain amount of pedigree at all of the other clubs he’s been at. I consider that a pretty good achievement, personally. And I certainly consider it a better achievement than what Wenger’s achieved since 2005.
I look at trends when judging performance, not absolute position, and O’Neill’s Villa have vastly outperformed Wenger’s Arsenal over the last few seasons in terms of growth and improvement.
But if you want, just pretend that I don’t want O’Neill in. He’s one of a few names I’d think about, if Wenger were to leave tomorrow, but right now he wouldn’t even be top of the list.
I don’t need an Arsenal manager to perform miracles, but I do wish we had one who could get the fundamentals right.
I would love to see Wenger sacked AND the club taken over – preferably by Kroenke, but Usmanov will do if it comes to it. Because the sooner we get crusty toff cunts like Hill Wood out of the boardroom, the sooner we stop applauding a manager for doing half a job, the better off we’ll be.
I would really love to see our club sign matuidi. I believe he is a talent out there and he would bring to us quality. He would be the ideal partner for cesc fabregas. However, I believe that signing only matuidi is not enough, because if he gets injured, we are only left with song and denilson. For me song is not there yet. He has the quality but just isnt there yet. Denilson too.
Therefore i seriously hope that wenger to sign 2 experienced DM. Someone that has played in that position for at least 2 seasons. Matuidi has been playing in that position for quite awhile and thus i believe he would be a great signing at a cheap price.
Reports are also saying that wenger is eyeing an Argentine called banega. Well he is another defensive midfielder that is highly rated. He is only 21 years old. I believe we should get this boy as well. But due to the rules in the CL and EPL (soon) regarding the quota thingy, I bet wenger would only probably sign one of matuidi and banega.
Next season would be exciting for arsenal. We have kept all our players. None is leaving at the moment. I seriously hope that we keep all the players with us, even for senderos and adebayor. This is because the pre-season is starting and hopefully the team will gel as one. I sincerely do not wish to see either toure or gallas leave. I believe that they would still be able to form a formidable centre defensive pair. I wish for them to pass their knowlegde to djourou, senderos and vermaelen.
Hopefully, adebayor can find his scoring boots again next season, and end up scoring 30 goals again. We will then sell him away next season.
The youngsters i tipped to shine next season would be gibbs, wilshere, merida, ramsey, lansbury, vela, nordveit, hoyte and jay-emmanuel.
Matuidi will sign soon. I think on monday. What you say
Gallas what would the point in signing Banega be? He’s someone who’s never played regularly, and further away from being able to than Song and Denilson imo. Agree about Matuidi though, his prospective signing excites me, but I really can’t see there being any truth in the Banega rumours, though you never know I guess.
Jimbo -
1. So basically, you’re not willing to accept anything other than Wenger is the reason, because somehow he’s gravitated to the epicentre of the footballing world and should be able to control what happens to Arsenal, the club, as he weaves the threads of footballing time.
Your reasoning again is poor, Hull, Fulham, Villa and Man Shitty did not finish above us, Chelsea, Liverpool and United did.
Denilson is one of any number of varibales you consider, what’s fascinating and disturbing is that you choose to focus in on him, one of countless others that could have affected our season.
2. – You showed nothing, you mentioned a couple of names and somehow expected this to be enough for everyone to understand what you mean’t, they count, but compared to us and what we were looking to achieve they were pretty insignificant.
3. Everything’s an extreme with you, we were huliated becaue we finished 4th, wat would you have done if we finished 5th ? I shudder to think because I’d have to think about your own physical well being.
4. Randy Lerner has moved Villa up the table not O’neill, O’neills just an empty vessel a run of the mill manager, hit and miss, lucky for him he has the tens of millions of Lerner to spend so that he can justplaster over all his mistakes and even then his record with Villa is pretty Pathetic.
We’ll see where he takes Villa next season. If this years failure wasn’t enough to shift your belief in him.
It’s odd that Wenger’s still in charge, if I followed your thoughts, though I bet whoever takes the club over is quite happy with it.
Jimbo
I can’t argue with most if what you said and I know how you feel about Wenger but if he had 3 years with villa and spent what O’neill has he’d take them 10 places up the table. If Wenger went to Rangers or Celtic he’d win the spl. Madrid offered him the job of managing Ronaldo Kaka etc. Do you think they are that stupid?
!
