Watford v Arsenal, Saturday 27th August, 3pm

[Niall_Quinn]

Yeah. Except I haven't defended him, have I?

But that's why you respond to anything that criticises the guy, like you have a Google Alert set up or something. Somebody says anything non-glowing about the bloke and boom, there you are. You might not turn up and actually say, I'm here to defend Wenger. But the regularity at which you turn up says plenty. I really don't know what you see in the bloke. He's a fucking idiot. Other managers just get on and do their job, this fool sits there treating us all to his bullshit announcements and his snipes at every other team and his crappy excuses as we go into season after season unprepared. Then when the shit hits the fan at the exact time predicted, he acts, albeit in a half-arsed manner. He's an idiot because his actions show him to be an idiot. But you never cease to turn up and have a pop at anyone who says anything derogatory about him. I saw you aiming pops at other posters, I didn't say anything because we have this uneasy truce going on. But you can't deny, you always have a put down for anyone who points out the undeniable flaws in the idiot that manages our club. And you attack the messenger more often than not. A sarcastic smiley, some MS or Kano eye-rolling, holier than thou reference that adds fuck all except to stir the pot. I mean if that's what you are trying to do then fine, free country and all and it wouldn't bother me a bit. In fact I give you plenty of credit for being able to take a punch and dish one out yourself, unlike one silly little girl on here. Nothing wrong if your mission is to defend Wenger, but don't then pretend it isn't because that's what winds people up.

[Niall_Quinn]

Anyway, provided the bloke fucks off at the end of this season it'll all turn out alright in the end. But if he awards himself another contract, fuck me, that'll be all out warfare.

[Goonermerree]

I didn't see the match, first win on the table, gotta be good. I did hear Wenger' s interview and I was baffled when he said we can't play 9O minutes yet, in two months time he'll be complaining that we're a leetle bit jaded. When can we expect our team of young, fit professional s to perform for 90 mins?

[Letters]

But that's why you respond to anything that criticises the guy, like you have a Google Alert set up or something. Somebody says anything non-glowing about the bloke and boom, there you are. You might not turn up and actually say, I'm here to defend Wenger. But the regularity at which you turn up says plenty. I really don't know what you see in the bloke. He's a fucking idiot. Other managers just get on and do their job, this fool sits there treating us all to his bullshit announcements and his snipes at every other team and his crappy excuses as we go into season after season unprepared. Then when the shit hits the fan at the exact time predicted, he acts, albeit in a half-arsed manner. He's an idiot because his actions show him to be an idiot. But you never cease to turn up and have a pop at anyone who says anything derogatory about him. I saw you aiming pops at other posters, I didn't say anything because we have this uneasy truce going on. But you can't deny, you always have a put down for anyone who points out the undeniable flaws in the idiot that manages our club. And you attack the messenger more often than not. A sarcastic smiley, some MS or Kano eye-rolling, holier than thou reference that adds fuck all except to stir the pot. I mean if that's what you are trying to do then fine, free country and all and it wouldn't bother me a bit. In fact I give you plenty of credit for being able to take a punch and dish one out yourself, unlike one silly little girl on here. Nothing wrong if your mission is to defend Wenger, but don't then pretend it isn't because that's what winds people up.

What I'm responding to, now you've descended into the final stage of ZD, is the complete lack of objectivity and balance on here. Not just from you. It is not enough, for some, to think that Wenger should be sacked - or, more realistically now, leave at the end of this season. You have to believe that he's an idiot and incompetent, that everything he says or does is wrong. Whatever we do or don't do you and others are looking for the angle to hammer Wenger for it. And I know this is 'the internet' and you get extremes on there but come on, we're intelligent chaps aren't we? Can't we do a bit better and realise that there are shades of grey.


Any mere suggestion that maybe he's not quite as idiotic as you make out and I'm "sucking his cock" or, as you've phrased it a bit more nicely this time, I:


[QUOTE]never cease to turn up and have a pop at anyone who says anything derogatory about him[/I]


That's not true, is it? You know it's not true. I don't have a 'mission' or if I do then it's nothing to do with defending Wenger. I'd be just as scathing if someone like Ty posted on here with his relentless cheeriness and belief that we have no problems. What winds me up is extremes of opinion which bear no relation to reality.


