Except it's not a myth is it. To date, Wenger has never finished outside the top 4. We have a few really tricky matches coming up. The time to celebrate our league position is when we cannot be caught. Whereas the time to celebrate Sunday is for the next week
It is a myth though, Arsenal have not finished 4th every year since the beginning of time. No team has the divine right to be in the top 4, the media said the same with Liverpool and how "Champions League nights without Liverpool/Anfield in the picture wouldn't be the same" and it's "unthinkable to imagine a CL without Liverpool" etc. 4/5 years ago there was a growing sense of entitlement in the media that the Sky 4 had the divine right to occupy those particular 4 spots. Chelsea finished outside last year and it was a massive wake up call, we sold our best CF in decades and then had to splash out on replacements. We should (touchwood) make at least 4th this season which will be an improvement on last year.
Predicting a Spurs win was a no brainer for me. How many times in games against the leading teams have we seen the Arsenal defence split wide apart by quick counterattacks, especially against teams with pace? I predicted a 3-2 win in Spurf's league with Bale and Lennon scoring. It didn't take a lot of thought. I wasn't far wrong, was I? Why can't the pundits (or Wenger for that matter) see what the rest of us can see?
The myth is that AFC has a right to be perennial top 4 finishers. As I said, the same myth was perpetrated, by pundits, with regard to 'Pool, but look how brutally the myth was dispelled. AFC has no divine right (as DL rightly says) to finish in the top 4 every year. The worry for them has got to be that they will go the way of 'Pool, and even be overtaken by them. It's not unforeseeable that AFC could become a feeder club to 'Pool, as well as United and £ity (as they currently are).
im sure others will have a response to it and blame his substitutions or tactics for example, but they aren't the root cause of the problems. it's much bigger than that. Arsenal never used to sell their best players. The mentality at the club has changed. Until that stops, they are a selling club like us. - Hence their league position. The change in us will be whether we keep Bale. It's players like him that you have to hang on to, if you're serious about at least TRYING to go for the title. Selling players of his ability and you've got no chance in our league. Top 4 is the best you can hope for, with the clubs around you spending the megabucks. anyway, pundits. - It's not just been in this game. Throughout the season, we've never really got the backing we've deserved. it's almost like they want us to fail because saying "spurs to win" will make a lot of them look stupid after the comments they made in the past about AVB being the wrong man and VDV/Modric leaving. They can't swallow their own pride and just admit that they were wrong. But to be honest, it's actually quite nice. There's less media hype around us these days and we just get on with the job.
Pundits can see it but there's a difference between predicting with your head and predicting with your heart. ALL pundits have an agenda. When Dalglish was in charge of Liverpool Lawro, Hansen, Nichol were all on side raving about Liverpool every week, rarely, if ever, would they predict a Liverpool loss. When Dalglish was sacked and Rodgers came in they immediately changed allegiance, slated Liverpool at any opportunity and rarely predict wins unless at home to lower half opposition. Lawro again, when Wolves came up in 03, he said they were the worst team ever to be in the PL and it was a damning indictment of the league. When his close mate Steve Morgan became chairman in 07, he fully backed Wolves to the end. It's the same with Harry Redknapp at any club he managers, according to Lawro's predictions QPR would be 7th.
Not sure how, if Wengers hands were financially tied for a few years, they haven't been the last two years, hence latest reports about an 'accumulated' transfer kitty. Money's there but not spent?? thats Wengers decision, not the boards, what are we suggesting the Arsenal hierarchy just start buying players Chelseas style? No, Wenger bought the rubbish he has now and could have bought better, but didn't. The Goons have always bought big -players on big wages, skint and struggling to pay for a new stadium because of recession, but can still sign Arshavin for example. The decline lays at Wengers feet, the only criticism of the board is nostalgically keeping Wenger in a job, unless thats what you mean of course. SAF has revamped his team many times and continued to win trophies, Wenger has failed at this, of course he's **** at his job!
It's impossible to know for sure whether there was a furious struggle going on in the background with Wenger trying to get more funds off the board but everything on the surface suggested not. If that's the case then of course they should want Wenger out, the combination of him and the board has led to the club consistently refusing to spend the kind of money needed to get top players in when they lose them whilst they've continued to spend more and more on wages for their poor performing squad. Wenger might be getting a big transfer kitty in the summer but given his recent record, would you really want him in charge of it? There have been problems with Arsenal's defence for a long time, there's been problems with them not turning good possession into goals and wins against top teams for a long time and there's been problems with them getting nowhere in cup competitions for a long time. If Arsene didn't have the answer for those problems in every other season then I don't see giving him a lot of money to throw around solving it. As a Spurs fan I want him to stay, not because I predict some big slide down the table with him but because they won't be going anywhere quickly with him in charge. It's the ideal time for him to leave Arsenal at the end of this season, it would allow for a new man to come in and buy players in that suit his plan, it's a one off spend so that big money won't be there if Wenger's spent it badly in the summer and then leaves in a season or two.
