The board is once again filling up with constant moaning about wenger and the way we are playing, calling for his head. And the over the top negativity that seems to be infecting the board is resulting in more arguments and less activity on the forum. I get that people are disappointed with some of our results and the way we have begun the season with less than great performances. That's normal and I think we all share in the irritation of the team not playing to the standard we all want. But let's take a look at where we are at. We've come through a difficult financial period at the club since the move to the emirates and wenger kept us in the top 4 the whole time and we narrowly missed out on adding extra trophies during that time. Could of been worse, could of been better, but wenger gave us consistency during that period which has put us in a strong position now. For a couple of years we lost some really key players. Fabregas and Nasri, followed by rvp. And in that time we didn't challenge for the title. We never sat in the top spot and we spent most of the season outside the top four, fighting our way back into it. This was in contrast to the years preceding this where we were always in the title race only to drop out and settle for top four come the end of the season. Last season marked the beginning of a new financial era for Arsenal. Along with FFP beginning to take effect we've reached a comfortable situation with the stadium and have new very impressive financial deals in place with kit makers and sponsors. The first show of this new spending power was the signing of Ozil from Real Madrid for £42m. The result of a settled squad of players that wenger had kept faith in (Szcz, Ramsey, Walcott etc) and our new financial muscle was a return to challenging for the league. Last season was the first in a few years that we've been in the title race, even if we did slip away towards the end it was a clear improvement on the seasons leading up to it. We lead the league for longer than any other team (128 days). It was disappointing not to push all the way until the end of the league season but it was a step in the right direction. Despite still ending up fourth it was an improvement on last season and we finished closer to the eventual winner. On top of that we also won the FA Cup. We beat Tottenham (6th), Liverpool (2nd), Everton (5th) and Wigan (FA Cup holders, had just knocked out Man City) on our way to lifting the trophy. It was our first trophy in a long time and a great moment for the club. It will have helped the players a lot in terms of experience of winning, lifting the pressure of no trophy in x years etc... Overall it was a good season and an improvement on the years leading up to it. Only City (league and league cup) won anything other than us last season. We then began this season by winning the Community Shield against Man City. Again, instilling a winning mentality and also a great experience for the young players who got a chance to play. Since then we haven't had the best start to the season. We had an injury hit and disrupted preseason with our World Cup players joining the squad after the season had begun. And i think that has taken it's toll. We've dropped points in games we could have won but gone on to draw and our football hasn't reached proper fluidity yet. Our passing hasn't been up to scratch and I think that's lead to us playing it safe and slowing down play. I do think we will see a big improvement as the season goes on and the team settles into the rhythm of things but it's been disappointing so far. We have also gone out of the league cup and lost our first CL game. That said, we should look around at the other teams with aspirations of top four or the title. Everton, Tottenham, Liverpool and Utd have all had worse starts in the league than us. Man City are only a point ahead of us. Only Chelsea have had a really good start to there league campaign. We haven't lost a game yet and find ourselves doing better than most our rivals and very close to Man City despite us being disappointed with how we have started. When you consider we have played Everton, Tottenham and City in our first six fixtures our current league position doesn't look that bad. It's also worth mentioning that only Liverpool started there CL group with a win (which they just about got against the minnows of their group) and Utd went out of the league cup earlier than us (none of the other big clubs have played a premiership team yet either). So we find ourselves in the position of having had a good season last time around, adding our first couple of trophies in years, adding some top talent to the squad, but starting this season not as well as we would have liked. Though still finding ourselves right in the mix and doing better than most of our rivals. It's very early to be getting so angry at the team and manager, it's not even the end of September, it's too early to know how we will get on this time around. Wenger has just signed another contract and he isn't going anywhere anytime soon. He will be with us at the very least for another two years, most likely the full three of his contract. It's really not worth getting on his back and causing disruption. Given that things aren't as bad as some would like to make out and that Wenger is going to remain our manager whether you like it or not, I think people should maybe lay off the constant blaming everything on wenger and proclaiming the season a write off. By all means let's discuss short comings in the team (along with the things we do well) but can we hold off going into total nuclear meltdown and every other comment being about getting rid of wenger until a bit later in the season? It's not all blue skies and sunshine, but it's not all clouds and rain either. And this insistence some people have that everyone has to be completely negative about everything or they are doing a spin job, or they don't watch our games etc etc is getting silly. Can we please return to just discussing things? By all means have a more pessimistic view of things than other posters but don't constantly try to call out other posters to start an argument because they dare to say the odd positive thing and try not to let the board deteriorate into every thread being about wenger in or out. Wow, that was longer than intended
