Who are these 'lots' of players who were written off as championship standard but have become good enough to win us the title in the last season or two? And if they're good enough to win us the league, why aren't we anywhere winning the league? A player is either good enough to help us do that, or not. Players don't spend years and years to get better. It's not like our younger players are 18-19 year old youths. I think Bellerin and Chambers are the only real U20 youngsters we have. Oxlade sort of at 21, Ramsay is 24, Wilshere 23, Coquelin 23. How can you realistically our players to improve more than that those of Chelsea, Untied and City? That's blind optimism. We need to stop transfers that are just squad filler, and just add one or two world class players a year when they become available. League and Champions league winners are those that have spent loads of money. As much as we might despise the way Chelsea, City and PSG do things, and as jealous as we might be of the general financial clout of Bayern, Barca, United and Real... we are going to have to spend a ton of money to be able to wrestle the trophies of those lot. And we do have tons of money. United are already getting big transfers done already. When was the last time the prem or CL was won by a team who hadn't spent an absolute ton? Suarez is a poor example of of us failing when throwing money at something. Because we didn't throw enough money at him. He was worth far more than £40m. If we'd bid £80m we'd have one of the best strikers in the world playing for us right now. And it would have been worth it. He's a perfect example of how not to carry out transfers of the best players in the world. The only 'top' players we've signed are those that aren't wanted by other top teams. All we seem to be able to do is beat off second rate teams like Liverpool to players. At some point we need some balls (to spend big money) and will have to beat off United, City, Chelsea, Barca, Real or Bayern to the best players.
I feel like it'll be the same. We will be fighting for top 4. We'll get knocked out of the CL last 16. Wenger can't get past this ceiling it seems.
Next season will tell us clearly if Wenger still has it or not. I do hope he still has it but it all depends on how quick he gets Arsenal out of the blocks and how he deals with Maureen.
Why next season rather than this season? Why doesn't this season tell you whether Wenger still has it or not??
But next season there will be three teams to worry about, not just two like this season (you seem to have forgot City finished above you).
We'll only have to worry about Chelsea & Citeh again next season that's unless Liverpool improve.The rest of the league will be fighting for the scraps
To be honest, I never thought that we had a complete team to challenge for the league. We was always a DM light to be able to sustain a full season challenge. So its no surprise that the first DM to play well coincided with our fantastic run. I still think we need strengthening but the squad is good enough to challenge. We have a good DM, a good replacement CB which makes 4 CBs to pick from and a deep squad overall. This is the best team that Wenger has had in many years and is competitive, on paper, with the other top 2 in Chelsea and City. The team has also played together for quite some time so there won't be any bedding in issues. The team is ready for next season and we have plenty of money to bring in reinforcements, should he wish to do so. Wenger will have no excuses for Challenging for the title next season.
There are no excuses, and neither should any Arsenal fan give him any next season. He has a very good squad with a healthy budget, with no financial restrictions (appropriate budget of course). We've recently bought two world class players that are worth a lot and a very good blend of players - experience and youth. So no, he has no excuses.
