Rival watch

[humanbeingincroydon]

All those Nomads with Azerbaijani flags in their Twitter profiles are probably feeling a little bit silly right now

...well, they would if self-awareness was a recognisable trait of the average online Goon

 

[PleaseNotPoll]

Chelsea fans at the final whistle:
Chelsea fans on hearing Hazard's interview:

 

[humanbeingincroydon]

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[PleaseNotPoll]

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[Dier Hard]

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[Spurf]

That was not a football stadium. I can only imagine it's used for army maneuvers.

 

["Thanks for that Brian"]

Arsenal players celebrating tonight's defeat, as there's now no money to replace their worthless asses next season...

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I don't know why Kolasinac looks so miserable......? There isn't another club in the cosmos where he'd pull in £140K per week.

 

[BrunelGooner]

We are finished as a top club. It's over. We've had our moment in the sun for several years in the late 90s-early 2000s, had the gravy train of CL money to stop the decline from being more instant, but it's too late to reverse it. We are only going to slip further and further down the table.

Not only do we have to catch up the other top 6 clubs, but now we need to worry about Newcastle, Everton, Leicester and Wolves too. I saw this coming well before we finished 5th in 2017. The gradual erosion of our standards and expectations became more and more obvious as each season went by for the last 6-7 years. The FA Cups gave us a false sense of security, but now we are about to get our just desserts for failing to act when we needed to. No-one had the foresight to see what a cancer Kroenke would be to Arsenal, despite the performances of his other sporting franchises (prior to the last year). No-one had the courage to inform the board that Wenger had a dictatorial thirst for power to the detriment of the fabric of the club. No-one truly acknowledged how our identity had been lost in amongst all the internal politics. No-one had the foresight to realise we were destined to be failures the longer this inaction to our downward trajectory continued.

I am not saying this to get sympathy from you. I am not saying this to get reassurances that "we'll be fine" because, let's not kid ourselves, we won't be. Not with the way the club is currently set up. Not with the owner we currently have.

I am saying this because it is now a cold hard reality that we are not rivals anymore. Geographically we are, but rivals with similar aspirations? With similar targets for the season? With similar intent from the upper echelons of each club? With similar quality in our squads? Nope. Not even close.

We are now the new West Ham. And there is nothing we can do to buck this trend. It's been coming for a long time, but now it's here.

The fall of Arsenal Football Club (or what is left of it) is complete.

 

[Citizen Kane.]

Been waiting up thusfar clicking refresh...the wait was well worth it

DT in rage mode (skip to 02:50 for the best part):

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Troopz can barely talk through the tears:

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[The RDBD]

We are finished as a top club. It's over. We've had our moment in the sun for several years in the late 90s-early 2000s, had the gravy train of CL money to stop the decline from being more instant, but it's too late to reverse it. We are only going to slip further and further down the table.

Would you have sacrificed to Spurs winning the Wenger 4th PL place Cup
in 2012 and 2013 (which you got by the skin of your teeth) , if it would have
triggered the club purge needed while new WHL was just an "on paper" project ??

IMHO that was the time window in which anyone with a brain cell
could hear the "wake up" alarm ringing for your club.

 

["Thanks for that Brian"]

We are finished as a top club. It's over. We've had our moment in the sun for several years in the late 90s-early 2000s, had the gravy train of CL money to stop the decline from being more instant, but it's too late to reverse it. We are only going to slip further and further down the table.

Not only do we have to catch up the other top 6 clubs, but now we need to worry about Newcastle, Everton, Leicester and Wolves too. I saw this coming well before we finished 5th in 2017. The gradual erosion of our standards and expectations became more and more obvious as each season went by for the last 6-7 years. The FA Cups gave us a false sense of security, but now we are about to get our just desserts for failing to act when we needed to. No-one had the foresight to see what a cancer Kroenke would be to Arsenal, despite the performances of his other sporting franchises (prior to the last year). No-one had the courage to inform the board that Wenger had a dictatorial thirst for power to the detriment of the fabric of the club. No-one truly acknowledged how our identity had been lost in amongst all the internal politics. No-one had the foresight to realise we were destined to be failures the longer this inaction to our downward trajectory continued.

I am not saying this to get sympathy from you. I am not saying this to get reassurances that "we'll be fine" because, let's not kid ourselves, we won't be. Not with the way the club is currently set up. Not with the owner we currently have.

I am saying this because it is now a cold hard reality that we are not rivals anymore. Geographically we are, but rivals with similar aspirations? With similar targets for the season? With similar intent from the upper echelons of each club? With similar quality in our squads? Nope. Not even close.

