Well , Wenger HAS done amazingly well to achieve Championsleague football considering the board has consistently sold our best Players. However the upsetting thing is both Wenger and the board seem happy to continue as also rans. Nobody's is pushing for improvement. As long as we keep producing decent financial results everybody is happy- except us the fans! They are turning us into another Porto, Spurs, Ajax, athetico..type club. Just a feeder for the big boys and a cash cow for the owners.
No, why would I.He has done a brilliant job to keep us in the Top 4 given our resources compared to City, Chelsea, Utd and even Spurs to an extent (they have spent vast sums to try and get top 4) the move from Highbury, the break up of the invincibles squad, the financial restraints that building a new stadium brought and the fact that our board seem intent on selling his best players. It's quite a remarkable feat in fact. I think if we'd sacked him like you suggested we should, we might already be out of the Champions League places. However I've never said that we're doing brilliantly though. I think we've done okay, and our 3rd place finish suggests that we're getting more right than we are getting wrong, but there are obvious areas for improvement. Do you accept that nobody has ever said that 'everything is fine' ? But have instead offered opinions on where we could improve ?
Look at post 42 and then have the audacity to suggest that it is me that's fishing for a fight. Wenger has been successful for the last 8 years, whether you like it or not. Whether he could have or should have been MORE successful is a completely seprate point that you deliberately ignore and use to belittle fellow fans and/or start fights. I am not getting drawn into this one as I need to pack for an early flight tomorrow, but am sure you will bait me once I am back in blighty (per usual).
The resources argument is an excuse - as a club like Dortmund have shown for two seasons, and we showed when we beat Utd to the title 3 times. I am glad you have at least stood by your claim that you think Wenger is doing a brilliant job. I, as you know, think he has done a very poor job - we've lost our best players, we've won nothing, our league position has fallen off (we're going backwards), our defence has turned into a shambles. The club has fallen into crisis under his watch - by his own admission. I do not recall you ever saying everything is fine, but holding up the manager as doing a brilliant job whilst making excuses about money is exactly what I am talking about in this thread. It's an apologist attitude and one that leads to falling expectations.
No falsehood in post 42, as Piskie has already pointed out that he does indeed think Wenger is doing a brilliant job . Perhaps you could try harder. If you want to call no trophies, a falling league position, the loss of our best players, and the erosion of our defense to the point where its of mid table quality a success, that's up to you. However, as you pointed out, we have different opinions, so I find your 'Wenger has been successful for the last 8 years whether you like it or not' statement to be somewhat stupid.
A great read, but I don't see how any of it relates to, let alone argues against, anything of the points in my post? Apologies if I am being dense, but am reading this and trying to work out how to pack freeze dried sushi in a way that it won't get mangled in the airplane's hold
Qualifying for the CL is a level of success. That you think otherwise simply shows you to be of limited intellect. That you can't give credit for any achievements because you believe it will be seen as acceptance for other failures only goes to show that you are indeed a moron. The above 3 points are irrefutable facts. Live with them. I took the bait. Happy now?
Oh dear. So your standards define success eh? Not buying that. here's some real irrefutable facts for you - as opposed to your opinions. Our best players are leaving the club to win trophies elsewhere. Our defence is the worst it has been in a decade. We have won no trophies for 7 years and not won the league in 8 years. You see that as success - although i see you are talking about levels of success now. With that in mind, Wigan had a level of success this year by staying up. Intersted to know just how low your level of success criteria can go... maybe in a few years we can talk about being in the top 6 for 20 years and Wenger doing a brilliant job 'considering'.
I agree with everything you say here and have never said otherwise. The problem is that a certain member and his cronies repeatedly throw out the same BS lies that eventually, other members begin to absorb them as fact when in fact they are nothing more than figments of his vapid mind, designed to do nothing more than cause fights on our board. We have had had elements of success over the past 8 years and yet have fallen short of what a club of our stature should be achieving. I can make educated guesses as to the cause/s, but as an educated person with the ability to reason, I cannot make statements of fact based on my assumptions. I only wish some others on here had a little less arrogance and an ounce of integrity in their posting. The place would be a lot more pleasant.
