Saw baseball in NY and was bored out off mind. Tried to get some songs going and nearly got thrown out for using "adult" language in them. I don't know if they were more offended by my singing or language as every song (all two of them) was dictated by a blooming announcer. Oddly I had two girls hit on me whilst there, whilst my missus and her brother were sat next to me! All in all it was a very weird experience... I saw a couple of the NFL games at Wembley too. Them I enjoyed.
American sports are too stop start for me. Tried watching the Super bowl this year, and just could not get into it, and all it did was remind me how good football is.
You got very unlucky SJW, that was the worst Superbowl in 20+ years. Seattle were so much more disciplined, defensively they were dominant, and from the moment the first snap to Manning flew over his head for a safety the Broncos were always chasing the game and against that D they were never going to get any joy. Stick with it, most games have plenty of drama and entertainment, very few blowouts in NFL, the league would have seen that Superbowl as an embarrassment. The structure and make up of the league makes for competitiveness, no multi-billionnaire on the planet can buy titles over there...
Only time I ever got interested in CFL was when the lockout threatened the 2011 season. Good to get into during the Summer as a warm up to NFL, think season starts around June...
Anyway getting back to Man Utd. I think there's a lesson here to be learned about replacing managers and expecting instant success, in as much that it rarely happens. Replacing a manager of a team that are doing really badly and have no signs of improving is a different matter. But replacing Wenger is more akin to the replacing Fergie situation. In as much they are a big club with a long standing successful manager who has defined his club for the best part of the last two decades. Utd got it badly wrong with Moyes because he can't cut it at the top level. This is why when it does come to replacing Wenger we need to get it right. For me Martinez is another version of Moyes, good up to a certain level but completely untested in the Champions League and at the top level. We aren't going to get Klopp, Guardiola or Simeone this summer either, so the Wenger out brigade really need to look at this situation pragmatically in my opinion. Let the club take the next two years to find and appoint the right man and allow Wenger to get on with his work now.
I don't get the negativity on Martinez, he's 40 years old, he can't possibly be tested at the very highest level in 6 years of management, it may be true that he doesn't make it to the very top level but he can't be dismissed this soon. Moyes was different, he had 15 years as a club manager before the Utd gig. I completely agree that we must get it right but what I do know is that Wenger will leave Arsenal in a far better position that Fergie left Utd in....
I guess the point I'm making about Martinez is that if he can prove he's got what it takes at the top then by all means Arsenal should try and appoint him. I just don't think he has done that yet and I wouldn't be prepared to take the risk on him at the moment.
I think Wenger himself was a risk on a similar level at the time. Never managed in England, languishing in the J-league at the time, won a league title in France which at the time was probably no better than 5th/6th strongest league in Europe. Proven, ready, able top top level managers with all the experience clubs look for who tick every box just aren't available, every appointment is a gamble and I hope when we make the change it's for a young manager who, having inherited a magnificant structure, proves he can step up and manage the club to success for 20+ years...
You'd have to say that Stretford FC took a bit of a gamble in appointing Ferguson.When we appointed George Graham it was a gamble.
The difference now though is that we're doing quite well, not perfect but a long way from being bad. When we appointed Graham we were ****e under Don Howe. Any appointment is a bit of a gamble, but there's a calculated risk and simply taking a punt. Wenger will leave one day, so we have to start planning for his replacement. But it's a big task because like Fergie, it's going to be really hard to replace Wenger with somebody better.
Stop comparing Wenger to SAF. They're light years apart. In the last 9 years Wenger has won as much at Arsenal as Moyes did at Everton... and he was a piece of pi55 to replace.
After Wenger's initial success, Fergie has left him for dust, in his second part of his career. Fergie was able to adjust and adapt to the changing tides of the Premier league. People will continue to talk about our rebuilding process, but we've still had teams that were good enough to compete. One thing that Wenger really struggled with was the appearance of Mourinho. Whereas Fergie has a decent record against him, Wenger has a truly woeful one and, Mourinho's return hasn't changed anything either, and we supposedly have a better side!
I think someone did a Moneyball type statistical analysis of the two managers a few years back and (if I remember it correctly) it came out that SAF was worth on average 14 points a season, over where his side should be based on how much they paid the players and how much they spent on them. Wenger came out at about 11 points a season. No other manager in England was above 3, but Moyes was one of them that was around that. I think what Manchester United fans (and Arsenal) have to come to terms with is that managers that contribute so much to their teams simply don't seem to exist outside of these two. United in particular, because they are used to winning things are going to be in serious difficulty. Many of us have looked at United teams (in the last few years particularly) and wondered just how the hell he managed to win games with players that were as bad as we thought the United team were. Wenger is the same, some players leave Arsenal and just fade away to nothing. Song, Hleb, Flamini, these players just don't look the same when they leave. Our fans are constantly saying our team are crap! I really think United are 100% daft sacking Moyes, joking aside. SAF needed years to perfect his style and they need to train a manager if they hope to rival Chelsea and City in the future. There is no way that anyone is going to learn how to consistently beat the top teams at a club where they have no chance of consistently beating them. Learning how to nick a result by packing a defence and trying to get lucky with a long ball forward isn't going to cut it. I think when Wenger leaves, unless we are very lucky, we are facing 3-5 years of mid-table performance, unless the new manager inherits a star team, and possibly more if we keep chopping and changing. I think United face the same thing. Learning how to manage a team playing aggressive attacking football that can reliably compete with the big teams and reliably beat the smaller teams, is not something that you can learn with teams that don't give you that environment. Any new manager coming in, unless they are very lucky, or like I say, inherit a great squad, has the odds dead against him succeeding.
Aside from your post being based entirely on a subjective analysis that can never be proven... Let's just take it as true for a minute. So I don't get it then... How are Barcelona still very good even though they got rid of Guardiola and Vilanova? Why are they not languishing in mid table? Or Real when they got rid of Mourinho? Or could it be that, actually, there are more managers out there that can do well than just Wenger?? Why didn't Chelsea fall into mid table mediocrity when they sacked their umpteen managers in a row?? Why didn't city fall into mid table mediocrity when they sacked Mancini?? Unless the truth is that AW really IS a genius and the players of Arsenal are actually rubbish and utterly overachieving finishing 4th every year. But then it that case, with money at his disposal, the buck stops with AW and he should be outed for having a poor squad with money to spare. There are hundreds examples of managers changing clubs and the clubs doing fine afterwards with no dip. There is one example of it failing with Moyes. Yet you insist that Moyes is the trend.
