No, I’m not. Since Howe arrived: Us 480m euros You 384m euros It’s not like you’re paupers and we’re blowing you out the water. You have 9 x 30m euro players in your squad. Raya cost more than Pope Livramento and White similar but White a bit more Botman was very slightly more than Saliba Gabriel was slightly more than Burn Hall and Calafiori similar Rice more than Joelinton Partey and Guimareas similar fee Tonali far more than Odegaard Gordon far more than Martinelli Murphy cost more than Saka Havertz and Isak similar It’s not like our first XI is blowing yours out the water for value, so why aren’t you doing better? You’ve not had Europe this year to worry about. You shouldn't be scrabbling around to try and scrape into the CL. You’ve got barrel scraping ambitions, the like of which Arteta gets pilloried for.
Of course we have, because we have money to spend and can because of PSR. And part of that is that we play more games (most seasons) and need more 30m+ players than teams like Newcastle to have a bigger squad. But you can only play 11 players and our first XI is objectively not really any different in terms of assembled value than Newcastles. Buy 2 x £30m right backs and you won’t expect to be any better than a team that has only 1 x £30m right back. You’re in a carling cup final. Great. And if we had been the ones to get there, it would be a fun day out, and if we won it we’d have some fun for a day or two. But ultimately it’s the Carling cup and it would mean almost nothing to a club like Arsenal, unless it was complemented with a real trophy. Just because we don’t win the real trophies either, doesn’t suddenly make the Carling cup something valuable to us. We got KO’d out the FA cup by Forest a couple of years ago. DOens’t suddenly make Forest a team to acknowledge. Spending hundreds of millions to get to a carling cup final is not something to justify it. The end goal is not carling cup.
Can’t even really remember what we were debating. Bottom line is. We’re a bit better than you. Have spent a bit more than you. Win more games than you. Finish higher than you in the league and more likely to play CL. Lose some games to you every now and then.
Howe has beaten us 4 of the last 5 meetings. They kept a clean sheet in each of those wins. It's slightly disingenuous to mention wins we got when he'd just taken over as that wasn't his squad as he joined midway through the season. Also, you can't just disregard games that weren't in the league because it doesn't suit your point. Whether you want to accept it or not, Newcastle beat us more often than not in recent years. That's a literal fact. We are over 5 years deep into Arteta's tenure, we shouldn't be struggling so much against the same type of opposition each and every time. If you don't think it's a worry that we keep dropping points against the same type of opposition, in the exact same way each time, I don't know what to tell you. It is a big concern and you should be more worried than you appear to be. Styles make fights and they, stylistically, are a problem for us.
Arguable. Depends on how long you’re looking at. Why would what you spent 10 years ago make much difference to how good you should be now? Most signings by the very big clubs aren’t assets that you make your money back on. Most are for immediate benefit and then run into the ground. Or they’re not good enough and sold on for a loss. Us spending £72m on Pepe however many years ago has, if anything, made us worse now if anything. Not only did we not get £72m worth of football from him, but we also didn’t have the money anymore either to spend on something that would have actually made us better. And we also got no resale value from him. There are very few examples of the big clubs buying players and selling them on for profit which would make that historic spend keep its value and benefit. The next tier down of clubs do. But Real, Barca, Bayern, City, Liverpool, Chelsea, United, Arsenal.
I’d much rather be dropping points against a very low number of ‘bogey’ teams that play the same way, than continually drop points against loads of different teams. Newcastle have some very good players. They give any team a good game on their day. And when they start playing consistently well against everyone then I’d be moderately worried. But that day isn’t today.
‘The spend over decades matters’ is a fact? Matters to what? You can justify Howe being a great tactician and Newcastle being ‘nearly there’ all you want. Knock yourself out. I don’t really care about Newcastle either way. No more so than Villa or Spurs.
Do you think it's a coincidence that Newcastle beat us so often yet other teams give them more of a game? Fulham are a mid table side yet took 6 points from them. Are Fulham better than us? Bournemouth battered them recently at their ground. Are Bournemouth better than us? Newcastle know how to set up against us, they know how to beat us and Arteta's been unable to find the answers outside of that 4-1 win last season. When I talk about being worried, I don't mean worried about them. I mean us. We should be worried about our future prospects if our 'great' manager gets done over by the same types of teams and is making the types of mistakes he's making this far into the process. Also, does his cup record not bother you a lot? It's alarmingly bad.
Exactly. Proves my point. When he loses the media don’t care - they only care about the wins. Become a propr big club, with proper expectations and then you’ll start seeing some scrutiny. Winning the cup was a great achievement, and includes a run against all the top four teams in the prem. But this isn’t a fairytale story of the underdogs sticking it to the man. This is the richest club in the world with multiple expensive signings and arguably the best striker on the planet. You’ve backed up spending with a cup. Now you need to win the league and/or CL or within a couple of years you’ll be derided like Arsenal regularly are. And Howe’s form of regularly losing in the league is never going to win the title. But the media don’t care. Newcastle’s poor results are glossed over and ignored because you’re not held to the same standards that the truly big clubs are. The country simply doesn’t care when Newcastle, Bournemouth, Brentford, Brighton etc lose. They care when they win and they big up the impressive performances. But they go silent when they lose and wait for the next big win a few weeks later. And fans of those clubs hold onto this. They give it the big bollocks on forums when they win. They go quiet when they get trashed. And other fans don’t really care to abuse them either, because no fans truly care about bashing ‘smaller’ clubs. Become big and important, start being a club that media and fans expect to win the big trophies and then have a genuine reason to show off.
I think you pay too much attention to the media where as I just care what happens on the pitch,each to their own I guess.
You’ve literally just used a media-produced graphic to make the same media-repeated narrative-driven point about trophies to bash Arsenal with, on an Arsenal board - presumably for the enjoyment of lolz and one-upmanship. But sure you don’t care about media or take notice of it. Fans of ‘one rung down from the very top’ clubs are always the same. Love the sporadic big wins but also happily enjoy the fact no-one bashes them when they lose because no-one ultimately really cares about them enough as a club.
Howe wins trophies and Arsenal don't anymore. https://youtube.com/shorts/IZGqkddSDnc?si=Gl2g4LoNzFQM62Oy