We are now the new West Ham. And there is nothing we can do to buck this trend. It's been coming for a long time, but now it's here.

The fall of Arsenal Football Club (or what is left of it) is complete.

Now is a bad time to be struggling. The Sky 4 has become a Top 6 and all have resources of a similar or greater level than Arsenal. Additionally, there are a few clubs that are trying to get themselves into the European places.

There's little PL experience within the management of the club and this is a league unlike any other. Having to replace players who are ageing/haven't lived up to expectations/whose contracts are expiring, whilst managing certain players being on mad wages is going to be a ****ing nightmare.

Bringing in Aubameyang and Mkhitaryan on their salaries, when CL football was in real jeopardy for the second consecutive year, was a last crazy roll of the dice, which has failed. The really big clubs hadn't signed those 2 for a reason. Someone at the club should have stepped in and prevented it. Now it's done....well, it'll take some unpicking.

You're in a hole and it's time to stop digging. Sort out your scouting and try and get some young English players into the side. You seem to have a few in the academy and another Rob Holding or two would be a good idea. There's little rapport between players, fans and management right now and those divisions are bad ****ing news. It's time to back the players and manager, no matter what. I've turned up to cheer players I can't stand, play for managers I'd willingly have strangled with my bare hands. It's about the shirt and turning things around, one goal and tackle at a time.

I've seen a certain moderator on your board suggesting that you should be in for Rabiot, Godin, Ribbery and Robben. Stuff like this is mental, wouldn't help and isn't going to happen. These players want big pay days that you can't pay and Rabiot apart, won't cope with the PL. Now's a time to build a new young, dynamic team. Quick fixes won't work because the thing's rotten to the core. It's time to strip the lot out and start again based upon the self-sustaining model that you are supposed to be committed to and have drifted so far from in recent seasons.

Most of all, you as fans need to accept a bumpy ride whilst the changes are put into effect and find a figurehead to unite around. I don't think that's Emery from this season but he deserves to have at least one more go at it.

 

[BrunelGooner]

Would you have sacrificed to Spurs winning the Wenger 4th PL place Cup
in 2012 and 2013 (which you got by the skin of your teeth) , if it would have
triggered the club purge needed while new WHL was just an "on paper" project ??

IMHO that was the time window in which anyone with a brain cell
could hear the "wake up" alarm ringing for your club.

Yes. The way we celebrating getting 4th place at Newcastle, like it was a trophy, was utterly humiliating. If that wasn't a sign that our standards had drastically slipped, I don't know what was. The signs have all been there for a long time, as our ambitions and objectives were dropping, the aura from the manager focused solely on the coveted 4th spot. And for a while, it looked like we would be dropping out. Yet we always kept a way of holding on by the skin of our teeth, and I think this has actually been our downfall because it has masked our shortcomings.

What is clear - and we have even heard this from ex-Arsenal players (and even current ones too) - there is no burning desire to win at Arsenal. Everyone is still too comfortable regardless of the result.

Something like that cannot be changed with the majority of the Wenger Era players. The only chance we have of regaining a competitive edge is if/when most of them leave.

 

[BrunelGooner]

Now is a bad time to be struggling. The Sky 4 has become a Top 6 and all have resources of a similar or greater level than Arsenal. Additionally, there are a few clubs that are trying to get themselves into the European places.

There's little PL experience within the management of the club and this is a league unlike any other. Having to replace players who are ageing/haven't lived up to expectations/whose contracts are expiring, whilst managing certain players being on mad wages is going to be a ****ing nightmare.

Bringing in Aubameyang and Mkhitaryan on their salaries, when CL football was in real jeopardy for the second consecutive year, was a last crazy roll of the dice, which has failed. The really big clubs hadn't signed those 2 for a reason. Someone at the club should have stepped in and prevented it. Now it's done....well, it'll take some unpicking.

You're in a hole and it's time to stop digging. Sort out your scouting and try and get some young English players into the side. You seem to have a few in the academy and another Rob Holding or two would be a good idea. There's little rapport between players, fans and management right now and those divisions are bad ****ing news. It's time to back the players and manager, no matter what. I've turned up to cheer players I can't stand, play for managers I'd willingly have strangled with my bare hands. It's about the shirt and turning things around, one goal and tackle at a time.

I've seen a certain moderator on your board suggesting that you should be in for Rabiot, Godin, Ribbery and Robben. Stuff like this is mental, wouldn't help and isn't going to happen. These players want big pay days that you can't pay and Rabiot apart, won't cope with the PL. Now's a time to build a new young, dynamic team. Quick fixes won't work because the thing's rotten to the core. It's time to strip the lot out and start again based upon the self-sustaining model that you are supposed to be committed to and have drifted so far from in recent seasons.

