Resting a player or rotating is different. They have loads of top players. Van Persie plays every game in the league and Champions League. He played Rooney at right mid against Real Madrid instead of leaving him on the bench when Valencia might have been a better option there. He has the pace to stay with Ronaldo and is better defensively. More disciplined. We might have beaten Chelsea. We might have beaten or drawn with West Ham. I'm saying one point isn't successful from those three games. We should have been looking for 2 points minimum or 4 points. 6 if we got lucky and played very well. City being a game we'd give it a go but expect to lose
We should have been looking for two points minimum from away matches at West Ham, Man City and Chelsea? If we're aiming for CL, perhaps. I'd have gnawed through my forearm before the season began if promised that we'd get anything more than a -8 goal differential.
Yeah, I'd forgotten we have never lost or failed to win a game when starting Rickie, why on earth did Adkins not notice this? He bloody deserved to be sacked for that alone.
Yep! It's not an unusual strategy either. If you start a game with your strongest team, you're not going to be finishing the game with your strongest team.
Of course if you're Arsene Wenger, you have practically your best team on the bench and forget to bring them on until it's too late, and you lose to Blackburn Rovers.
I'm a bit split on this to be honest. Even Arsenal's B team should be good enough to beat Blackburn, so he's got every right to blame the players, but then if you play a B team does it send a message to the players that it should be a stroll in the park? Even so the players should still do a professional job... Bugger it, they're all to blame aren't they!
In theory, Arsenal,s b team should win, but second teams never seem to do as well as you expect.....I presume because they are not used to playing with each other. I,m hoping that our plan to make all of our players used to our style from academy up will stop this happening.
I think the buck stops fair and square with the manager. He selects the players. He determines the mindset going into the game. He substitutes players that are under-performing. As you say, with the squad that Arsenal have at their disposal it shouldn't be a problem, so why is it..? In my opinion, Wenger has lost sight of what a football club is supposed to do. Arsenal are no longer a shoe-in for anything in football, and I'm quite sure that club feels it is not where it should be. Their shining example is ManU, and they don't seem to be able to keep up or even take measures to bridge the gap. Every season they seem to get a little poorer in relation to their old rival. So much so that nowadays ManU isn't their main rival anymore because they are so far apart. Doing what Nigel did occasionally, e.g. leaving Rickie on the bench, was a fair enough tactic, even though it wasn't wholly successful, but it might have left the opposition manager with a little problem in his head, and that's all to the good. Invariably, when Lambert did come on he made an immediate impact, so the tactic had legs, so to speak. The obvious argument of putting Lambert on at the start of a game, so that he can make an immediate impact isn't necessarily a valid one. Nigel was thinking strategically and it was worth trying. It would appear that Wenger could take a lesson.
I've never considered Wenger to be among the best managers in the game. He achieved a lot in his early days at the club, but he'd inherited the magnificent defense which George Graham had assembled, and it was already a team that was in a position to be expecting trophies. He did sign some great players, like Vieira, Petit, Overmars and Henry, but I think any manager could have identified them as top players. Considering the ability of the squad he inherited, and the foundations they had, I think he actually underachieved. They had the potential to be one of the top clubs in the world.
Have to disagree with you Joe, he developed a good winger, Henry, into the world's greatest striker at the time, laid the foundations for the Arsenal academy system, and almost single-handedly modernised British football. He also turned them into a consistently title-winning, and one-time 'invincible' side. Granted, he seems to have lost his mojo in recent seasons but only Ferguson can rival his record as a manager in the premier league era in my opinion.
I'd agree with that Joe. When you look at the players he has had they just haven't won enough trophies.
I don't think the foundations of the club are any better than when he joined. As for the academy, they were producing players like Tony Adams and Martin Keown before he came along, and I don't think he's really improved on that at all. He won three Premier League titles and four FA cups, which is not bad at all, but they were all in quick succession with a very good team that would have won trophies regardless of who was managing them. I know he brought in a lot of those players, but like I've said, none of them were exactly hidden gems (sort of with the exception of Henry) and he was given a lot of money to spend. Most of his success came within a 4-year period, and he's been there for 17 years now.
Sure, he's spent a fair amount of money, but not a huge amount for a successful club during that period, probably no more than United, Chelsea, Liverpool or City for example, and among the players he bought there are plenty that look inspired: Viera was bought for less than Paul Merson was sold for, for example, and Sol Campbell cost them nothing. I think plenty meet your description of a hidden gem as well: Ljungberg, bought for £4m; Anelka, bought for £600k; Clichy, bought for £300k; Fabregas, bought at 16 for £2.5m; Van Persie for £4m; Flamini on a free transfer; Alex Song, bought at 17 for £3.5m — all of those grew into world class players under him. His record in terms of trophies doesn't tell the whole story. In the seasons before he arrived they finished 10th, 4th, 12th and 5th in the league, hardly world-beaters, and since he took over they have never (yet) finished outside the top four and were either first or second in the league for 8 years in a row. Theye've got through to the knockout stages of the champions league in all of the last 13 seasons. Who else can match that kind of record? And who can seriously deny he was, if not anymore, one of the best managers in the game?
I wouldn't deny Wenger's past qualities for a second, but there's no doubt Arsenal have slipped down from their high pedestal of years back, and they don't seem to know how to climb back up, at present.
No arguments from me there, I don't know quite what he's trying to do at the moment. So your opinion that it was wrong to leave Lambert on the bench is based solely on another unsubstantiated opinion? Can you see why people are inclined to disagree?
It's a lot higher than that if you believe the online polls, which I find surprising. It's hard to believe quite what a miserable lot the Arsenal fans are considering their long period of sustained (relative) success.