1)
Wenger gravitated to the centre of the footballing world? Well, he gravitated towards the centre of Arsenal when he was made manager of the club. So yes, he IS responsible for his decisions, and YES he keeps getting them wrong.
Actually, YOUR reasoning is at fault here. Chelsea, Liverpool and United finished above us, due in large part to the fact that Hull, Fulham, Stoke, Man City and Villa BEAT us. Our record against the other top 4 actually wasn’t too bad last year – but our record against the clubs below us was very poor relative to our ‘rivals’.
Denilson is just one reason, yes, but he’s an obvious one BECAUSE he is a problem that any half decent manager would have FIXED. Having such an unreliable, and ineffective player in the middle of our team is one of the major reasons that we were so inconsistent and poor against supposedly ‘weaker’ teams this year – it has a massive impact on the whole team, and is not a small mistake.
I don’t blame Wenger for the things he doesn’t have any control over. But until he stops making massive mistakes in the areas of our game that he DOES control, I have no sympathy for him. I don’t expect him to be perfect, but I expect him to get fundamentals right, and to stop fucking about in the transfer market. And frankly, I don’t think we’re going to get that from him, which is why I think it’s SO IMPORTANT that we get rid of him as soon as possible.
2 – I pointed out that almost all of the teams that finished around us lost big players for significant portions of the season. I cannot help it if you don’t like that fact, but it’s the truth.
3 – What would I have done if we’d finished 5th? The same thing – demanded that Wenger be sacked, yet at least because we finished 4th I know that we still have time to actually make something of the club before he can damage us beyond all repair.
4 – Funny – why don’t you think Spurs, Man City, Sunderland, Newcastle, or any of the other teams who spend in Villa’s league are as high as them in the league?
Your view of this game is obviously hopelessly simplistic. If anything, being a Wenger fanboy you should recognise that spending money is NOT directly correlated to success, and regardless of how much you have to spend, it still takes GOOD management to do well in this league.
I don’t actually see 2008/09 as a failure for Villa though – and coming from a man who thinks that Arsenal dropping a place into 4th can make a man unsackable, and FA cup run against Championship teams a success, and a humiliating run a success, I find it a bit odd that you’d also call a legitimate challenge to the big 4, and consolidation of the massive gains they’ve made in the last few years a ‘failure’. Perhaps I’m not the one with the double standards?
The year ended poorly for them, no doubt, and that’s something they’ve got to work on. But they’ve shown the frailty of Arsenal in particular for all to see. It will be only one or two years now before our place is taken by one of the teams below us, unless Wenger gets his act together or we fire him.
goonermichael,
I don’t know what Wenger would do if he were in O’Neill’s place since his Wanderers days, but I also doubt we’d be in the same state we are now had O’Neill been manager of Arsenal since 2005.
All hypothetical though.
and are Real Madrid stupid?
Yes. Yes they are.
*humiliating run
Should read – *humiliating thrashing by Manchester United in the Champions league.
No idea what happened there!
“I also doubt we’d be in the same state we are now had O’Neill been manager of Arsenal since 2005. ”
I agree completely, I genuinly don’t think for one second we’d still be in the champions league. However it’s all hypothetical and just down to opinions.
A wenger/o’neil debate is just ridiculous though, it’s like having a kaka/darren bent debate, you’ve got to have a very skewed view of football for it to be even debatable in the first place.
guys Benega is like a viera/henry.e.g henry was a prospect/young talent at monaco (dumped manU out of champions league)and his progress stalled at Juve. Same with Viera – he was stuck at AC Milan.however they became stars at Arsenal. Check out Benega’s early career – he was quite a good DM prospect as a teen. However i’d be happier with Matuidi as Benega would take longer to settle in England imo
With the players we have we should play either
4-2-3-1 or the Barca style 4-3-3..We can play Barca style 4-3-3 against teams that park the bus.
4-2-3-1 for more defensive shield against bigger opponents.
Here are tehe teams
Barca style 4-3-3
……………….Al……………….
Sag/Eb……Kolo/JD……Gal/Verm….Clichy/Gib
………………Matuidi/Song………………
…….Cesc/Den………………..Nas/Rosick….
…RVP/Theo……….Ade/Bend/Eddy……..Arsh/Vela
Brazil style 4-2-3-1
……………….Al……………….
