Starting to lose my passion for Arsenal.

yeah, but we've watched **** football for years at Upton Park and we STILL have the same love for WHU that we always did, regardless of WLD, because we are fans, not plastic glory hunters

COYI

 

Wenger is the specter at the feast. A has-been of a by-gone era. We're not in the 90's/ early 2000's anymore, the guy is so past his use by date.

 

Oh, it takes a LOT for me to get pissed off about my team. I'll still be wearing the colours and supporting the team in the Conference if it came to it.

 

Makes for pretty depressing reading this thread. I don't deny it's frustrating, but I just can't get into this mentality that it's boring.

I love watching Arsenal and I get the buzz before every game. I'm gutted when we lose and ****ing elated when we win.

I want trophies like everybody else. But I'd never give up and switch off because I'd lost interest, never.

 

Fans are entitled to have a moan from time to time and this is one such time that needs it. I reckon it's a good idea to have specific threads like this so fans can let off steam, rather than go into other threads and start excessive moaning there. Otherwise the whole forum becomes unbearable.

Going back to the OPs thread, there is something different about this Arsenal team that makes you less excited about. I remember Wenger's earlier teams and the last time i felt excitement was in 08. Even when they were passing it around in 08, they did it better and looks so good doing it. It didn't look like they were passing it around for the heck of it, maybe it was Cesc that made it all work? But you'd think with so many good midfielder at our disposal, that we would be more dominant and create so much more. These guys should be making us exciting, instead it looks like training ground practice sometimes.

But the believe isn't there anymore, even with all these new big name signings coming in. Sometimes you have to accept that you're running through bad luck, but not all the time. It seems like we are forever making excuses for this team. We have to just admit that the management and players have to take responsibility.

We're a big club with large resources and a solid base, but hardly anyone on this forum has any faith that we will challenge for the league or Champions league. I don't remember this being the case of Wenger's teams of the past, we always thought that we had a chance, no matter what.

 

What do you think it would take for Wenger to lose his job?

 

I think he'd need to totally fail this season and next season to be sacked. And by that I mean out of the top four, no trophies etc...

One year below his standard the board would ignore, two years in a row they would panic about the cash loss of being out of the CL.

If he does ok this season he will be given to the end of his contract even if he messes up the following year. Then I expect him to step down regardless of results to retire when his contract ends.

But it'd need consistent failure of at least two seasons for the board to lose patience with wenger.

 

It would take a terrible season, followed by a poor start to another season for them to consider sacking him, but this won't realistically happen. He's got us playing well enough to get to the top but not really challenge. We are consistent enough so that we will finish at around 3rd/4th place, unless of course United, Pool and another team can consistently do it over a full season. Wenger provides that financial stability that the board love.

 

Going back to what I said earlier in the thread, I think our good football is just going through the motions right now. It's as if the players no longer believe they can do anything. Back when we had the likes of the Invincibles, we played great football but we knew how to mix it up. Now it doesn't seem as if there are any clearly defined roles on the football pitch anymore.

To be honest, we've not looked the same side since we lost Cesc in 2011, lost to Manure 8-2, etc. Something changed that year. I'm not quite sure what.

 

I know what you mean. They almost look robotic at times. I know football is about discipline and keeping your shape, but they don't seem to have that same passion and connection that teams of the past had. The invincibles may have been a team, but the players also expressed their individual skills and talents, they were also individuals as well.

As for the 2011 reference, I think it was more Wenger's fears than the players. The manager is the one that provides the confidence, if he isn't quite there then the players will start questioning themselves. If we all see it then the players must also. Take Ozil for example, he already looks unsure of himself. The guy is a world class talent, playing for the best teams in the world and just won the WC, but has looked poor for his level this season. Whereas you look at Cesc and see how he's smashing it.

 

Win, lose or draw does it matter if nothing ever comes of it in the long term? Where is the elation in victory if it leads nowhere? We should leave that to spurs fans. Can you see progress in the way we tackle playing good teams? Can you see us challenging for the league or CL?

