Yet they didn't score nearly as much when we relied on Adebayor. Because while he was on form it made sense for chances to go through him more... Same goes for RvP. With a 'saner' start to the season I think we will be much closer to Man United this year. Chelsea I think are overrated as I've stated in multiple occasions. They've made signings but they have lost their best strengths: Defence and clinical finishing. I think we'll get 4+ points in 2 encounters with them easily. They looked really dodgy defensively in all of their games despite winning. All in all, an easier top 4 compared to last season, and a decent chance to finish 2nd, though best odds are for City and Utd to finish in the exact same places. If we take the Cup competitions seriously we could win either of League or FA cup.
Last season Arsenal made the Top4 only because: Spurs imploded Chelsea were awful RvP had the season of his life This year those things won't happen. Will Pod & Giroud & Cazorla score 37 between them? Will they make 17 assists between them? I personally don't think Arsenal have progressed at all. They were lucky last year, they'll need to be even luckier this.
Comfortable CL place and a decent chance for 2nd, yes. And if you want to verify that I was pessimistic about the team for the 2011/2012 season you can check back to my posts saying Spurs actually have a good chance to finish above us that season. We got very lucky with Rosicky though. This year we have a much more complete team, and like I said yesterday if we had signed Podolski, Cazorla, Giroud on the last day everyone would be ecstatic... the situation we absolutely wanted to avoid after last season.
RvP had the service of his life and he went missing on some games. Our calamitous start and ovyer reliance on him cost us many points. Now that he's one Arsene has changed the style to spread out the goals. If you want to judge an ENTIRE season based on 2 games in which we dominated and unlucky not to win and aTransfer Window in which we got3 fantastic players and the only major loss was Robin be my guest.
- Because we made signings late, and needed them to adapt to the team - Because we had some of our best midfielders injured for the whole of the season. Doesn't matter when you get the points, the team that gets the more points after 38 games will have deserved them. Why is it that Spurs losing their points in the 2nd half of the season means they gave it to us, while us losing 4 out of our first 7 games of the season (Because of late reinforcements, primarily) isn't mentioned as us giving them a chance to get ahead? Nah that would mean that we actually earned 3rd! Not good for the gloom and doom script, is it...
I'm generally a positive poster, so there's no need to facepalm in such a very mature way. My point is a distinct lack of progress from Top4 scrapers to Title Challengers. Can anyone genuinely see Arsenal challenging for the title this season? Or is it another of also rans with money in the bank? The funds are there, the targets were there, the desire wasn't. Vital sponsorship contracts are coming up for renewal, now was the time to invest & improve ready to secure huge deals & propel the club forward. Instead, it's stagnation. I will be the first to applaud, to congratulate Arsene & post my huge happiness all over this forum if Arsenal exceed my expectations and finish anywhere above 4th this season. But I don't see it happening.
If you include Wilshere returning from injury I think we have a better first eleven than last season.If we (and it's a big if) keep all our players fit i think we could have a good season.If it goes tits up like it did at the start of last season i don't think the fans will be so forgiving this time and Arsene Wenger could be in big trouble
If we don't concede tomorrow, over the 1st month we'd have conceded 10 less goals than last season. Whilst we don't have a league winning squad, we're not in too bad a position. 3rd place should be the target, with 1 cup thrown in.
Actually he didn't, he said that there was a decent chance to finish 2nd, then went on to explain that 2 other teams would probably finish above us. My question was where did he think we will finish, same to you Oxo where do you think we will finish?
I have already 'predicted' in the proper thread as 3rd by Christmass, and 2nd by the end of the year, behind City. (This was a few weeks ago, and I didn't change my prediction after this week's movements) Obviously I'm not as confident of 2nd place as I am of a CL place finish.
OK we are obviously never going to agree, my own guess is that we are going to be scrapping 4 or 5 other teams for fourth. We will see.
I think this debate around whether our squad is good enough hinges on what you define as "good". The ambitious amongst us feel that we should be challenging to win the title...yes we can't pay top dollar to always buy the biggest names but we do have enough financial clout to mount a title challenge. We need be brave enough to buy the odd £20m player....if Liverpool can do it why cant we? (no I'm not saying we should make the same mistakes as them in terms who we buy)...ie for this group "good" enough squad is one which can reasonably be expected to be challenging come the end of the season. For the "glass half full" contingent, their arguments are premised on a resignation that Arsenal cannot compete with Russian/Arab oil or American debt. As a result "good" is staying in the top 4... The current squad is likely to keep the second group happy...but the key debate is what is "good" for Arsenal...what type of club have we become?
Our squad is laughable. We have nothing resembling the likes of a winning squad. To win you have to score and our front players as we have seen are unable to do that. Only Carzola and the back four give one any confidence. For that, for losing RvP and Song we have Wenger and this board to thank. They are disgraceful stewards of the club.
Our squad is vey strong and 15 years of being in the top 4 cannot be described as "Top 4 Scrapers". I think most of the problems here are that people believe the hype at other clubs, but not at our own. Vidic is a shadow of the defender he once was. Dembele hasn't turned into a God overnight. Vertonghen looked slow and very unsure. None of Chelsea's new midfield know how to defend, and Man City are far from being perfect. Gerrard, Scholes and Giggs are past it. Liverpool are crap and Aaron Ramsey, Gibbs and Jenkinson are as good as Henderson, Allen, and the young players in the other teams. That is the truth. Stop believing the crap put out by other teams and support your own team. End of rant!
Out those who have moved - Dempsey. He would be useful, and cheap. But the better question is who wanted to move but had to stay. And who would have wanted to move should Arsenal have shown their GENUINE interest? I would think there are several dozens of players in this category, who actually could improve our squad. But the fact is - when Arsene wants to buy... no, it is a wrong word, he almost never wants to buy ... but when he feels he HAS to buy, he does it decisively and early - Eduardo, Gervinho, Ox, Pod, Giroud. All the rest is just one big smokescreen. "If we find a super quality...it's a waiting game... and bla bla bla" covering the unwillingness to pay anything remotely close to the market price. Wenger NEVER improves his squad, he just plugs the holes left after players who have left AFC. If there is a hole and he needs to plug it asap - everything becomes easy - he knows who he wants, he bids appropriately and buys. When it comes to IMPROVING the squad we see a completely different approach. He never offers the market price, just a half of that at best. If the deal does not go through, he does not persist and does not seem to worry. I am sure that is what happened with M'Vila and god knows how many more.