Sag/Eb……Kolo/JD……Gal/Verm….Clichy/Gib
…………………….Matuidi/Song………..
………..Cesc/Den………………………..
RVP/Theo…………Arsh/Diaby……Nas/Rosicky…
………………Ade/Eddy/Bendy……………..
Jimbo -
1. Of course he’s responsible for his decisions, but your making it out as if there’s no way to mitigate any of them, that somehow Arsenal should have walked the league each year and the only reason wee haven’t is because of Wenger’s mistakes, a completely insular way of thinking.
If you applied the same rationale to O’neills time at Villa, you’d have shown the same disgust towards him.
There’s a limit to how much criticism can be placed on Wengers shoulders before you take stock and think yeah he could have done things better, but some of it is beyond his control.
United, Chelsea and Liverpool finished above us, not only do you consider who we lost to and why, but also the fact why they finished above us and one of those reasons is because of the money they spend,it’s probably the most significant one in there.
The thing is you do blame Wenger or so it seems because you don’t seem to have a balanced opinion on him, these massive mistakes how do they contrast, why is everything massive, there’s no scale just extremes.
2. You pointed out one or two players to be contrasted with Fabregas, which wasn’t even close to an estimation of the problem we faced with injuries, it’s not the truth mate, though you’re wlecome to delude yourself with it.
3. Again, I’m just glad for your well being we finished 4th.
4. Why don’t I think of those other teams because Villa net’s spending last season was only exceeded by one or two teams in the whole of Europe.
I’ve tried to make it as simple as I can to help you understand, but your blind bias is holding you back, this isn’t chump change, it’s like you’ve completely blotted Abramovichs arrival from your memory, theres just no excuse for it.
You are definetly the one with double standards here, O’neills improved his points total by 2 points, our struggles falsely accredited him with anything significant, but like I said we’ll see where your Messiah ends up next year.
I’m sure if he improves at the same rate within the next 15 years he might have put together a points total that might see him challenge for the title.
Difference for me KM is that Vieira had a full season or two at Cannes playing first team football, and Henry made over 100 appearances for Monaco.
Banega made just 28 appearances for Boca, and considering it was his breakthrough season I very much doubt they were all starts. Then he made 7 starts for Valencia, and 5 for Athletico the next season. The only place he’s really shone is the Argentinian youth teams, and very briefly at Boca, so he’s never actually done anything in Europe at all, he’s very unproven and very different to both Vieira and Henry imo in terms of the level of risk.
We don’t even know if he’ll make it in Europe at all.
Jimbo
You are entitled to want Wenger out and you’re not the only one. Martin O’neill is shite though. Moyes is a better manager imo. He got to 5th without a striker for part of the season. Villa went pear shped when they bought Heskey and that was o’neill’s decision.
fuck..
was going through a few comments and was stunned to see ppl calling for cesc’s selling.
wats more surprising is that the same people talk about how wenger has just been rebuilding for the last 5 years. Selling Cesc is an improvement??
In this inflated transfer market, 40 million will get you 3/4 of an able replacement for Cesc. Unproven.
I think you guys are just tired of seeing the same old faces in an Arsenal shirt. Thats about it.
Fuck all topic to even ponder on really.
The Barca style 4-3-3 is obvious as most people have wathced Barca this year.
RVP/Theo will play Messi’s role
Ade/Bendy/Eddy will play Etoos role
Arsh/Vela play Henry’s role
Nas/Rosiky play Iniesta role
Song/Matuidi Yaya role
Cesc/Den Xavi role
IN the Brazil style 4-2-3-1
I pick Arshavin or Diaby to play Kaka’s role because Arshavin is the best dribbler we have at pace…so he drives the counter attacks right down the opponents throat just like Kaka…We all know Diaby loves to dribble so I put him as Arshavin’s back up in this formation and its his best position so hopefully he can do well there.
Nas/Rosicky will play the Ramires/Elano role meaning box to box…the only differnce is its on the opposite side…Ramires/Elano play on the right while Nas/Rosik play on the left.
RVP/Theo will play Robinho’s role but on the right..not the left..they stay a lil higher up the pitch than Nas/Rociky
Matuidi/Song will play Gilberto;s role and Cesc/Den will play Melo’s role…spraying the passes but staying relatively deep only joining the attack ocassionally.
And then Ade/Eddy/eddy play Fabiano’s role.
