Well, things are very slow, aren’t they?
The Premier League does not seem to have a united voice on restarting the season. Players are worried about health and the bottom 6 clubs are being very vocal about their opposition to neutral grounds. The Watford Chairman spoke to The Times today and basically said he doesn’t want to finish a season in an unnatural way that could kill his club. It’s all very self-serving, but I suppose these execs have to be, they don’t run businesses, they run the circus. If they are relegated, it could be over for them.
My guess is the government are going to bottle restarting the Premier League. As much as everyone wants the football back, it seems politically toxic to go hell for leather to restart a game. Players don’t want it, there’s no vaccine, and there will probably be a big second wave coming as everyone heads out for social closeness in the newly opened beer gardens.
It’s all very depressing.
Arsene Wenger is so bored, he dialled into Talksport. He had this to say.
“I worry about the club still a lot and I watch all of the games,”
“I believe there is a culture in the way to play football at Arsenal that I want to be respected,”
“And I hope Mikel can get that back.”
The ‘worry’ comment there is directly aimed at Messrs Raul and Edu and some of the values they’re bringing to Arsenal football club.
The culture comment is a bit rich if I’m honest. Wenger absolutely crushed the winnertivity vibes at the club with his dismantling of standards, constant excuse-making, and socialist wage structures. Doesn’t make him wrong. Emery made things worse, a total joke of a manager… Mikel has a lot of work ahead, but at least he’s seen how it’s done in a modern structure. High standards, visionary ideas, and exacting principles.
It’s a huge job, but it really does help to have someone running Arsenal that actually loves what we’re about. Values was often a crutch to fend of criticisms for our failings on the pitch. Arsenal does have values though, the club does things differently, we are special. That Bank of England vibe needs to extend onto the pitch though. Values without success is kind of pointless when it comes to sport.
Footyheadlines have another kit for us to look at.
I’ll have to see it in the flesh, but it’s ok. A bit boring. Could do better in my opinion. Certainly not on the level of the current offering.
Thomas Partey update: People are still pretending they know what’s going on. I have very, very serious doubts that Arsenal are negotiating 40m euro transfer deals at the moment. Though it has to be said, I’m happy that we’re being linked to him. He’d be an unbelievably sexy signing.
Barca currently trying to bring Lautaro to Camp Nou, they are offering up to 6 names for the swap. Shows you where this summer is going. Interesting times ahead.
Right, that’s me done, see you in the comments. x
Some possibly deliberate misinterpretations of posts on here today. 1. If you read my post on Wenger and the stadium my dig is actually at the people who claimed at the time that ‘Wenger built the stadium’, not actually at Wenger himself. They were, and still are, complete cocks. 2. European trophies include the CL, CWC, UEFA Cup and Europa League. So unless someone has a very poor memory they should remember that both Bertie Mee (Fairs Cup) and George Graham (CWC) won European trophies despite having far far fewer opportunities than Arsene. And although we spent many years in… Read more »
There was nothing coincidental between Dein’s departure and the downward spiral the club entered. For all his flaws, David Dein was a proper football executive director and loved Arsenal. Once he got kicked out, the board never properly replaced him. He and Wenger were the perfect double act. He compensated Wenger natural caution and procastination. Because of their relationship based on trust and mutual respect, he was able to tell Wenger when he was wrong and to force him to make changes. Gazidis was an idiot who Wenger never respected and never listened. When you compare David Dein ability to… Read more »
Valentin
In short, Gazidis is a dipshit
The irony is that in 2007 Fiszman was first to sell a small amount of his shares to Kronkie. Dein insisted that some external injection of cash was the only way that Arsenal could thrive and he encouraged Kronkie to buy ITV’s shares of about 9% of the club. Fiszman flew into a rage and wanted rid of Dein. Indeed it was Fiszman who personally took away Dein’s company ‘phone and personally marched him off the premisis! Dein sold his remaining shares to the highest bidder (Usmanov) and walked away. Fiszman sold his remaining shares to Kronkie just 3 days… Read more »
Get Cazorla back as a coach he can teach the players how to play with both feet. Could help players willock be the best they can be
Wenger got well paid for sucking on the corporate tit for two decades. He lied to the fans, made up shit that was patently untrue and deflected comments and criticism. Now he’s sitting on a pile of cash in his old age and can’t get another managerial gig (for obvious reasons), he’s determined to go back and rewrite history, no doubt trying to make himself out as a wounded hero, whose failure for 3/4 of his term is down to the decisions of others, the stadium, the team and financial fair play. I would ignore Him entirely. Let him claim… Read more »
One for CG here.
