Well that 'occasional fillip' has us placed in 3rd, so I guess there was more good than bad this season.
This year and the last few have been poor seasons overall, because we've fallen away from where we were in the previous decade. Whether or not it is as bad as it was through different points in history is totally irrelevant. We're not living in the past - Wenger is judged on whether he can meet the current expectations of the fans - he is failing in that regard.
This is blown out of all proportions by the media and by the fans. Players, if you hear what they are saying, beg to differ.
Exactly - we are not living in the past. And this includes our trophy winning past. The situation has changed with new moneybags in the game, but fans ARE living in the past, they want good old glory days back and refuse to accept the reality. Current expectations are too high and it does not help anyone. Fans get angry, Wenger gets bitter, players get desperate and afraid of another failure. This is not the support they need.
I wont ever buy into the financial argument. We are quite capable of competing for trophies with any club in the world. If you accept that we can no longer compete then you might be happier, but you will be doing Arsenal FC a disservice.
I think most Gooners know that we can do better than we have been over the last few seasons, but the original point was that someone who'd claimed to support Arsenal since 1955, saw Wenger as a disgrace who was dragging the club in the wrong direction. I just find that hard to believe if you'd had seen as much dross in the past 50 years as we have produced, the Wenger years by comparison - are a revelation.
Get over it, oh and the original point was Wenger's 'raging' at officials is a disgrace, any one would think you have an unusual sensitivity to criticism of Wenger? Since 2006 Arsenal HAVE been going backwards and that is down to Wenger and the Board.
Just pointing out where I think your claim is slightly incredulous mate And as I'd mentioned, I'd be more upset if Wenger didn't get annoyed when things aren't going well. No doubt the same people would be accusing him of lacking passion.
This season hasn't turned out to be the disaster it was looking like becoming, but we have to learn from the mistakes made !! One thing for sure, losing 8-2 will remain long in the memory
Tosh ! The only reason we didn't win the league on 2 occasions in the past 5 years was done to us imploding - not any team spending more than us. Us imploding against Birmingham was our own bloody fault
Yeah, the same Birmingham that got relegated because they were crap Remind me of their match winning goal again .......
While Wenger's success of in his first 8 years some of which is due in no small part to what he inherited, namely an excellent defence, goalkeeper and not a few players, far exceeds our worst years since 1955, it does not necessarily mean that the path he has taken over these past 7 years which amount to nearly 50% of his tenure is the right one. He delivered the goods over the first part of his time and perhaps not achieving as much in the second period. It cannot have gone unnoticed that the trophy cabinet remains empty and were it not for the inconsistent performances of our closest rivals and the form of some players, RvP, Arteta and Szczesny in particular, this season would have been a disaster in the same manner by which the previous on ended. So let's not imagine for one moment that the past 7 years have been good, that we have been ' in contention ' has been a laudable feat. Being in contention is nothing short of being an also ran. We should have won some silverware over these 7 years but for one reason or other, we have come up short and there has to be accountability for that. It's not all Wenger's fault since the purse strings may not be entirely within his control. It seems a pretty grey area as to who actually is responsible for our lack of investment but that, the poor decision-making and inability to motivate the players and poor strategy when we have major obstacles to overcome have all played their part. We may not have been close to relegation as often as the worst years but we were not far from it this year and we have only been saved by a combination of factors, not all of which were of our own design. Indeed if we were that good how is it that we currently lie 17 points away from the top of the EPL, a gap that has steadily widened over these past years? Someone said the other day that the league table does not lie. It is a reflection of the quality of the sides in the EPL and I don't think that by any stretch of the imagination that the gulf that exists between us and the top of the league is indicative of our side being of top quality. We used to be fighting for 1st place. Now we are 6 wins away from it - six wins!!! However what our form and capability is to be is dependent on how we play our cards this summer. Wenger ( and the board ) can still salvage the reputation of this club. It remains to be seen whether they are happy to rest on the laurels of 3rd or 4th place. No one wins all the time but to not win is something else.
Totally agree - this money excuse is so thin now. You can only have 25 players registered to play plus 21 year olds. The players we have no matter how inflated the prices City pay for their players are quite capable of winning the title. Just because City spend £40m on a player does not mean he is worth it, or any better than a player that we can sign for £10-15m. We should have won the league in 2 of the last 7 years - but failed to do so (against teams with more money) because we simply bottled it. As TT wont mention the turning point in the game against Birmingham in 2008 (where we had the best team in the league, but not the most expensive), I will. It was agame where we were winning at a crucial time of the season and for no known reason Clichy completely switched off in the last seconds which led to a pen, followed by a complete implosion by our captain. It had nothing to do with Utd's or Chelsea's money. here's the incident - i still cant figure out what the hell Clichy was doing even now. [video=youtube;4UQgVPWrwfQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UQgVPWrwfQ[/video]
It's not too dissimilar to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and for that you need to look at the players we field and how they are motivated to get the job done. It is pretty obvious that there is more than something amiss here. It is not as though we learn from our mistakes either since even this season we have failed to grasp the initiative on the many occasions when our rivals have fallen. We were smoked by the opposition through all of January when we didn't win a single match in the EPL and how often have Spurs, Newcastle, Chelsea or Liverpool made a hash of their games while we too dropped points as though in sympathy!!! That we still have to look over our shoulders in respect of three of the above sides when we should have been safe almost brings about a case of neglect for which answers are forthcoming.
Id say we seized the initiative from Spurs, Newcastle and Chelsea fairly successfully. We signed Podolski early which seems to be a bt of learning from our mistakes. I think I understand why a lot of fans are upset, but really, if it was easy to win the league, and know what you were doing wrong, then everyone would be doing it. I quite enjoy it when you try to articulate how simple it is to fix whatever it is that is "wrong" at Arsenal though, because you end up like a cliche generating machine. Are you a politician by any chance?
TT, your comments just get more ridiculous with each passing week. Who in the world ever said it was easy to win the league . I'd suggest that talent plays a part too in winning the league, not just knowing what you were doing wrong (some of which is indeed obvious) - so I doubt everyone could do it just by recognising their weaknesses.
One swallow doesn't make a summer. Nor do three wins define a season. Sadly, losing 10 does though. As I've alluded before elsewhere Toledo signing Podolski and hopefully a couple of other key captures over the summer which would include re-signing RvP will place us in a very strong position to be in the winners' circle and like you and all our fans here, I look forward to that. We have done many things wrong which is why we haven't won for all of the past 7 years. Time enough to have learned something I would have thought. No, not a simple fix but when you try to do the impossible or near impossible without a back up plan or indeed even covering the loopholes so the impossible plan works calls for some degree of justification. Again, where the same mistakes keep being made then it is time to take a hard look at those who are making them and ask why for if the question is not asked then there is an assumption that all is well and third or fourth and losing it at key moments all the time is acceptable for a club like us. It is neither well nor acceptable.