Most of all, you as fans need to accept a bumpy ride whilst the changes are put into effect and find a figurehead to unite around. I don't think that's Emery from this season but he deserves to have at least one more go at it.

Despite how emotional a lot of Arsenal fans are feeling, I find it hard to point the finger at Emery too much at the moment. He's had his hands tied all season, both on and off the pitch, so it isn't fair to be so critical of him when he hasn't been given the environment/resources to do what he needs to. He isn't faultless, but at the same time, there's only so much he can do.

5th and a Europa League final isn't a terrible first season - in fact, I expected far worse at the beginning due to the sorry state the squad was in - but it is heartbreaking to be so close on two fronts to getting Champions League football, yet falter at the final hurdles on each occasion. The expectations of the fans had risen throughout the season and we've come back down to reality with an almighty thud. As you said, financially, the implications are huge.

That being said, this season has been an unmitigated disaster for various reasons.

Our manager was not backed properly in any of the transfer windows, Sporting Director quits as his vision doesn't align with the two newbies at senior level, contract situations (Ramsey and Ozil) have been a total mess, 2nd major shareholder grows disillusioned and decided to sell up to Stan Kroenke, fans forced to give up their shares, we're still no closer to appointing a new Sporting Director 6 months down the line when we knew he was leaving from December 2018, fall 1 point shy of obtaining Champions League football via the league, have another shot in the Europa League final, in a horrendous location, and get absolutely destroyed by soulless London rivals...to compound our misery, the owner doesn't even bother attending our biggest game for 15 years, which reinforces just how low down we are on his priority list.

We are only going to drift further away from the pack.

An accumulation of bad decisions, poor management, lack of strategy, lack of ambition and lack of leadership will eventually be damaging to any club, especially if other clubs are doing things right.

It's a long, hard road ahead. We will be competing with West Ham for 8th/9th spot in the coming years. Just you watch.

 

[Citizen Kane.]

Despite how emotional a lot of Arsenal fans are feeling, I find it hard to point the finger at Emery too much at the moment. He's had his hands tied all season, both on and off the pitch, so it isn't fair to be so critical of him when he hasn't been given the environment/resources to do what he needs to. He isn't faultless, but at the same time, there's only so much he can do.

5th and a Europa League final isn't a terrible first season - in fact, I expected far worse at the beginning due to the sorry state the squad was in - but it is heartbreaking to be so close on two fronts to getting Champions League football, yet falter at the final hurdles on each occasion. The expectations of the fans had risen throughout the season and we've come back down to reality with an almighty thud. As you said, financially, the implications are huge.

That being said, this season has been an unmitigated disaster for various reasons.

Our manager was not backed properly in any of the transfer windows, Sporting Director quits as his vision doesn't align with the two newbies at senior level, contract situations (Ramsey and Ozil) have been a total mess, 2nd major shareholder grows disillusioned and decided to sell up to Stan Kroenke, fans forced to give up their shares, we're still no closer to appointing a new Sporting Director 6 months down the line when we knew he was leaving from December 2018, fall 1 point shy of obtaining Champions League football via the league, have another shot in the Europa League final, in a horrendous location, and get absolutely destroyed by soulless London rivals...to compound our misery, the owner doesn't even bother attending our biggest game for 15 years, which reinforces just how low down we are on his priority list.

We are only going to drift further away from the pack.

An accumulation of bad decisions, poor management, lack of strategy, lack of ambition and lack of leadership will eventually be damaging to any club, especially if other clubs are doing things right.

It's a long, hard road ahead. We will be competing with West Ham for 8th/9th spot in the coming years. Just you watch.

One thing I did say when you went for Emery was that his sides have never had a reputation for defensive nous. They tended to play open, exciting football and he was renowned as a meticulous attack-minded tactician which was probably just another way of saying 'a younger version of Wenger'.

The bottom line is when a team has a chronic problem in one area, you sometimes need to go to the opposite extreme to first fix that area before returning to a happy medium closer to your traditional style of play. Diego Simone was the only potential appointment that worried me. He would've fixed your problems pretty quickly, given you the thick skin you've lacked for so long and made you bloody hard to beat.

As it is, most if not all of the problems existed under Wenger still exist today and I don't think Emery is the man to fix them as his teams historically demonstrated very similar.

 

["Thanks for that Brian"]

An accumulation of bad decisions, poor management, lack of strategy, lack of ambition and lack of leadership will eventually be damaging to any club, especially if other clubs are doing things right.