If anyone wants to have a dig at Arteta over losing to Olympiacos in the Europa League they might do well to recall that in AW’s first full season he lost in the first round to PAOK Athens.
The wheel turning full circle perhaps?
Ah yes, Mr Gazidis.
What a guy!👎
Moray
100% spot on.
andy
I’m just waiting for the “rational” explanation as to why that wasn’t Wenger fault.
Graham “22 years, no European trophy. Zilch! Nothing!” I’m sure that with your experience of competitive sport over the years you would recognise that in cup competitions, a team sometimes need the footballing gods in their favour. We reached the UEFA cup final and lost on pens ,which as you know is a lottery. We reached the champions league final and was ahead in the dying minutes, however , an offside goal gave Barcelona the equaliser which then led to the winner as they had their tails up. The footballing gods were against us in these 2 finals , just… Read more »
The fallout between Dein and Fiszman was in part over the construction of the stadium.
Arsenal had made the decision to build a new stadium many years before
Wenger arrived. The original idea was to build it at Highbury but local objections, planning restrictions and the fact the East Stand was a listed building prevented this from happening.
Dein’s fallout with Fiszman AND other members of the Board was mainly due
to him approaching Kroenke without authority.
Pierre
You are flogging a dead horse.
There are many posters on here who consider that any trophy apart from
Champions League and EPL are worthless competitions.
The fact that Pochettino made a similar remark is their justification. Pochettino may be a decent coach, but he never won anything in his career.
“Pierre
You are flogging a dead horse.”
That’s an awful thing to say about what’s left of his wally at this age.
ES/Pierre
This 🐎 is still alive and kicking thanks.
Where did I ever say that trophies other than the CL and the EPL are worthless?
Are you telling me that if we’d had a EL return as successful as both Sevilla(5) and Porto(3) during that same 22 year period you wouldn’t be happy?
Pierre – I’m well aware of our historical failings in Europe.
You are correct though, “it never quiet happened”………………………………22 years in a row!!
Ah well, as you rightly highlight, “that’s football” or, as I see it, that’s the way it was under Wenger.
alex
“his wally”?
OK, so who on here still thinks that the Bundesliga will go ahead next weekend?
Graham
Why has something else / new happened?
Graham, you never getting bored slagging off Wenger?
Bob
And they wonder why I call them the Wenger obsessives.
“his wally”?
There’s kids here.
Pierre, being a bit selective about that CL final. The free kick from which Campbell scored was an very obvious dive from Eboue. Sure they had a dodgy goal but so did we. What cost us was Jens’ rush of blood and possibly the decision to take off Pires (which ultimately made up his mind to leave the club).
Bob N16
I see it as constructive( or is it destructive?) criticism, even if others don’t.
Pierre, I think you mean PSV in 06/07 (not Anderlecht).
What also didn’t help was finishing second in the group stage (I recall the excuse was that they were all good teams in the knock out stages) and that was why we kept drawing Barca and Bayern in the next round.
That loss at home to Chelsea in 2004 was also a poor result.
Anderlecht was a group game back in the 2014-15 campaign.
3-0 up, with 30 minutes to play, playing at home, and we blew it.
If we had won, we would have topped our group.
The rest is history.
“””The wheel turning full circle perhaps?””” Hardly Andy. Wenger was more concerned with winning the The Double than beating PAOK in his 1st full season. Wengers biggest mistake at The Arsenal- is he made managing Arsenal look too easy. And fans assumed the sensational soccer, the trophies, the cup finals and top 4s were the norm. Well they are not. (As we are seeing.) We are the only club in world soccer that spent 1/4 billion on players and have got SUBSTANTIALLY worse. From 6th to 9th. Totally unparalleled in the game. And I can categorically state , we wont… Read more »
CG
What was he “concerned with” for the next 21 years?
😬
Again I think we should go for a cheaper use£ to prem player instead of buying parsley…
It’s a mistake.
Andy
“Pierre, being a bit selective about that CL final. The free kick from which Campbell scored was an very obvious dive from Eboue. ”
And why shouldn’t I be selective about the team I support .
The fact is , a Barcelona player was offside for their first goal.
It’s only a supposed Arsenal fan who would pick out a supposed dive from one of our own players to justify why we lost the champions league final.
Santan, Yes Gazidis may be a good commercial, but he clearly has been promoted to a position (CEO of a football club) way above his level of competence. The fact he is presiding over an even bigger mess at Milan AC, should put to bed the notion that he was a good CEO led astray by Wenger. The problem is that Gazidis did what every unsecured Beta manager does. Hiring people who could never be a threat to them. Filling the place with opportunists and sycophants (who keep telling that he is doing a great job and that those pesky… Read more »
Govt approved restart by June 1 . How many of you think PL clubs will react ?
