Just on the train heading back from the match. We all know we massively lack creativity and now we can't even defend. 2 cheap goals given away from set pieces and the fact we create **** all means the likelihood of us turning the match round relies solely on set pieces. Credit to their manager though, we score and he sends on 2 attacking players which completely took the sting out of the match and the crowd went flat again. As soon as I saw the team sheet I expected the worst. Despite Rose being injured I would at least of started him. Is Fryers such a **** left back that he isn't even better than Naughton playing there? And Eriksen is completely wasted playing out on the left. Lennon was awful tonight, I don't know what Townsend has done wrong to not even get any run out at all. My team selection would have been: Lloris Rose Kaboul Vertonghen Walker Townsend Sandro Eriksen Lennon Soldado Adebayor With Eriksen playing behind the front 2 with Sandro playing the holding role. At least we would have some pace and guile to hurt teams. It would be risky but at least it would be interesting to watch. I don't really feel upset about tonight it sort of washes over me these days. Deciding whether to bother watching on Sunday. I probably will but I feel so apathetic towards the club right now I may not put myself through it!
Part of me hopes we get trounced by arsenal so levy acts sooner rather than later. I dunno if I can last til summer with the possibility this might be the set up next season
By acting, do u mean resigning? I've just been having a read, and it looks like a lot of the fans are uniting with "levy out" banners for Sunday.
About time! Why it's taken fans so long to work out who the common denominator in all the **** ups of the last decade is, I've no idea! I get that he's reportedly good at the financial side, but on the football side, he's been a disaster.
I've been saying it for at least 2 years, but in the past, everytime one mentioned something negative towards levy, you'd get the "look where we were before he took over" comments. There's tonnes of excellent businessmen out there. - and they would probably have made better footballing decisions that levy has. Sunday could be very interesting if the "levy out" campaign catches on. It won't do us any good on the pitch, but it'll send out a huge message if there's enough people involved. The world will be watching, which is going to raise alarm bells with all the sponsors that all isn't right at the club!
I don't think that argument holds water. The Goons were nowhere in 1996. They had the nous to hire a certain Mr. Wenger, after firing Bruce Rioch - the rest, as they say, is history.
I get where you are coming from but before Levy we were hardly great were we? We are 5th in the league, probably about where we should be. In fact 6th is where we should be given our turnover and spending power. Don't get me wrong I'm not a massive Levy fan but getting rid of him won't automatically make things better.
If he's going to stay, he should have absolutely no involvement in hiring managers, DOF's, or anybody really! Even the most ardent Levy supporter must be able to see what a **** up he's made of hiring, and then having to fire just about every manager he's ever employed.
Not defending him,but what do Wenger and Rioch,managers, have to do with Levy,chairman?,i don't see the link
The argument, in some quarters, is " look where we were before Levy came" maybe we're better off financially now, but thanks to a disastrous series of hirings and firings by Levy, we're currently declining. The arsenal board, picked the correct manager, stuck by him, let him choose which players he wanted etc, and look what he's done for them since! If we'd had somebody competent selecting our manager, someone who was prepared to have the confidence in that manager to let him run the show, effectively- we may well have gotten even a taste of what The Goons have achieved. Instead, we've had an incompetent, overbearing chairman who, in my opinion, has made a complete Royal **** up of that side of things.
Benfica are well clear at the top of their league and where unlucky not to qualify from their CL group with 10 points. They are very experienced in Europe and played the perfect away tie last night. Whilst Spurs didn't play too well, it's not the calamity some are suggesting. Benfica were that bit better and more savvy - which is not surprising.
Cheer's NSIS, i was thinking that levy was being compared to Wenger and Rioch,not quite with it today after last night!
Its not losing to benfica that is the problem. Its the attitude of some of the players (recently rather than last night), the piss poor team play and general lack of cohesion and clue that is the problem
I'm not sure that being top of the Portugese league is any great indication of quality. Benfica are a team who were assembled for relative peanuts to what we've spent. Last night, as Sherwood has admitted, they were a class above. He's right about that, at least. They never looked like being anything but comfortable winners last night - we were outplayed in every department. We want to know why? They shouldn't be that much better than us. Unless, of course, they are just a far more competently run club than ours!..I'll leave you to decide.
Our last two Europa games at WHL have been remarkably similar: get at them for the first 25 minutes, then run out of ideas and concede an away goal. We beat Dnipro more because the players refused to be beaten by such an obnoxious bunch of player than anything Dim Sherwood did.
We seem to have periods of "getting at" teams, but we never look like we'll actually score. Just as against The Chavs, you got the feeling that we could have played all night and still not scored - which, if it hadn't been for Eriksen's brilliant free kick, we probably wouldn't have done.
We seem to have managed it pretty well this season, so all we have to do is play our first game exactly like we've played our recent games, and the job's done! No need to make any formal announcement, etc. Just do it!
You don't think that if we'd had the good fortune to appoint Wenger that we wouldn't have stuck with him too? There is no possible good methodology to appoint a brilliant manager - if there was then everyone would do it. Changing your manager every couple of years in the hope you get lucky is probably as good a way as any. There does remain the issue of how you know you have a good one so you don't sack him by accident - winning the league early on was a bit of a clue in Wenger's case
Arsenal had averaged 5th in the League over the 10 years prior to hiring Wenger and have averaged 3rd over the last 10 years. We had averaged 11th prior to Levy and are now averaging 7th. So Levy has improved us more than Wenger has improved Arsenal
Absolute ****ing shambles of a performance yet again. I can't be arsed to talk much about the match but with about 3 or 4 players aside, I couldn't give a **** if we sold most of our squad in the summer and actually got players in who give a damn about our shirt. The coaching staff can **** off with them too.