I think thise 2 formations will work well for the type of players we have.
4-3-3 against park the bus opponents
4-2-3-1 against bigger opponents
Jimbo all my comments are basically for you. Thank god moderation is keeping me away from giving you a piece of my mind, and getting myself banned.
I want no signings, I just want the season to start. Maybe Toure will be played at DM and he will be the man for us.
Stop ffs the perennial speculation about who we should sign. Enough of negative vibes.
Makes me sick.
Wenger can play 4-4-2 in the Carling cup and FA cup early rounds with Bendy and Vela as the strikers..maybe even Eddy just to see how thigs are progessing..Rosikcy can also play a part in those games.
But for league and CL I say 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1
1 – Keyser, please stop me if you think I’m criticising Arsene for things beyond his control. And, furthermore, if you think that it’s beyond Arsene’s control to build a team that does not suffer defeats to Stoke, Hull, Everton, Man City, Villa and draw a further 12 games, then again, just stop me and we’ll go our separate ways, agreeing to disagree on the extent to which we can expect Arsene Wenger to influence Arsenal.
but mitigating for mistakes? How do you mitigate for not having a proper central midfield?
2 – No, I pointed out that almost all clubs around us in the league last year had a similar number of players who missed similar numbers of games to us. Again, it’s just a fact. If you don’t like it, then too bad.
3 – Appreciate the concern
4 – And now we’re onto Abramovich’s arrival? So Roman Abramovich is to blame for Arsene Wenger forgetting what a central midfield looks like?
Your unwillingness to even read what I’m writing is making this discussion difficult however. After all I’ve written, you still refer to O’Neill as my ‘messiah’ really makes me wonder if you’re not just trying to deflect the whole thrust of the argument to try to score cheap points?
Goonermichael, I agree, I actually prefer Moyes.
Don’t blame me for this massive discussion on O’Neill though – Keyser seems rather fixated.
I don’t rate O’neill at all. Moyes isn’t bad but I’d still stick with Wenger another year.
Jimbo –
1. I have, you just don’t seem to want to listen, yeah it’s unfortunate we’ve lost to teams that have finished below us in the table, just for some reason you seem to think this is something exclusive to Arsenal, like this never ever happens to anyone else, you’d be surprised.
Wenger’s made mistakes, just don’t see how you can expect him to be able to cover everything and overcome it.
We could have had a better midfield, stop with the extremes, our problems went far beyond just those specific examples.
2. Similar ? Heh, you pointed to one or two players from any number of clubs, it was neither a completel, nor a balanced comparison. A poor fact with little relevance, but keep holding on to it.
3. Mate, seriously we’re still Arsenal fans aferall.
4. I can be as facetious as you want, if you want to believe that the sole reason we don’t win the league or lift the Champions League title is because our central midfield could be better, than fine, if you want to expand the debate let me know.
I’d apologise for the ‘mesiah’ comment, but you were being silly with the success comments, so I thought I’d join in.
If the O’neill comparison irks you, as it should, after his momumental failure, then I’m sorry, just trying to put it in terms you’d appreciate.
wel guys it seems we are not in great danger of being taken over by man city for our 4th place next season
no tevez no eto and certainly no terry,with signings like g.b and r.s.c.lets be honest there not serious are they,c’mon……………
i agree bbk – is tevez definitely not happening now as well as etoo?? It’s a pity, utd could have been in trouble this year
Probably the last one before bed.
1 – What made you think I didn’t know it happens to other people?
It just happened rather more to us, last season, than it did our rivals. That’s a rather obvious point, I’d have thought, and the reason that we didn’t come close to even remotely challenging for the title.
I’m not sure what you mean by your second sentence though. I don’t expect Wenger to make schoolboy mistakes in the first place. Our central midfield was an amateurish mistake from Wenger last season. Was it our only problem? No, our central defence left a lot to be desired as well, as did some very dubious tactics from Wenger on a few key occasions, the underperformance of ‘key’ squad members, and yes, we suffered injuries too, just like our rivals.
But I can forgive Wenger making small mistakes. It happens to everyone. Enormous cock-ups, like, you know, royally fucking up central midfield are not forgivable, and I don’t see why you’re so insistent about it being a minor issue, when really it’s not.