YV - regarding unsolved issues not being corrected in the transfer market we should probably keep quiet. NEW STRIKER.
But accumulating a transfer kitty doesn't mean that the money is there to be spent by Wenger. Just cause the money is in the bank, it doesn't necessarily mean it's all available and therefore Wengers mistake. The board might not have allowed him to touch a good part of that money. They've made fortunes out of the players they've sold in recent years, and replaced them with "up and comers", which is always a risk, as they might not hit the ground running right away. But arsenal have always done this. The difference, is that in the past they've usually had experience to balance this out, but now they don't. There are no real leaders and hardly anyone of superb quality. Again YV, we don't know. but why would wenger turn around and say "no, I don't want to spend £25m on a world class striker to replace RVP". ? Surely his hands must have been tied to a certain degree.? we all know that if you don't spend enough, it can be wasteful, in a lot of cases. Sometimes you gotta pay that bit extra. I just can't imagine that wenger thought that Giroud would replace RVP's goals. I just don't think Wenger's had a lot of say in what's been going on. A man with his record isn't stupid.
"4/5 years ago there was a growing sense of entitlement in the media that the Sky 4 had the divine right to occupy those particular 4 spots." Indeed. The one thing it did allow was for those clubs to build up their UEFA ranking points total to levels where even mediocre CL performance was not a problem as long as they qualified each year. A "virtuous circle" made flesh. It will take 4 yrs out of the CL + Spurs at least getting past Inter Milan in the Europa, for Liverpool to slump to about the SAME ranking points total as Spurs come August.
Wenger has had full control of who he buys at all times during his tenure Roo, I think its wong to suggest he has not had the backing of his board. For example, this season he's bought Plodosski and Giroud...why? He's got Walcott who's scored goals when played forward, but refuses to keep him there (what would he do with Bale!?), so why not buy one top notch striker, a real marquee rather than those two average Joe's, he would only be left with Gervinho you might argue...well who's fault is that again!
Wenger cannot lose face by abandoning his principles, just like Abramovich can't delegate any of his power at Chelsea. Losing points (on the pitch) has become a lesser evil than losing face for both of them. Wenger seems to have been hung up on the idea that he can assemble a team of Europe's B listers, young players and the odd diamond in the rough, whilst selling off the club's prized assets and banking the cash, which can play beautiful football and will, given time, be successful. As Arsenal become less and less competitive each season and the weaknesses in his teams become more glaringly obvious, the more entrenched Wenger becomes. He hasn't proved his point; he would be well advised to go back to doing what made him a decent manager again.
What do you want for 100%?? all I know is not once have I ever heard, not even a hint, that its the case he hasn't been backed, never heard gooners complaining of it. Do you not remember past seasons where he's been questioned in interview about not signing big players and he just sat there with a smug look deflecting them with block answers as if to say "we're doing it my way".
Redknapp's prediction was interesting. http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/article4821621.ece "I can’t see anything other than a Spurs win, 2-1 I reckon. And, yes, Bale will score AGAIN." Glad he's not in our prediction league!
Yes agreed. as I've said before, he either can't, or refuses to see what is staring him in the face. I find it hard to believe that a manager of his experience CAN'T see what the problem is - that only leaves him being too arrogant and/or deluded to act on it.
So he says man for man we are better and were last season too. Is he admitting the failure last year was his fault
But in past seasons, he's always had top players still at the club. They've now, for the first time, not got anyone left as they've sold them all and it's beginning to show. As HIAG used to say, RVP was bailing them out with all of his goals. The balance of top players and youngsters(which is a policy they've adopted for years) has finally become completely.... unbalanced. With the stadium that had to be funded over the last few years and the money they've banked, it just seems to me that although they've spent money, they've done an "us". I just reckon that Wenger has been given money to compete, but not everything he's needed. He's never going to say that to the media though is he? which is why I think there's more going on behind the scenes than we think. Arsenal fans have openly admitted that they knew this new stadium era was going to be a transition period, and i just think that Wenger has had to be the "puppet" for it. don't get me wrong, I don't like wenger and I'm loving this situation, but I just think there's more to it. - Much like I believe that we've never been serious about Moutinho or Damiao. Our bids were last minute "attempts" just to show that we're "trying", in order to keep the fans happy. - But in reality, those "attempts" should have been dealt with long before transfer deadline day if we were genuinely serious.
The stadium repayment plan hit a cashflow problem for all intents and purposes, they were due to repay a chunk on the sale of redeveloped property around Highbury. As we know between plan and time to sell these goodly homes, recession and house prices dropped and they took longer to sell. Its not like they were never going to be sold, but threw a temporary spanner in their works, but like I said, look at who they were still able to buy and and the wages they were on during that time. Just one marquee signing would have kept Fabregas and the other ship-jumpers content, but AW chose not too. You're right there's more than meets the eye thats for sure.
