See you later. I think Song would have made the bench for Gilberto though. It's not like he was going to be a starting player.
Nowadays teams are generally happy with a point against us so sit deep and wait for us to attack, its pretty hard to counter attack against that.
Hi Robin I was under the impression most of them now believe they could get all 3 points when they meet us. Must be my pessimist's glasses please log in to view this image
Maybe away from home but when we play at the Emirates they refuse to cross the halfway line. I think we are actually still pretty good at counter attacks but because we usually dominate possession we don't get a chance too. It's no coincidence that when we played Barcelona we suddenly scored goals on the counter again. [video=youtube;nBXfBskAYdU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBXfBskAYdU&feature=related[/video] [video=youtube;NU4EnS2ziEc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU4EnS2ziEc[/video]
Thanks for the links Robin. I had almost forgotten how special they were, especially RvP's opening goal, courtesy of a wonderful assist by Gael Clichy. That stage in the previous season though, we were still looking like would-be champions capable of winning the EPL and taking at least one of the cups. Now sadly, we are back at the rebuilding stage..... RvP's continued stay IMHO cannot be more vital.
I find it hard to reconcile the fact that some fans berate our management for tying down players to long contracts when they are still unproven and then whinge about not tying them down to long contracts when they want to leave. you can't have it both ways
I dont think its necessarily the management of the team thats the problem. I genuinly think its the boards management of the entire club. They wouldnt let Wenger increase the wages or break the weage structure. When you have top players being told they wont be paid any more if they stay but have money bags city saying they will double their weages who do you think they will think wants them more.
I think that's a bit of an assumption. Go on to most boards on here and you'll find fans saying similar things about having 'deadwood' in their teams and the fact that they should have tried harder to hold on to players who have left. It's easy to criticise in hindsight, but the board and management need to make a decision on a player based on what they've seen and how they think he will develop - nobody can predict the future, so you have to take a stance based on what's presented to you. Flamini had an indifferent season before he left, if we'd had tied him down to a 5 year contract that season and then he'd had another indifferent one, people would be slagging off Wenger for wasting money, having deadwood in the team etc etc - the fact that he played a blinder and then refused to sign the contract we offered him was out of the hands of the management.
