Another season potentially killed before it's even got into full swing and the fans are calling for blood be it the board, manager or players people aren't happy But this is getting highly repetitive for Arsenal fans....season after season we've either imploded before Christmas or ruined our run in by chocking in the New Year (2008...2010)..either way at some stage we have an amazing run that makes sure we have enough come the end of the season to at least come top 4. Wenger in either scenario has achieved the minimum of Champions League football and although I think it'll be his toughest season yet with others strengthen (Everton, Tottenham) and the no real CONSISTENT match winners in our team it will be his toughest test yet So why do we get so upset when we really we shouldn't delude ourselves on what the outcome will be...this is as goods as it gets! Question is do we gamble for more? Do we change manager or philosophy with the chance of achieving more? We could become a Liverpool and take a big step back or someone with fresh ideas who doesn't need to spend the big bucks but has better tactics and scouting network might be able to change it around and make us contenders. Until Wenger leaves this will always be the best we can hope for and right now i don't now if we should just suck it up and be grateful for what we have or roll that dice?
This keeps getting repeated time and time again, yet none of you whingers ever give any evidence to back up the claim. Show me evidence of all these deluded fans or **** off and bleat and moan about something else, somewhere else ffs.
COYG you want evidence??? You yourself argued against several fans yesterday (Arsenal87) who seem shocked at our predicament and many called into the phone ins (BBC 606) or twitter (too many to reference) with calls for Wengers head. I think you're a deluded fan if you think the only issue is Wenger and can't see the job he does on limited resources...I think there were deluded fans on here after the West Ham game thinking we could win the league and that happens each season after a decent run of results
"Several fans" - really? When did Arsenal87 become "several fans"? Another example of you lying to try and make a negative point. I said "the only issue is Wenger" - really? Another example of you lying to try and make a negative point. I argue against those that can only see bad with our team and like you, lie to try and back up their point. I do not see a board of deluded Arsenal fans claiming all is well and to trust in Wenger. Yet you and he keep referring to these imaginary people. What I see is a board of fans willing to discuss the club, matches & players without ONLY seeing the negative side of everything. Arsenal are a good team. We are not the best and an end of season fight for 4th spot is where we are at for now. Things need changing if we are to step up and challenge for the top, but not as many changes as are needed at 99% of the rest of the league's clubs. Do you see their 'fans' spouting lies through their arses in an attempt to justify their feeling miserable? No you dont. Do you see them proclaiming the world is about to end because they lost away from home by a single goal to the best team in the EPL for the last god knows how many years? No you don't. I have no objection to you feeling upset when we lose or play badly. What I do object is when you and a couple of others come on here and try to make it out to be all of the other fans' fault by labelling us as deluded and putting words into our mouths. The only ones that are deluded are those that think we are good enough or have a god given right to win every game we play and pick up 3 trophies and a title every season. The only ones that react as if that is the case are you and your like minded chums. If you want to find Mr Deluded, look in a mirror.
You could also argue that the people who were posting on Twitter or phoning 606 were easily outnumbered by the 3,000 fans who were supporting the team at Old Trafford yesterday.
COYG you seem to have some anger issues...seriously you've completely overacted to what i think was a fairly calm post by myself. Sorry I didn't give you every single example of a fan complaining about our predicament but to accuse me of lying doesn't even make sense. What did I lie about? I said "several" because i honestly read over a dozen posts that had that sentiment yesterday but just because I only gave 1 example I'm lying!?!?! I never said it was "all of the other fans' fault" ...if you even bothered to read my post I actually just said "we shouldn't delude ourselves" And where do I suggest we have any kind of god given right to win trophies...again you didn't even read or understand my post. My points where the complete opposite of that...with Wenger and the current set up 4th is the best we can hope for so i think we need to be grateful for that and realise a change is a big gamble I get the impression you're trying to pick a fight which i certainly wasn't, I'm a fellow Arsenal fan and was just expressing my thoughts in what i believe to be a rational and coherent way. A brief look at your other posts shows you have a history of arguing with other Arsenal fans so I won't take this personally
I read this line and hastily roped you in with Arsenal87 for which I really do apologise... The dreaded 'deluded' word blinded me to the ethos of your post. However, I will never accept anyone calling me deluded as I honestly think I am one of the very few that can see Arsenal, warts and all, and yet still love the club. I have never said "in Wenger we trust". I have never believed we will win everything (without my tongue being firmly in my cheek anyway). I have slated some of our players at times. I never start a thread to attack someone who disagrees with me, nor do I jump on everyone that says anything negative. It's those like Jamrag and Arsenal87 that constantly spout the same ****e that piss me off. When they talk their ****e it makes me want to pull their limbs off as I used to do to daddy long legs. Did I say that out loud? As for your point about possibly rolling the dice; I would agree to changing manager, but who with? There really aren't many out there who can be said to be better than AW and until there are a few more I think the odds are stacked too highly against us finding better. So no dice rolling for me just yet, but my thinking might change if we have a bad season, ie no CL.
