Do the Wenger Out brigade still want him sacked ?

Has he ever said that he considers finishing 4th as a success?

 

Finishing 4th isn't the same as aiming to finish 4th. We've got the ambition to try and win the league, but in recent seasons finishing in the top 4 has been an achievement as we've not been able to challenge for the title.

I don't for one minute think that Wenger is satisfied with simply finishing 4th and it's rather naive to suggest that he is.

 

He said last season that it's good that the fans aren't satisfied with just finishing 4th and that he wants more than that.

 

Well that's just consigned another one of Kyle's comments to the scrapheap then

 

Last 8 years : 4,4,3,4,3,4,3,4 - Hardly! Up and down and bar one season not even close to a title challenge - So this is a big year for us and we seem to be on the right track if we keep a title challenge and respectable in the cups then I will give him another contract. But if we do the same stupid drop then maybe time to move on. That being said we have done something we haven't in years and that is start well. So fingers firmly crossed.

 

I’m thinking more total points than league positions. In the last eight years a line of best fit shows a very gradual improvement, and a steeper one in the last three years.

 

Points total isn't as important as points from first place in my opinion.

 

If you compared that to your best record prior to Wenger it is massively better and during a time when he has only got the 3rd or 4th most resources when this matters more than ever in history, he should be applauded for such amazing consistency. No club has a right to trophies.

 

Spot on I think some of our fans have mistaken the 'right' to trophies as an excuse to bash Wenger for not winning them, whilst in the process ignoring what he has done during that time, which is keep us in the top four and champions league whilst slowly rebuilding the team from scratch.

 

Points total is the only thing a team has control over, while the haul of the winner is out of your hands. After all, a season in which you come second with 80 points but are fifteen behind the champion is a bigger achievement than coming second with 70 and only being ten points behind.

Compare the 04/5 and 10/11 seasons. In both years, Arsenal finished 12 points behind the winners; however in 04/05 the team won 83 points and came second, while the 10/11 team only managed 68 and 4th. It's hard to argue against 04/05 being a more successful year (though of course league position is a big factor here too).

 

I have never been in the WOB i merely said post 07/08 we have been in a regression/stagnation period. I feel if that continues this season then something needs to change (especially as his contract is up), however if we show improvement I still feel he is the man. I have never said he did a bad job just that in this period he and the board I feel were aiming for top 4 and tbf achieving it. Now with the overhaul and other clubs and our money increase it is time to see improvement. Again I don't feel we even need a trophy I would be happy with a concentrated title push and solid cup runs. So far brilliant, lets see how it goes.

 

Exactly, because points total doesn't factor in the quality of the league.

 

I'm surprised to see so many people supporting an appraisement method for Wenger that they would, presumably, not want for themselves in their own work.

If such a rigidly performance based system was put in place for your own employment there would be a lot of people out of work, particularly at the third and fourth best companies, in their field.

Although I suppose that fans can only judge a manager by points, I wouldn't want the club executives to make their decision that way. There are a number of other factors in where a club finishes in the table, other than a manager's performance, and I don't think that any manager could have won trophies given our resources over the last 8 years.

 

I've always maintained that is has been because of Wenger, not despite him that we've managed to finish fourth and qualify for the Champions League EVERY season since he's been in charge and during our lean spell over the last eight years. If we'd sacked him when some people were calling for his head two or three seasons ago then I firmly believe that we would have been out of the CL by now and the spuds would have taken our place.

 

Different people have different priorities and therefore different expectations, there's probably very few that think we should be winning trophies every year.

The signing of Ozil was probably the 2nd biggest deal I can remember the club making (behind Bergkamp).
Whether he turns out to be the world beater many expect remains to be seen, but the transfer has done so much more than bring in a quality player.
It's lifted the entire squad, it's given the fans massive renewed optimism and it has sent out a very clear message that Arsenal are back and if we want quality players not only can be afford them but we can also still attract them.
That one transaction has shaken so many monkeys it's hard to believe, I'd go as far as saying it has transformed the club, the atmosphere around the place is a million miles away from the Villa game.

The original question was whether AW should still be sacked and I think you and I were both unsure, clearly things have changed and not only have we improved but the competition appears to have regressed so for me there is certainly reason to be excited....

 

I've never wanted him sacked. I thought in the summer that we might have to look at changing something in our management structure, whether it was a DOF or a new negotiator, bringing in Dein or employing a whole new approach to signing players, maybe leaving Wenger to concentrate on the football and leaving transfers to somebody else. But I've always maintained that Wenger has been the one person who's kept it all from falling apart over the last few years. He was / is the obvious target when things don't go well for us, but the equation is always far more complex than that.

 

That may well prove to be correct but no-one can argue that we've been fed lies/deceipt/smokescreens for years, IG more than most...

 

I think the board and Wenger have been at odds before, despite the big show for a united front. Wenger famously said that he wouldn't sell Cesc and Nasri and went as far to say that we couldn't be considered a big club if we sold our best players, cue two or three years of doing just that. I think they were commercial decisions taken by the board, not Wenger. The board have always maintained that we could buy big, but I don't think that equates with selling our most valuable players to balance the books, so I agree there have been smokescreens etc. Ultimately the club have put a decent spin on us being skint over the last eight years. My personal feeling is that they have been really fortunate to have Wenger at the helm, as a lesser manager under the same circumstances could have had the club sinking like a stone.

 

Well today he backed up my claim that he's still the same old Arsene.

A) He put out the wrong team (2 DM's against WBA? No wide players?)
B) He royally ****ed up the last substitution. I don't care how bad Giroud is, he's still obviously going to be better than Nicklas Bendtner, especially considering Bendtner is lacking match fitness.

 

Sure it does. Decent point against a decent team away and still top of the league