I'm not sure that our board's as unfailingly positive as is being claimed here, but I think that our less cheery threads tend to be more balanced than negative. We're all very happy to be where we are at the moment, but most of us recognise that Redknapp could do with rotating the team a little more and that we need to do some business in this window. We know where we are, where we've been and where we'd like to be, so why not enjoy the ride while it's going smoothly? I think that some of the more negative fans on the Arsenal board are young and overreacting, having only ever known Wenger's Arsenal. They compare everything to the best years and anything else is seen as a failure, regardless of how unrealistic that is. Rebuilding is very hard to do overnight. Look at Liverpool and they don't even have a new stadium out of it.
I think you've hit the nail on the head. (although some of them are old enough to know better) Some of our fans expect success as a given, regardless of the circumstances and then berate the manager, players, board, tea lady and anyone else they can lay blame on when it doesn't come. When you take an objective look at how Wenger has handled the last 7 years, whilst a trophy has eluded us (just, we came close to winning the League, The Champions league and the Carling Cup) he has done remarkably well to keep us in the Champions league and challenging for the title, against the backdrop of trying to rebuild the invincibles team, moving to and adapting to a new stadium, plus the financial constraints that this has brought. I'm not opposed to constructive criticism, but I do take objection to unwarranted negativity. For example, Henry scoring last night, our greatest ever player, making his return, scoring on his (2nd) debut, winning the game and sending the fans into raptures - and yet some of our fans seem to want to concentrate on how this must mean the rest of the team are **** or totally ignoring his goal and whining about him kicking a player when he lost the ball I think someone on here summed it up quite well when they said that some Arsenal fans don't really put the 'support' into 'supporter' - As a die hard Gooner, who's been there through thick and thin, it's sad, but there you go, I guess that's the price to pay when you've had success and then it's harder to come by again.
To be fair though Piskie, Arshavin was ****ing **** and Henry could easily have gone for that petulant hack. It wasn't too dissimilar to Rooney's one for England and was clearly an act of retaliation. It's a valid point to ask what happens if van Persie gets injured after Henry's back in New York. The timing and phrasing were probably a bit off, though.
I agree, like I said, nothing wrong with constructive criticism, but a lot of it has been well OTT in my opinion. One of the few insights HIAG had was when he summed it up by saying he didn't need to wum our board anymore as some of our fans do a better job than any Spurs fans could do anyway.
That's b/c we've been through PLENTY of bad times! The skin grows thicker as a result. Having lived through an era which saw the likes of Paolo Tramezzani *ahem* "grace" the EPL, it generally takes a lot more to get our hopes down!
I also agree with PNP. Much as I'd like to claim our superiority entirely as a result of better and more character, for Gooners to watch their team come down from the heights is likely to be wearing. On the other hand, the most wearing thing of all is to have good reason to have hope while having plenty of experience of having it dashed. Pulling for a confirmed, out and out loser takes a little settling in, but after that is reasonably comfortable. I started out just wanting to make following the Prem interesting, and now I'm nervously tabulating the records of my shirts on matchday. (60/61 double champions replica shirt the winner so far, at 4-0-0). Still, at the end of this season, even if it's disappointing, I plan to stay upbeat. The football has been thrilling, with mostly excellent performances from management and players.
When your aging staduim (titter) falls down next year and we allow you to share ours, do you think we should merge our forums as well?
Hell no, though it appears that half of your lot have already migrated over here. You really are the Wanderers, aren't you?
PISKIE you sod!! I am Simon Williams and no one else. Not Noah, not Ensil, just smnwllms. Now stop with that bollocks. Have I ever wummed your board?? Go to my profile and check all my posts. FFS! Anyway, have you stopped moaning about people being realistic on your own board yet. The point of these sort of things (forums) is people share their views and discuss stuff. What we write on here doesn't matter one jot. You really shouldn't get you knickers in such a twist.
I must admit Half full, you're a lot more amiable since your name change Piskie, there's no negativity on our board because we're doing well. If there was a repeat of the lack of goals from our strikers that we had last year then I'm sure it'd be different. That said there was a fair amount of disagreement and frustration on our board pre season but [no disrespect to your board] we do seem to have more reasonable posters, even if people have differing opinions they tend to be able to articulate it well enough that it doesn't descend into an argument. Also, it's well recognised on here that Yid Vicious is top dog and no one dare disagree. It's a hierachy which helps bring order.
