And all them teams are massively in debt, Arsenal is run the right way but gone a bit stale, they are still a massive well run club and in time will start winning things and it will be done within their means that will be thought of a lot higher than the teams who buy titles and cups.....
The wage bills of Spurs and Everton were £10m more than Arsenal at last count, DL. That's combined, of course.
Milan have just beaten Barcelona 2-0. They were given even less of a chance than Arsenal before the tie, but they worked hard, played at a high intensity and took their chances, but more importantly they kept shape. If Milan can do this why can't Arsenal with more experienced players?
Because defending resolutely is a regular part of Milan's game. Arsenal attack every team that they play and generally have the majority of the possession. When they don't have the ball and they're on the back foot for large periods of time, it's extremely unfamiliar to them. They're not used to defending like that and it doesn't suit either their personnel or the tactics that their manager adopted.
Wenger can not acknowledge that the current bunch of clowns are second best to anyone, even one of the best teams in Europe.So he met them toe to toe and got crammed. Laughable,.That is why Wenger will never win the Big One. We have a midfield 3 of possession based players who Struggle winning the ball back and closing down space. Forwards who are purely counter-attacking players and who are only good when given space. And the less said about the back four and the clown in goal , the better. Also Milan were not brainless, they accepted, Barcalona were better and dealt with them. Milan. Got their tactics spot on. Press in numbers and keep it compact then break with pace. .And as a result, they have got a great chance of going through.
We did the same v Barca last season and even Bayern too. The first step is accepting the opposition is better than you, once you do you can build your gameplan around that, sadly Wenger refuses to accept any team is better than his (bar Barca).
I think mentioning the past has a great bearing on today.The people i travel to games with are all around the same age group as myself and whilst we are all unhappy with the current situation we all agree things have been a lot worse in the past.One of the things you learn about supporting a football team is that it is very easy to celebrate the succesful times but it is when things are going badly that the team needs the fan's support.You can see supporter's groups on the likes of Facebook or Twitter where people are calling for games to be boycotted or people are saying that they are no longer going to attend games until things improve.This says to me that these fans only want to support AFC whilst they are doing well but not whilst things are bad.I've been a fan for over 45 years and i will carry on supporting my team whatever happens and when success returns as it surely will it will taste so much sweeter.
Exactly Through thick and thin. It's when the chips are down that our players and manager need our support the most. I'm from the old school like you Cym (although not nearly as old ) and I believe that fans at the game should act as the 12th man. Something a lot of Arsenal fans seem to have completely forgotten about. People seem to want to be entertained first and only get behind the team when they are playing well and winning. There's a kind of 'I've payed x amount for my ticket and I expect more. If I don't get it then I'm going to complain' type of mentality. Some of our fans have become like spoilt brats, who are only happy when they get what they want, and have a tantrum when things don't go their way.
Agree...and personally i think that sky and champions league money is to blame. Its made the game an 'entertainment business' instead of a passion....instead of a gathering of like minded deluded die hard fans who love the sights,sounds and smells of football matches. I don't ever remember booing your own team when i was a kid in the 70s and 80s ... Now it happens after one poor match. In my case its tottenham til i die...not tottenham til i get embarrassed by a bad result or two! Old bastard rant over
Yes. I will support this club through thick and thin, but I don't see us having much of a chance in Munich, down 3-1 already, even if Gibbs returns and is back to full fitness in time. We are much better off resting our top players (Wilshere, Podolski, Cazorla, Walcott) in preparation for the match at Swansea, which is less than 72 hours after the game in Munich. This would give us the best chance to secure that coveted CL money, which is all we have left to play for sadly. Also, for those that are saying we should field our A-team to avoid embarrasment...we lost 3-1 at home to this team already. Would the damage not be greater if we field our A-team, and our top players are embarrased in Munich? If we field a clear-cut B-team, nobody will care if we get trounced, and our top guns will still keep their confidence in tact. That said, I will certainly support our lads if Wenger does decide to risk our top players in Munich. What I hope we dont see is some mix of A-team and B-team...that way, we will certainly get trounced, and many of our stars could have their self-belief shattered to boot. Arsene ought to either play the full B-team, or go for broke in Munich. Personally I hope it's the former.
Almost being the key word. And the return leg was at home, in Milan we played on that terrible excuse for a pitch, so we had reason to hope. Not to mention we had RvP. Now we are heading to Munich, and they have 3 away goals. It's a very different story.
Almost, because we played a strong team. There's no point going to Munich with a loser attitude, giving up is totally counter productive and the exact opposite of how we should be thinking, in my opinion.
Bayern are a far far better side than the Milan team you faced last season. Arsenal made them look better than they actually were.