It is perfectly possible to think Wenger should have been sacked and to hope this is our last season with him while retaining some objectivity and balance and not looking for any and every reason to criticise him whatever he does (or doesn't do) or says (or doesn't say). It seems to me that whatever happens at Arsenal some are looking it only with regard to how they can spin it to criticise Wenger. I do find it all rather tiresome, as I'm sure you would if I spun everything to praise him (which you know I don't).

[Niall_Quinn]

It's the soul sapping duration of it all Letters. A decade or more of this shit. When you prod a dog with a stick, even the most faithful hound alive is going to bite your face off after 10 years of prodding. Each year the resentment builds on what went before. That gets you a mountain of resentment but even that's bearable provided that bloke doesn't open his gob and make yet another idiotic comment or tell another insultingly obvious lie. This is where the vitriol comes from, the slow torture applied over time and the behaviour akin to gloating that Wenger and his acolytes revel in, oblivious, somehow able to disconnect each new season from everything that went beforehand.

You have to believe that he's an idiot and incompetent, that everything he says or does is wrong.

I not only believe he's incompetent and an idiot, I have spelled out in the most precise manner why I believe that and why I believe the evidence more that supports my case. Look at his CL record, pure incompetence. Look at what we just paid £90mill for. Idiotic. And all the rest. But it's totally wrong to say I criticise him for everything he does. On the extremely rare occasions when he gets something right, or if fans overstep the mark and threaten him in a physical manner, or if media hacks celebrate when he trips and falls, then I'll support him. But generally, no, not after all this time. I will not support him. I also feel that on balance the chances of him being in collusion with the ghouls who have sucked the life out of the club, as opposed to him being an innocent victim of it all or a lone figure standing against it is now tipped heavily towards the former. It's inconceivable that he hasn't known what's been going on at every step or hasn't known why it is going on. And he's said nothing against it, done nothing about it, and his whole strategy over the last decade has, surely not coincidentally, aligned precisely with the self interests of the suits who are purging the very essence of the club. Yes he's ultimately an employee, so can he say something? Can he do something? Well yes, he virtually runs the place. Of course he can influence just about anything he wants to. So I wonder why hasn't he? But even if he couldn't, then where's his damn pride? How has he sat there for ten seasons methodically turning the club into a laughing stock, delivering ever increasing returns to a few while screwing over the many? And then dismissing the fans and treating them like they are shit on his shoe when they have the nerve and temerity to object.

Just let him award himself that next contract. This is the last chance he has to get out before the once polite but now more forceful demands turn into hatred. It's difficult. The strong temptation is to just not give a fuck and move on from football. Effectively be driven out by a bunch of insanely greedy cunts like Kroenke, their accomplices like Wenger and the bunch of spoiled kids that drive around the place in Ferraris pretending to be mega stars even though the vast majority can't seem to kick a ball. It stinks of complacency to walk off, even though it's probably the smart thing to do. But then you ask why it's the fans that should have to fuck off. Fans that supported the club long before Wenger's name was known. Is it the fans doing a lousy job and outrageously over-billing for it? So why should it be the fans that have to walk. And then you get back to it. The alternative.

Wenger out. No matter what. Just get out. So what if he got 3 points against Watford? What does that count for, by comparison to all the other stuff?

[Letters]

I think 10 years of prodding is an exaggeration. There are repeated mistakes, granted, but those mistakes didn't start 10 years ago. That Invincibles era side was one of the best club sides I've ever seen, they should have won 3 titles in a row and should certainly have done better in the Champions League in that era.
Wenger's weakenesses have always cost us but back in the day they were masked by his strengths, which were considerable, and the sack of trophies. I don't believe he's lost all those strengths although a lot of the ideas he came into the club with and which revolutionised English football - notably the fitness methods and knowledge of the worldwide game - are no longer unique and if anything we're now behind in those areas. But I don't believe he's turned into an incompetent idiot, you just don't finish top 4 every single year with someone as incompetent as you make out in charge. And you cannot, when assessing the last 10 years, ignore the change in our financial circumstance a few years ago.

You don't have to support him but neither do you need to criticise at every opportunity. You do seem to go out of your way to try and find the negative in every situation. No matter what the result (win,lose or draw) or situation is (don't sign players, do sign players) you look for the negative.

