Me too. I hate them far more. I at least respect Arsenal as a football club and how they go about their business
Unfortunately I don’t think it’d make a huge difference nowadays. The money that’s been pumped in over the years has basically allowed them to become self sufficient. They’re able to sell players for big money as well as buy them now, instead of just pumping in the money to solely buy without the need for selling. And then presumably they’ve made a lot of dough from prize money and sponsorships over the years, not forgetting they have the best academy in the country which I begrudgingly hate admitting. They even made a profit last summer despite spending £90m on Lukaku. In fact, I think their net spend was only something like £30m-£40m more than ours over the last five years.
Bloody annoying ain’t it, lol. They’re still ****s though, that’ll never change, regardless of new owner or not.
They’re, unfortunately, in a really good spot. They have had a few high profile duds, as has every club (some more than others…) but by and large they have a knack of selling well, and identifying the right players they need, and of course the financial clout to get the deals done. It’s frustratingly effective.
Their wage bill dwarfs ours and Abramovich had to lend them another couple of hundred million. I doubt everything's transparent, either. He's too dodgy for Switzerland, FFS!
Undoubtedly the way they’re funded is suspect, but the way they identify players and the way they make money from sales is usually enviable.
We had five good chances to score last night. Kane should have stayed onside for the disallowed goal; Hojbjerg had an easy through ball to Kane that he fluffed; Winks had a more difficult one, also fluffed; Kane should have put Lo Celso or Lucas in properly for the second ‘penalty’ and Hojbjerg was through for the first one. Instead we presented them with a goal.
Indeed, and they only scored throughout the entire tie from our mistakes. And we were dire throughout, so far below what this team could produce with more players fit, let alone with additions. Don’t get me wrong we were mostly miserable throughout both games and absolutely did not deserve to win based on the first 45 mins of the first game alone, but cut out the mistakes and if Kane places a pass a couple of feet better then we could have won 1-0. Unjustifiably, but hey. Elite football is won and lost on fine margins and the better a player, the more of the time they come down on the right side of those margins. Chelsea ruthlessly punished our mistakes and managed the games very well from the lead but against a team missing so many preferred players in defence and with our best attackers injured or out of form, they hardly blew us away. That only makes the losses more galling tbh.
The issue is the margins weren't as fine thanks to us needlessly changing our formation, as that's creating the potential for mistakes before a ball is kicked
Easy to identify players when you’ve got unlimited money and can afford to take risks with no worry because Roman will bale them out if he needs to. As for making sales, the only reason they have those expensive assets to sell on is again Roman and his dirty money. I know I sound bitter but I hate Chelsea and hate that they got lucky with him buying them all those years ago
Yeah no doubt the money helps get the deals over the line But money doesn’t solve all problems. Look at United
I don’t know that it was so much a formation change as the wingbacks getting pushed back and players being out of position. We lost the midfield badly in the first game and some sort of 352 (whether with a 10 and 2 DMs or a DM and 2 8s) might have helped counteract that. The second game they had pace on the flanks and that seemed to push Emerson and Doherty back a lot, especially in the first half.
The biggest issue with the second leg is that, by not having any wide players further up the pitch, we were always potentially leaving Emerson and Doherty exposed - and it has to be said that potentially leaving Doherty exposed out of position at LWB was something which caused me to wince as soon as I saw the teamsheet, let alone the first half
Yup, Doherty just has no engine, whether on the left or right. One assumes having Covid really took it out of him long-term because he was good as a WB at Wolves. It’s going to be a massive issue because 343 demands a lot from the WBs, let alone 352 of either flavour (which is where I’d like us to move).
Yeah Man Utd are a whole different level of **** show atm. Unfortunately I think they’re only a few good decisions and signings away from competing properly again though.