But who's making out that things are that 'bad'? Bad is relative. I don't see the doom in posts from A87 and NotPC... I just see frustration from them that being 'quite good' has appeared to have become an acceptable yardstick. Having high expectations is not something to knock. They're not saying our club is rubbish (I don't think?). They're saying... "is this it?" All I see is moans from fans bored of the same thing every season: coming 4th, getting knocked out of the CL by the first good team we play, getting vaguely far in the cups (sometimes resulting in a cup win). We could do all that with far less money. But we have money now. We have done for a couple of seasons now. Now isn't the time to be saying, "now's the time where we'll start seeing the difference". The time for that was a season or two ago. And it was said by quite a few. And there's been no difference to our play. Dressing up last season as a title challenge? Meh. Again, as soon as we played our tough away games you saw how that went. Same as the last 10 seasons. Down the pan. It just so happened that those tough games came later on in the season so we had an apparent 'challenge' from our easy games and home games propelling us to the top. Yes, we're a fortunate club in that even in a 'down' period we're still qualifying for the champions league and to most other clubs getting annoyed when you're in that position would smack of arrogance... but come on now, is this it forever? Is that all we can hope for? Because I don't see any progress from AW to suggest he is capable of delivering anything more. Our play over the last 6-12 months has not changed a single bit... in fact we played far better brand of football a couple of years ago. I just don't see where all the optimism is coming from that we'll be improving to City and Chelsea standards soon. We simply don't outplay many teams anymore. Winning games has become a long drawn out chore. Remember the times we used to annihilate teams 4-0 and 5-0? We'd have games won in the first 25 minutes. CIty and Chelsea do that now still every now and then. I just don't anything from our current play to suggest we're anywhere near that.
Whilst I agree we aren't playing amazingly well at the moment, last season was clearly an improvement on the couple of seasons preceding it. Plenty of us get frustrated, but certain people feel the need to rant and rave like loonies, swearing and insulting everyone and turning every thread into the same thing. It kills the forum. If people were frustrated but able to control there emotions and actually discuss things it wouldn't be as bad. But some of the baiting towards anyone with anything good to say about the club has just got silly recently.
The key thing with everything is... was last season just a one-off event or a trend? Most variables that plateau have very slight peaks and troughs around a middling average. Was last season just a peak with us performing a bit better than usual and getting some results in the FA Cup? Or was it the sign of a general upward trend where we will reach the next level up with the clubs of City and Chelsea? Our football over the last 6 months (slow and dour) and our 30% win ratio this season so far is leading me to think it was a very slight peak from our average and not an upward trend.
We faced tough opposition so far, so what? Isn't that the next step for us, to beat the good teams? And speaking of Spurs, we should've been more than capable of beating them, so there are no excuses, drawing Everton is fair enough, but we should've beaten City and Spurs, how many times we going to make the same excuse for not beating proper teams, and in this case I'm only referring to City as Spurs are a big game, but nowhere near a top top side so we should be handily beating them. I don't see how you want to win the league when we can't beat our rivals? It's like having your cake and eating it, yeah we are elite, but yeah we can't beat the top teams but no problem they're very strong so it's ok, what the? Everything and I mean EVERYTHING we have seen in these 2 months is all the same short fallings we have seen before, anyone who says otherwise is LYING to themselves, we're still fragile defensively, still lack that killer instinct, still can't get it done in the really big games that matter, where exactly have we improved so far? We haven't made ANY statement so far this season that says yeah bitches look at us we're on the way up, it's all the same **** we've seen before.
I think that's an interesting point. But it's one that'll only be answered much later in the season. We haven't started particularly well but most teams haven't and we are yet to lose a game. We had a very disrupted preseason and start to the season so I'm holding out hope that we will improve as time moves on. Obviously if we move backwards this season then last season looks like the odd one out, but if we build and improve it'll have been a stepping stone. I just find it irritating that so many people are so desperate to write the season off after six games out of thirty-eight.