Here's how it is for me: Currently we are punching above our weight, not underachieving. It's because of Wenger that we're still up in the top four, not despite him. Looking at it historically, Wenger came in and revolutionised Arsenal, we then went on to experience our most successful period ever. This was the bar that was set and some of our younger fans measure everything by this; that we should be up there with Chelsea, City and Utd by default. What actually happened since we were last winning the league is that Chelsea, City and Utd - and to an extent Liverpool and Spurs spent MASSIVE amounts of cash and totally disfigured the whole league. There was no way we could compete with that approach, so we went down another route. For all the cries of 'Failed youth project' those young teams were actually pretty successful - and but for some cruel bad luck, probably would have won a trophy. So we find ourselves today with a squad that has been assembled on a fraction of what the big spenders have thrown around and we're still challenging for the top four. That is still quite some achievement - ask any of the other sixteen teams in the EPL what they would give to be in our position. And look at Liverpool to see how a big club can fall from grace, even when they spend big. I'm not saying everything is right. I think our board, whilst clearly securing our long term financial future, need to take more risks and bring in some top quality talent, even if it costs more than we're comfortable with. I hate the way that we've been bullied into selling some of our top players, and even at nearly thirty and in the last year of his contract - I think selling RVP to Utd was a massive mistake. It was only ever going to weaken us and strengthen a rival. Our board need to be bold, because they are losing the trust of the fans. As for Wenger, I will say it again. He is the best thing that ever happened to Arsenal and he remains the right man for the job. Last season on this forum was a bitch fest and the cries of Wenger out and Wenger should walk still grate on me today. For me, people who call for his head are missing the point. It is because of him, not despite him that we are in the top four and at the moment, that is a decent achievement for our club.
Arsenal have spent over 100 million pounds in transfers in the last 3 seasons, the problem with Arsenal is we spend money on lot's of average players, and keep those average players at the club for long periods, with a good wage, and that's what makes it difficult for us to buy a mega star with a big wage, because we have so many average players already on a high wage getting. Maybe it's time we spend our money wisely on real quality players, rather than average players?????? Look at Cazorla, world class quality, and how much did we get him for? 15 million. Look at Sagna, world class quality, and how much did we get him for? 6 million. Buying quality players doesn't have to mean spending 20-30 million. And sometimes we do have to spend a bit more than we're willing, such as on Mata, we weren't willing to spend 17 million to get him, even though that was very affordable for us, and wouldn't have caused any financial trouble, but because we're so greedy, we refused, and now look at him at Chelsea.
the wenger out brigades make judgements based on their emotion, and wenger lovers are afraid of acknowledging his mistakes. When arsene wenger makes a mistake we need to highlight it and say wenger made mistakes here, he made many erroneous decisions in regards to tactics, players...etc, on saturday. we could have played this way...told are fullbacks to pay attention to young and valencia. we could have played in a direct manner. Cazorla and walcott to run at the man u fullbacks and drill crosses in .........................mannone sagna.......mertesacker.......koscielny.......vermaelen walcott........arteta.............wilshere........cazorla ....................podolski ....................................giroud Giroud to hold the ball and get podolski, wilshere, cazorla and walcott involved in the play, whilst arteta stays behind. I like wenger but tactics need to change sometimes in order for us to get something from the game.