2 – I’m going to drop this, because frankly it’s dull. What we did, as I’m sure you recall, is bemoan how a few players missed a lot of games last season, and then a few of you proceeded to whinge about how unfair it was on Arsenal, apparently ignoring the fact that I pointed out that most of the clubs that finished around us had similar casualty lists.
If you still want to pretend we were really hard done by, then power to you. But to be honest, you’ll be saying exactly the same thing next year, because last year was nothing out of the ordinary, for us, or anyone else.
3 – Interlude for a group hug, and… on to four
4 – Is our central midfield the sole reason we didn’t win the league? No, but it was Wenger’s biggest and daftest mistake of the year (even worse than signing Silvestre), and was probably the biggest reason our league campaign was effectively over by November.
As for O’Neill, your comments don’t really irk me, just display remarkable double-standards.
not gonna happen
can i just ask why you are numbering your points of view??????
Yup, that’s definitely it for me tonight Keyser – enjoyed the banter! Bis morgen!
Jimbo – It’s kool, not as if we have anything new to discuss.
1. It’s a minor issue in relation to how big a challenge it is now to achieve what we are trying to and despite your protestations and exaggerations it’s nowhere near as big as you make it out to be, you’d find similar examples across the premiership, but then those managers won’t have been sacked either.
2, It’s dull because we go around in circles, you seem to think because other teams had an injury or two this somehow equates as equal, whether we had 1 or 12.
3. It’s all good, keeps my mind occupied before I go sleep.
4. If there are double standards, which having conversed with you, I don’t think you quite understand, this should have pointed out where you were going wrong, but ah well it wasn’t to be.
You can keep saying it’s the biggest or daftest mistake, in relation to everything else we’ve had to deal with, it doesn’t specifically stand out, at least not as something that was simply inconceivable that it should be left be.
Much like you pointing out a 4th choice central defender as a major mistake, while trying to undermine injuries as a reason for our demise.
Jimbo
You disappeared on here when The Arsenal went 22 games without losing, then made it to the semi’s of the CL. Then when the run ended back you came.
When The Arsenal are top by xmas, don’t hide this time old boy, show some backbone & take your medicine.
By the way…why are we starting pre season so late. Everton had a game today, Liverpool start theirs on Wednesday..not sure about anyone else.
But we dont start for another week. What are we waiting for ffs!
ReVELAtion Says:
July 10, 2009 at 20:19
well done lad sums up the situation correctly ..
—————————-
keyser
It’s dull because we go around in circles,
———————————————-
well let me shoot it straight at ya then
keyser u take optimism to a new level .
KEEP IT FUCK’IN REAL FFS!
your the only one on here who believes your own hum drum , most like reva’s post know the situation ..
you talk about the chev’s manU etc..
well correct me if im wrong but man U haven’t been out of the top 2 …
that was us not so long ago under wenger ..
its obvious, VERY OBVIOUS we have let it slip! ..
and if your blind enough not to see why on the pitch .. look to the EPL table ..
or the board room and where the money goes
( or doesn’t ) for that matter
i m not even sure why you chat about football you clearly know nothing about it ..
arguing on the other hand is your forte
keyser it wouldn’t surprise me if you were a regular on ACLF but changed your Id. so people dont know you here …
———————————–
1. It’s a minor issue in relation to how big a challenge it is now to achieve what we are trying to and despite your protestations and exaggerations it’s nowhere near as big as you make it out to be,
—————————————
the difference is small .. YES
if your an idiot !
of course the gap is small if your not looking at it correctly .. its like trying to
tell the difference between wilt chamberlain and Micheal Jordan ..
but Micheal is still clearly the best ..
or tiger woods and singh ..
we aint going to get relegated .. SURE !
but we wont win the EPL title at this rate either ..
not enough quality – not enough players who believe in themselves -and the ones that do want out .. wenger doesnt even really have a bench …
DO YOU CARE TO WAGER THIS SEASON
we wont finish 1st ???????????
no odds ! MONEY ….
your either confident or your not …
thats why you bet ….
and your clearly confident , or stupid
but that’s what bettings all about isnt it ..
smart people taking money from stupid people
which one are you
because unless arsene gets some serious funds
we wont be challenging for anything other than the F.A – C.C , and if wenger keeps adopting his youth injections thru-out these comps , we wont win anything there either !
its not doom and gloom its fact ..
if there was something to cheer about id be cheering , and louder than the lot of you !
because i can
Ethangunner – Seriously mate, I’ve stopped discussing anything with you, because frankly you don’t know what you’re talking about half the time, you actually seem to agree with some of my sentiments and yet don’t know you’re doing it.