Football can change very quickly. The fact is we are competing against Clubs who do have (like it or not) FAR greater economic resources. If Mourinho really needs a player he can buy him regardless of the wage demands or transfer fee. Something we just can't do. That' not to say we don't have money to spend mind you. Wenger is certainly not the manager he once was. He used to be progressive whereas now he is somewhat set in his ways. The fact he can still spot virtual unknowns like Koscielny and bring them into the team, coach them to achieve World Class potential is the reason he is still one of the top mangers in the game. He can also look at a player and understand where they can change their game and excel. I also think an underrated quality of Wengers is that he create a 'family' with in the Club. If we beat Chelsea on the weekend suddenly everything will be rosie again.. If we don't the doom mongers will be out in force. Football fans are soo fickle
I think our problems with the manager and the way the team are performing as individuals is clearly understood by 99% of our fans. Where the arguments start is when people polarize their views to one extreme or the other. Couple this polarisation with an entrenched & dogmatic mindset, then it will always break down into an ugly spat as 'the other side' attempt to counter the extreme points made by the OP and they too become polarized and fixed in their stance. Stamp out the uncalled for goading and try to add a little grey to the black & white and hopefully we will be able to get along a little better. Failing that, pick fights with the Mancs or mods instead
I actually don't understand the problems our fans have with our manager, and I don't think I am only in a 1% minority despite all efforts by the doom and gloom brigade to pretend otherwise. He has consistently put us near the top when all our own fans were posting that all our players were s**t, and, even now, only buying players that no one else wanted. Even Sanchez and Ozil (we are told) were rejected by Chelsea and Manchester United. On top of that we seem to be chronically affected by injuries every year. He is (apparently) also to blame for this. I just don't think that us having more money now is that significant, as long as Chelsea and Manchester City, still have more. I think Wenger has clearly taken us well past Liverpool and Manchester United, and also clearly we are better equipped to mix it up with the other two. I think that is a fabulous achievement considering where we came from. But even Chelsea and Man City have seasons where they don't win anything. Unless financial balance is achieved we are ALWAYS going to be likely to lose more than they are. People need to lay off him.
Read the OP's last paragraph again... Your post typifies the problem on this board. Was it really necessary for you to start the name calling in a thread that was clearly started in an effort to bring about some reconciliation? I always thought you got a hard time from a number of posters, but can now see that a great deal of it is justified. If you want to keep up the petty bickering rather than discussing issues, kindly **** off somewhere else and give the rest of us a break.
Arsenals injuries for the last 10 years: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BytDhzDCMAEjIEh.jpg You can't keep saying that Wenger isn't responsible for the injuries, for the failures in tactics and the failures in transfers and then laud him when things go well. He runs the club and he is not the man to take it forward.
Er... I haven't name-called anyone or insulted anyone - YOU just started it By telling me to f** off. Your post typifies the problem on this board. Disagreeing with something or someone, isn't insulting anyone. I was commenting on afcftw's assessment that put me in a 1% minority and then justifying my argument. I sincerely hope afcftw didn't take offence, and I don't see why he should.
The 'negative crew, the 'doom and gloom brigade', both terms used with the sole intention of starting yet another fight. As I said, seize the chance at reconciliation and quit the **** or **** off please. Thank you
I don't believe that you can blame Wenger for the injuries unless you establish a causal link to something he is doing. My own view is that we suffer a far greater number of late and injuring tackles than other teams, due to our players running the ball more. I don't think referees are bias, but I don't think ANY of them punish players sufficiently to deter sides from hard tackling and over the course of a game wearing down our players. I don't think it is about individual tackles, but I think getting a large number of bruising tackles slowly wears players down until a misstep or a stretch can injure them. I honestly believe that sides know that if they foul Arsenal players every time they get the ball, the referee is going to let them get away with it. he can't blow the whistle every time. Nor will he send players off in the first 30 minutes for a couple of stout body checks or ankle cracks. I just don't know how Wilshere didn't get a penalty for the tackle that injured him on the week-end. It seems like time and time again our players are brought down, clear contact, and no call. The cup final last year was almost farcical. Everybody goes on and on about diving, but this kind of systematic fouling has become a joke. It seems that players can fly into a tackle catch the man, hurt him, and not get a yellow, but if you don't risk injuring him and just pull a shirt, you get a yellow more often.
I don't see any attempt at reconciliation from you, telling me to f** off every chance you get. There was absolutely nothing in my post that ether contradicted the OP's point, his reconciliatory tone, or insulted anyone and your response was totally out of line. You are a f**ing hypocrite because everything you have done is exactly what you are accusing me of. I suggest you take you own advice and f** off.