Okay Jayram, qualifying for the CL every year is not a successful result. Happy now? What a ****ing numpty
"If Chelsea's bunch of old timers can win a European trophy, then that just proves to me that the players we have are not mentally strong enough. " ditto then for barcelona players, real madrid players , AC Milans players , Man utds players ? They failed to win it this year too didnt they ?. Dont forget that Chelsea , coupled with a HUGE slice of luck , have got a very strong defence. It is THIS that we are missing , we have scored our fair share of goals but have conceded a stupid amount also. We must , MUST build a solid defence to challenge for anything. Im not bothered if wenger doesnt sign another striker at all. If he dont sort the shambles of a defence out its pointless.
Well earlier on you made three opinionated claims and called them irrefutable facts. Quite hypocritical of you to accuse someone else of the same. Again, interested to hear these lies you are talking about... all very confusing. Which of these is a lie? Our best players are leaving the club to win trophies elsewhere. Our defence is the worst it has been in a decade. We have won no trophies for 7 years and not won the league in 8 years. These are the real facts. INterestingly you said this Falling short of what we should be achieving can never be categorised as success. Shifting the argument to 'we've had some successess over the 8 years' is not even a topic of discussion. Of course we have - we beat the spuds 5-2 this year. We're not talking about those - we're talking about the overall success or failure of our club.
Name calling because you were caught out pretending to state facts and contradicting yourself. Poor form
I've waited 18 years to see Arsenal win the league so in all honesty 8 years doesn't bother me.I've seen us lose a cup final to a 3rd division club.I've seen Stretford and the Spuds get relegated.I just think of it as being part of the ups and downs of being a football fan.I just can't wait until August so i can feed my Arsenal obsession again
The resources argument is not an excuse - if you think that we can compete with City and Chelsea for the same players then you are deluding yourself. Also, I think Wenger could do better, with regards to defensive coaching, being less stubborn about tactics and rotating some of our players more often, so I don't think and have never said that he's doing a brilliant job - they are your words I said that he's done a brilliant job to keep us in the Top 4. Your 'apologist' rantings are just that, rants. Nobody on here, positive or negative has ever apologised for us coming up short. We've recognised where we've done well and recognised where we need to improve. As COYG points out, you want to try and polarise the argument and in doing so you twist peoples words try to claim that they've said things they haven't. You claiming that I said that 'I know more than George Graham' is a classic example. If you showed a bit of integrity and actually listened to what people were actually saying rather than making up what you believe they are saying, then you might be taken a bit more seriously
Cym, unless we go unbeaten all season and win every cup, we will have failed. Qualifying for the CL is a failure because we never won the league or other silverware. Get with the program lad!
I would concede that Wenger has done good job keeping us in the CL throughout all of our off-pitch difficulties but that is only part of the picture. The fact remains that Wenger has shown seriously poor judgement regarding youth players. His vision of a team of talented young players growing up together and forming a winning team did not materialize for two reasons. 1) Many of the young players he put faith in were simply not good enough. 2) Many of the ones that were good enough were not as loyal as Wenger had hoped. Every time we came close to having an challenging team, big players left and we did not replace them well enough. This all points to a gamble of Wenger's that didn't pay off. We now have a stadium that will pay for itself sooner or later, money in the kitty and new sponsorship deals on the horizon. Now seems like a good time to adjust our policy and pay the going rate for top quality. What do we hear from Wenger? Some garbled crap about a quiet summer. This shows that he is not serious about winning but is content with CL qualification every year and no more because that is the maximum we can achieve with this depressing looking squad. This in a nutshell is the main gripe with the way Arsenal is being run.
You know what - good post ... but this is about expectations - yours might be lower because we've been worse than now in the past, but what happened two and half decades ago should not define our expectations now. The current 8 year run without the league title is the worst since we claimed the title in 1988-9.
Exactly! The whole point is that apart from Jamrag, I don't ever recall seeing anyone say otherwise. AFC have enjoyed a degree of success since he has managed us. Even when winning the title he never won the CL. Does this mean those wins weren't successes? No it doesn't. That is why Jamrag is a kunt. Fact!
I am not saying we can complete for the same players as City go for - but that has nothing to do with competing for the league, which we should be. This is why your money arguments are indeed the arguments of an apologist. Sorry Piskie - but you did indeed claim that you knew more than George Graham. It was a desperate statement in the middle of an argument you had badly lost. You said he didnt know anything about football and did not concede that you were in the same boat.