This is all it takes over a period of just a few years to reduce a successful club to one that's in trouble. United were perennial PL winners for 2 decades ending in Fergie's final season. Now, that looks a long time ago. They'll be back but from a perfectly oiled machine, they've gone to one that is wrong in nearly every respect.

In 1984, we won the UEFA Cup. That was a real feat back in the day when only the Champions played in the European Cup. We got rid of a successful manager, built a new stand, ****ed about with our finances and were in huge debt within 7 years, that nearly ended us. When Sugar took over, we could have been reborn in the PL era. However, he was ****ing clueless. In contrast, your management made nearly all the right decisions for 2 decades. On the back of a few Sliding Doors decisions in those years, the clubs fortunes became very, very different.

20+ years on, it looks as though the roles have been reversed. We've made the right managerial appointment, got the stadium decisions spot on, been careful to pay the right wages to the right players, etc., etc. It's taken such a long time because of how far we fell and that was based upon how long important decisions were put off and we drifted without direction.

Arsenal need to commit to the philosophy of being self-sustaining, do it now and implement it ruthlessly. It's not going to be popular with fans who have had it too easy for too long and others, like your good self, who haven't known the hard years of mid-table mediocrity or relegation fights. However, it's back to the drawing board and a fresh start. It can be cathartic to clear out the bloated players and supporters and get back to those die-hards who will bleed for the club. One of my favourite seasons was the year we spent in the second division.

Be one of those that stands up for your club and refuse to be affected by Kronke and Ozil. Before you're gone, they will be a distant memory.

 

["Thanks for that Brian"]

One thing I did say when you went for Emery was that his sides have never had a reputation for defensive nous. They tended to play open, exciting football and he was renowned as a meticulous attack-minded tactician which was probably just another way of saying 'a younger version of Wenger'.

The bottom line is when a team has a chronic problem in one area, you sometimes need to go to the opposite extreme to first fix that area before returning to a happy medium closer to your traditional style of play. Diego Simone was the only potential appointment that worried me. He would've fixed your problems pretty quickly, given you the thick skin you've lacked for so long and made you bloody hard to beat.

As it is, most if not all of the problems existed under Wenger still exist today and I don't think Emery is the man to fix them as his teams historically demonstrated very similar.

I've seen a few games recently and they are as open now as ever they were under Wenger. In some of the big games, the whole team has pressed and worked like dogs. However, against the lesser lights there's no sign of that kind of commitment.

Losing Holding and Bellerin hasn't helped but there's no sign of the team being properly defensively organised. This season, we've put out some really scratch defences and there have been plenty of individual mistakes but I can't think of many games where we've just been wide open like Arsenal have been. As you say, that comes down to the manager and coaching.

Whether we play well or not, I know that the players understand how to defend (corners and free kicks apart). I don't get that impression watching Emery's Arsenal. It's just a complete shambles at the back with people doing whatever they want and no leadership.

The other shocking thing has been how quickly their heads go down when they concede a goal. There's just no fight in them at all. As soon as Chelsea scored last night, it was done. That's unacceptable.

 

[BrunelGooner]

This is all it takes over a period of just a few years to reduce a successful club to one that's in trouble. United were perennial PL winners for 2 decades ending in Fergie's final season. Now, that looks a long time ago. They'll be back but from a perfectly oiled machine, they've gone to one that is wrong in nearly every respect.

In 1984, we won the UEFA Cup. That was a real feat back in the day when only the Champions played in the European Cup. We got rid of a successful manager, built a new stand, ****ed about with our finances and were in huge debt within 7 years, that nearly ended us. When Sugar took over, we could have been reborn in the PL era. However, he was ****ing clueless. In contrast, your management made nearly all the right decisions for 2 decades. On the back of a few Sliding Doors decisions in those years, the clubs fortunes became very, very different.

20+ years on, it looks as though the roles have been reversed. We've made the right managerial appointment, got the stadium decisions spot on, been careful to pay the right wages to the right players, etc., etc. It's taken such a long time because of how far we fell and that was based upon how long important decisions were put off and we drifted without direction.

Arsenal need to commit to the philosophy of being self-sustaining, do it now and implement it ruthlessly. It's not going to be popular with fans who have had it too easy for too long and others, like your good self, who haven't known the hard years of mid-table mediocrity or relegation fights. However, it's back to the drawing board and a fresh start. It can be cathartic to clear out the bloated players and supporters and get back to those die-hards who will bleed for the club. One of my favourite seasons was the year we spent in the second division.

Be one of those that stands up for your club and refuse to be affected by Kronke and Ozil. Before you're gone, they will be a distant memory.