 

I understand the points people are making, and it makes me so frustrated and angry to see us pass the ball side to side, then back to the CBs and then forward again, then back to the keeper without result - especially when we are behind and need to up the tempo.

But I've supported Arsenal since the early 90s - I have vague recollections of the 1989 finale but I was 6 at the time, and think this maybe based on footage I've seen since... But I remember Arsenal pre-Wenger and how we were mainly a cup team in the early/mid 90s with the odd run at the title but never serious contenders to Man U. We played a boring form of football, had players like Andy linighan and Steve Morrow in the team, as well as greats like Wright and Adams. But hardly ever any big signings until Platt and Bergkamp.

I still felt passionate about them then, and I do now. I understand the frustrations of being 'so close yet not quite' for so many seasons, and feeling that a little change here and there could get us over the line. But for the longest time under Wenger we've competed above our weight, and we've come so far and have got it so much better than most sides in the league.

I think I fall into the frustrated but passionate and hopeful group.

 

From whence cometh forth the hope?

 

I don't blame fans for losing passion because it's the same **** every season now, that's the point, it ends up being a fight for 4th, we end up getting knocked out of Europe when we come up against a top side, or if we do manage to put a title challenge in, come February we have our usual title collapse, so it's a repeat pattern of the same old same old because our manager who knows best never makes the needed improvements we are crying out for.

 

In 2 months alone this season we have seen all the negatives and what's wrong with this club for the past several years, it's all been epitomised in 2 months only. Lack of proper signings, lack of proper defensive shape-conentration, unable to win the important games, weak tactics and no plan B's.

 

The fact that we're not awful like Liverpool were post Benitez, like Spurs were for ages, like Man U were with Moyes. And also we have very good players, we were awesome for the 1st part of last season, despite me writing them off before the season. There'll always be the argument about whether there's enough stuff to be hopeful about, or whether there's more hopeful things than negative.

But I don't think it can be denied that there's good things and hopeful things about the club. In the same way that you can't deny that theres bad things and frustrating things about the club.

 

Unless we start improving and improve fast, we will end up this season as bad as Liverpool post Benitez, our form at this moment will see us end 7th-8th if not even lower. The signs aren't good, can't beat Hull home, couldn't beat a piss poor Spurs side we were dominating, couldn't hold and build on a lead against Leicester, and our only home win was a scrappy 2-1 over C.Palace, not exactly good signs.

 

As others have said before there are many indicators and factors that make it likely that we won't keep this same form for the whole season. I can't see us continually drawing games for the whole season, meaning we'd finish in the positions you stated.

Besides the Chelsea game we are unbeaten since the end of last season in the league. True it's very, very poor that we've drawn so many and been playing so poorly. But its reasonable to suggest that if we play anywhere on form then we'd turn a decent proportion of these draws into wins. If we merely do that then we'd shoot up the league. If we do the same thing we've done for the past lot of seasons and go on an unbeaten run with lots of wins, Then we'll be back towards the top of the league.

Nothing is guaranteed of course, but past form and evidence would indicate agains finishing as badly as 7-8th

 

We have only lost 1 game this season, yet are 11 points behind Chelsea and sitting in 7th, so that whole argument of being unbeaten before or pointing to this was/is putting lipstick on a pig, it only sounded better than the actual reality. If we want to impress someone with being unbeaten, then let's do what Chelsea are doing, they're unbeaten, won 7 of their 8 games, sitting top of the table, that's something you point to, not Arsenal's 'unbeaten' record which is gone now, or say we've only lost once, when we have drawn 5 times, and only won once at home, and sit 11 points behind the leaders.

 

I only brought it up to show that we only need to improve a bit to turn the draws into wins. If we do that them we'd be in a better position. It's surely easier to turn draws into wins then losses or hammerings