What do you want me to bet with you about ?!
That we don’t finish first ? with no odds ?!
Hah, why ?!
“if there was something to cheer about id be cheering , and louder than the lot of you !”
lol bollocks, there’s always something to cheer about, no situation is ever 100% negative, people can just choose to focus on the positive, or focus on the negative, or in the case of some people on here claim that everything is a negative, and exaggerate any negative to 100 times the actual case!
I share your sentiments about a fair few posters on here Keyser, some are just hysterical, and others are slightly more articulate, though so ridiculously set in their ways stuck arguing cemented opinions based on very limited or non existant logic, that it’s impossible to engage in rational debate with them. I’m impressed with how long you kept going with Jimbo – I gave up the other day even responding to anything he writes, amongst others, because so much of it’s so ridiculous it’s impossible to debate with!
I think it’s quite telling that practically everybody in the footballing business, that is people inside the game who have considerable knowledge about all things related to football, share the view that Wenger is one of the best and most astute managers in the game..
But hey what do they know? It’s a far more balanced point of view to throw ones toys out the pram because he didn’t win anything and demand he be sacked.
A
you cheer when you have some degree of success .
any degree of success , that usually accompanies winning something ANYTHING or finishing better than the season previous they are the landmarks of progression .. so please tell me what is so thought provoking that we should view this season as being any better than the last ?!
AA-23 is the only positive thing that happened to us this season … but there is only so much 1 man can do against teams like man U and the chev’s
and its true A , i give credit where its due .
ive said ade was shit when a lot of you disagreed i kept to my guns and now , 90% of the fans want him gone ….
so yes i clearly dont know what the fuck im on about ..
or in the past that letting go of diarra was a mistake that will leave the position empty come the end of the season .. i clearly knew nothing there either ..
or the fact i said TH14 would leave 2 months prior to him making it official , and flamini and hleb for that matter …
at least 90% of what i say does come true , or is at least the next step in the arsenal camp’s think tank ..
like the sale of cesc … and ade ..
it has to be looked at if the club is indeed in need of funds .. which they wont admit , but
obviously do need!, due to mounting pressure of man shitty and the other top 3 looking to add this season also ..
i class it as logical thinking with degree of guess work .. but thats what id do ..
HB
i dont want wenger sacked i want our land tycoons the board gone from the equasion .
they have split loyalties currently and would rather worry about the real estate market than
the very thing they are in business for to begin with …
no other management in the EPL show this littler passion , for their supposed PASSION …
they are a bunch of backyard hicks who imo sacked existing board members and replaced them with money men as a safety net , because even they aren’t sure what the fuck they are doing ..
a for another point ( and blowing my own trumpet) just ask DDM ..
who was right about the highbury development over 4-5 months ago .. who was the 1st to say
we should still be at least over 250-300 mil in debt… 90 % of you said bollocks to me !
and highbury development has nothing to do with the burden of our football club …
thank fuck i know nothing .. !
I think you’ll find most people knew ade was nothing special even when he was scoring goals ethan, that’s nothing special at all. Everyone knew Henry and Hleb were going as well….
90% of what you say comes true therefore your opinion is right?! that’s simply laughable. It’s like saying we were gonna sign Vermaelen after all the rumours started, then claiming it as some moment of genius!
I never made a comment on last season – you said if there was ANYTHING to cheer about then you’d cheer louder than the rest, which obviously isn’t true, for you to cheer you’d need EVERYTHING to be positive, which is a situation that could never happen at ANY club!
Just because we don’t have a top player in central midfield doesn’t mean that shipping off the turd that is diarra was a mistake, that’s still very much open to debate, and of the more articulate gooners from my experience most are pleased to see the back of him. Regardless of his abilities as a footballer as a person he showed his true colours, and i’m very glad to be rid of him.
We don’t need massive funds, most of the sensible gooners seem to agree that, it’s only the hysterical pessimists or the less rational who seem to believe that it’s impossible to achieve any level of success without throwing vast sums of money in the fire.
ethan why are you stating things that are announced in the papers or on blogs, and claiming that having repeated it makes you somehow knowledgable?!