Not how many ugh . . . . I meant how will The PL clubs react ? Agree on restart?
Have we signed George Lewis yet?
ValentinMay 11, 2020 17:23:50
The Peter principle
You heard it here 1st!
Pierre, simply put if you’re going to offer a biased opinion make that clear rather than present it as fact.
Just like your opinions on Arsene.
Divine
Self interest will prevail – Sky Sport’s had a headline earlier that more the 50% of clubs in the bottom half of the table want relegation scrapped (this season I assume!), with 6 teams either in the bottom 3 or within 2 points of it is anyone surprised.
Players are still earning big money whilst sitting on their backsides so no desire to do anything from them either.
The restart?
It’s already in trouble. The PL have said today that they’ll take on board the concerns about neutral venues and talk to the authorities about it. Of course they know the police will never sanction clubs playing at home so they’re in a no-win situation.
If they are going to restart I can only see it being on a no-relegation basis unless there is some sort of financial compensation (over and above the parachute payment) to the clubs impacted.
CG – Wenger must have had a premonition about the double in that case – we played PAOK in September, not sure he was ‘concentrating on the double’ at that stage.
andy
Do you actually think thousands of Scousers won’t appear at the ground where they are playing for the 2nd win they require? Those that don’t travel for that will be out on the streets to celebrate – I’m just wondering who’s fault it’ll be.
“”””CG – Wenger must have had a premonition about the double in that case””””
He had many many qualities Andy,
He predicted an Unbeaten season was coming AND he dropped an Unbeaten season soon after.
Book out in October.
I hope you have ordered your copy.
I have.
I am hoping once Graham has read it – we will see a much more emollient side of him too. No good all this Wenger angst and anger inside him bubbling away.
people living on modest incomes are proportionately far
more generous than the rich, often donating money and time at considerable personal
sacrifice, without receiving comparable recognition or tax breaks for their
contributions.
Im telling you for free!
Valentin
Who interviewed Gazidis?
CG Breath it in and except it, because my feelings on Wenger will never change. Yes, I will order my copy of ‘My Life In Red And White’ although I can already predict that there’ll be a fair few excuses thrown in to keep us all amused. I can also guarantee we won’t see too many ‘acceptance of blame’ segments either. Remember though it’s an autobiography, which means they will be his own perceptions of his reign and an account of what he saw and felt at the club. Will we feel sympathy for him after the read? I wonder.… Read more »
Sid
This is true.
About fucking time:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/ghq1n2/armed_black_panthers_show_up_to_the_neighbourhood/
What happened to all of the nigerians that used to post here?
You guys ok?
Don’t drop the soap in the shower, you creep:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/11/cars/elon-musk-tesla-factory-tweet/index.html
Wrightie’s Twitter Issue:
https://twitter.com/IanWright0/status/1259833040626429954?s=19
Read this in a F365 article and it reminded me of someone….
“For younger fans, often those who are displaced and watching from afar, the individual is king. The team is just the parade float or the podium or the packaging for the figurine that holds their real loyalty”
Any guesses?
NEEG, 1) Wenger did not chose Gazidis. He was just part of the interview process. I also doubt that Wenger could have said to the Kroenke, the guy you have selected is a complete moron. I can’t work with him. I have been in a similar situation when the HR department involve you in the interview process of your next boss, but you already know that he will get the job and nobody care about what you say. One of my colleagues did not understood that the game was rigged and wrote what we all thought of the management preferred… Read more »
Sid I did mentioned the Peter principle a few months ago when there was a discussion about Vinay and Raul. But Gazidis is slightly different in that I don’t think the Peter Principle fully apply to him. he was not promoted internally. He got the job on the back of his resume and interview. He aced his interview because he is a slick, salesman. I am sure that he has great ideas. His problem is that he is a idea/marketing man without the organisation skill to implement that plan. There is different type of leadership. One of them is the… Read more »
Whether or not Wenger was the one behind the Gazidis hire, don’t get the impression they worked too well together for long after that, wouldnt be surprised if in the end Wenger didn’t view him with a level of contempt. Gazidis seemed to publicly pressure Wenger to spend where he may not have wanted to , perhaps to please the fans. Maybe he was right to do so, but maybe this is what bought Ozil and what followed. Gazidis was also conspicuous in his lack of proper backing of Wenger in the last couple of years, possibly rightly so, but… Read more »