Excellent post Brian

To be honest, as fans, there's not much we can do anyway. No amount of protesting or empty seats will convince Kroenke to sell up, as we have already seen over the last 6 years. And even if he did, the valuation of our club is too high meaning it is more likely to deter potential investors. Newcastle are worth £350m. We are worth around 4 times that amount. It ain't happening. We are stuck with KSE for the foreseeable future.

All we can do is support the team, moan when **** doesn't go our way after the game, get bantered off by rival fans and just pray that better times will come.

Wallowing in midtable will certainly be a new experience for me, as like you said, I've never had to experience anything like that before. But maybe it will help me appreciate the club more and maybe it will give senior figures at our club a big reality check. It's a cliche, but sometimes you need things to get worse before they get better. You need to take the good with the bad.

Nothing lasts forever at the end of the day.

 

["Thanks for that Brian"]

Excellent post Brian

To be honest, as fans, there's not much we can do anyway. No amount of protesting or empty seats will convince Kroenke to sell up, as we have already seen over the last 6 years. And even if he did, the valuation of our club is too high meaning it is more likely to deter potential investors. Newcastle are worth £350m. We are worth around 4 times that amount. It ain't happening. We are stuck with KSE for the foreseeable future.

All we can do is support the team, moan when **** doesn't go our way after the game, get bantered off by rival fans and just pray that better times will come.

Wallowing in midtable will certainly be a new experience for me, as like you said, I've never had to experience anything like that before. But maybe it will help me appreciate the club more and maybe it will give senior figures at our club a big reality check. It's a cliche, but sometimes you need things to get worse before they get better. You need to take the good with the bad.

Nothing lasts forever at the end of the day.

As a fan base, you can keep going to the games but stop buying the merch. I didn't buy anything from the club shop after Keith Burkinshaw was forced out until Martin Jol was manager. Not even a Jurgen Klinsmann shirt.That's over 20 years. I also begrudged spending anything on food and beer in the stadium. It did help that it was complete ****.

Nowadays, merch and food is a major thing (I'd love to know what the CL Final is going to pull in by way of shirt sales, etc). You can express your feelings at the board in this way and continue to go to games and back the shirt, without dividing the fan base in the stadium. It probably won't see Kroenke off but I promise that it made me feel a bit better.

Unfortunately for you, I can't foresee Kroenke leaving or changing his MO any time soon. In the next few years, Arsenal Fan TV will be driving the business of failure and division. As with most things, social media is likely to ramp up emotions in a bad way and increase divisions. This at a time when the opposite is needed.

It is going to be a hard few years ahead.

 

[PleaseNotPoll]

Arsenal's biggest problem was losing David Dein.
He was effectively Wenger's Director of Football, plus their Daniel Levy. They failed to replace him in either capacity.
The manager gradually lost his way afterward, while the quality of signings dropped substantially.

They need to either bring in a manager who wants a project and is prepared to make massive changes or a DOF to overhaul their whole system.
They've got loads of revenue and the attraction of London, but a lot of their squad simply aren't good enough.
They've offered massive contracts to substandard players and they're paying the price for it.

 

[Red Hadron Collider]

We are finished as a top club. It's over. We've had our moment in the sun for several years in the late 90s-early 2000s, had the gravy train of CL money to stop the decline from being more instant, but it's too late to reverse it. We are only going to slip further and further down the table.

Not only do we have to catch up the other top 6 clubs, but now we need to worry about Newcastle, Everton, Leicester and Wolves too. I saw this coming well before we finished 5th in 2017. The gradual erosion of our standards and expectations became more and more obvious as each season went by for the last 6-7 years. The FA Cups gave us a false sense of security, but now we are about to get our just desserts for failing to act when we needed to. No-one had the foresight to see what a cancer Kroenke would be to Arsenal, despite the performances of his other sporting franchises (prior to the last year). No-one had the courage to inform the board that Wenger had a dictatorial thirst for power to the detriment of the fabric of the club. No-one truly acknowledged how our identity had been lost in amongst all the internal politics. No-one had the foresight to realise we were destined to be failures the longer this inaction to our downward trajectory continued.

I am not saying this to get sympathy from you. I am not saying this to get reassurances that "we'll be fine" because, let's not kid ourselves, we won't be. Not with the way the club is currently set up. Not with the owner we currently have.

I am saying this because it is now a cold hard reality that we are not rivals anymore. Geographically we are, but rivals with similar aspirations? With similar targets for the season? With similar intent from the upper echelons of each club? With similar quality in our squads? Nope. Not even close.

We are now the new West Ham. And there is nothing we can do to buck this trend. It's been coming for a long time, but now it's here.

The fall of Arsenal Football Club (or what is left of it) is complete.

You sound a bit pissed off, mate.