COYG - I accept your apology, the point of my post was never intended to attack anyone. I think Wenger deserves amazing credit for what he's achieved even without success with trophies to keep us in the Champions League whilst keeping the books balanced is an achievement It's depressing to accept we are no longer challengers for the title after so many years in the top 2 but you realise every other team that has finished ahead of us have spent far more on wages and transfers fees. My frustration is things which (from the outside) seem to be in clubs control are consistently mishandled 1. How are so many players able to get that close to running out their contract (Nasri, Flamini, RVP, Theo, Clichy)...and at the same time so many average or poor players on high wages (how is Djourou on 50k a week and our 4th choice Centre Back?!?!?) 2. Why has the scouting results not achieved the same results in unearthing lesser known players? (the Veira, Anelka, Petit, Henry, Pires types.) 3. Spirit doesn't cost anything and the team especially this has season has lacked passion and fight
Spurs have a much lower turnover than Arsenal and are breaking even so it can't be true that we've spent massive amounts of cash. I think we're slightly above you on net transfer spend and about two thirds of you on wages. That is where Arsenal have been poor - paying massive wages to players who don't deserve them. Other than that I think your post is spot on. I actually think Wenger is a very good coach and your players outperform - but that doesn't mean they should get paid bucket loads of money for winning nothing.
This is slightly misleading as we have recouped well over 100 million in the last 3 years on transfers, when you look at transfers you really need to look at net spend. Some of the player such as nasri and RVP we had no choice, would it really have been better to keep an unhappy player for an extra 12 months? It would only have been worth it if there was a chance they would sign a new contract, similar to the walcott situation at present, but if there was no chance of them signing then getting an extra 12 months out of them or 50 million pounds, I think the club did the right thing. The issue is the replacements, how many players are there in world football that could be a similar replacement for RVP? There are very few, and even fewer that would cost the 24 million we got for RVP, we would probably be talking double that amount and 200k a week in wages, we simply cannot afford that. Unfortunately in the current climate of greedy players we may be viewed by some foreign players as a stepping stone to the big buck. Go to arsenal on a 4 year contract on good money, do well and maybe get a move to man city, Chelsea, man u and possibly earn 200k a week, unfortunately that is the harsh reality these days. On the issue of mata my understanding was that it was his wages that were the problem, he was on 120k a week at Valencia, due to the uk tax system we would have had to pay him around 140k a week for him to have gotten a pay rise, and we were unwilling to pay it.
The fact is none of know how much we have spent on transfers as the club never disclose transfer fees.Any fee printed in the media is pure conjecture.
The issue for me is that Wenger NEVER adapts his tactics to the opposition. WHAT was he thinking playing Santos against Man Utd!? The guy was a liability for a couple of games, and there was absolutely no way he was going to perform well against a good winger. That's awful management. In recent times, have we seen many success stories as far as transfers? Santos - Is he a success? Vermaelen - Yes Koscielny - Jury still out, sometimes he's great, sometimes he's woeful Merts - Yes Arteta - Yes Cazorla - Yes Giroud - No Pod - Jury out Gervinho - No Oxo - Jury out Jenkinson - Yes, but Sagna is still 1st choice Squillaci - No Arshavin - Yes / No Chamakh - No Park - No It's not a great record in the last 2 or 3 seasons, there's just as many Nos as Yes's. With the losses of Fabregas, Nasri, RvP, Clichy, Ade who all had large amounts to still give the team, that is why Arsenal are in the position they are. Inadequate replacements for players who left too early. Arsenal last season were fairly easy to beat - remove the threats of RvP & Theo & Arsenal were pretty useless. This season, it seems even easier. Theo isn't being played, RvP isn't there any more. Nullify Cazorla & the team are pretty useless. Is a formation change the solution? No. The solution is better tactics. Santos should not have been played against Man Utd. Arsenal should set up to have creative flair but to take out the most creative player(s) of the opposition to prevent them scoring. Man Utd and most top teams do this VERY effectively (usually), Arsenal's philosophy has always been "play the Arsenal way, and make them beat us." That works for the first few games in any season, then teams work you out, and you stop being as effective. Tactical variation has always been, in my opinino, Wengers greatest failing, and it looks like continuing for as long as he is at the club.
Personally i think the jury is still out on Vermaelen. I think Chamakh is a better player than he is given credit for.He started off very well for us when he was covering for RVP but once RVP returned and he lost his place Chamakh seemed to lose all his confidence.If we could take the risk and play him in a few games we might find his confidence returning.I know it was only a LC game but he took his goals well against Reading When he was bought i didn't expect Squillaci to be a dud and i don't expect Wenger did either.After all Squillaci was a French international with CL experience. I think Arshavin spent far too long feasting on his 4 goals against Liverpool and it's time he was ****ed off. I think Park was bought to sell shirts in Korea much the same as when we bought Inamoto.I doubt if we'll ever see the lad on loan at Wigan as an Arsenal regular