Saturday was a good win. Very good first half, disappointing second. Your comments imply you think that the players were doing fine until Wenger stuck his oar in - as though someone who knows what they're doing was in charge for the first half and then Wenger came along and messed it all up. A more balanced assessment is that it was a good result, very good first half and disappointing second which we didn't sustain the pace of the first half but overall job done, on we go.

So I get it, you want Wenger out. Most of us do. But if you want to criticise Wenger there's a fair amount of ammo, you don't need to go looking for it or acting like a bitter ex who cannot see the merit in anything their ex partner says or does and then accusing anyone who suggests you may be going a little overboard of 'sucking his cock'.

[Niall_Quinn]

Your comments imply you think that the players were doing fine until Wenger stuck his oar in - as though someone who knows what they're doing was in charge for the first half and then Wenger came along and messed it all up. A more balanced assessment is that it was a good result, very good first half and disappointing second which we didn't sustain the pace of the first half but overall job done, on we go.

That's not a balanced assessment at all, not in light of what we already know after years of experience. Firstly, it hardly takes a genius to select and deploy the starting eleven. We have very good players at our disposal. The only impediment to using those players effectively has been Wenger and his favouritism and repetitive persistence with what doesn't work. Nevertheless, he selected an obvious but decent starting eleven on Saturday and he deployed an obvious game plan - use our superior players all over the pitch to dominate and attack. I did not criticise him for his selection nor did I criticise the style of play in the first half, apart from the defending which was woeful as usual. Neither did I leap up and down celebrating Wenger getting these obvious things right. We expect him to get such simple things right, surely? As a most basic element of his job.

The second half was a depressing replay of what we have seen so many times in the past. Mr Bare Minimum was satisfied with his lead so he introduced his now regular negativity and sat on that lead. The impetus of the team was dampened down, his substitutions killed our play and as usual it left on on the back foot looking shaky and risking throwing away a comfortable position. We were very fortunate to come out of the game with all 3 points. Wenger does this regularly and never learns that the way we defend is not conducive to sitting on a lead. But that aside, his general disrespect for the game itself is horrifying. The fans pay big money to be entertained. We rightly criticise Maureen for his anti-footballing approach to the game. Yet Wenger has become every bit as bad. At least Maureen is honest about it, he doesn't pretend to be the bringer of football fantasy. Wenger, on the other hand, goes on about style all the time. Yet he stamps it out at every opportunity. And we know where it all leads because we've seen it season after season. His negativity and lack of ambition will be our undoing yet again.

A more reasonable assessment would be - Wenger out. We need a manager who can either set up a team to defend properly so if we want to see out games comfortably then we can do that, or we need a manager that understand the game lasts for 90 minutes and the whole 90 must be played in order to obtain the most possible from every match. Not just for the sake of the league table, but for the hard pressed fans who pay a fortune and currently have to endure Wenger Boreball most of the time.

The Invincibles season was 2003/4 btw. That's more than a decade ago. How Wenger has managed to take us from that supreme height to here, especially in terms of the football we play, is shocking and still in many ways a mystery. Many excuses can be deployed in his defence, and certainly have been. But there's no excuse for the steady decline in the style of football we play and the ambition of our game.

[Letters]

Anyone who has ever watched football knows that when a side thumps another side in the 1st half of a game they rarely continue to do so in the 2nd half. There is a tendency to relax a bit, that is not an Arsenal problem or an Arsene problem or even a football problem. I don't know if it's a problem at all, it's just human nature.
I don't have any stats to hand but I'll bet that if you look up all the games where one team was 3-0 up at half time they rarely ended 6 nill or as real pastings. Obviously it becomes a problem if you do something ridiculous like drop points from that position but we didn't and we really weren't fortunate, let alone 'very' fortunate, to end up winning the game.

Wenger out is a reasonable assessment from the last 2 years (not the last 10, there were financial constraints for much of that time which must be factored in to any assessment) but it's not a reasonable assessment from Saturday's game which is what we're talking about. OK, we get it, you want Wenger out. A lot of us do. But what's the point in posting that after every single game (he's going to be here all season whatever you post) or always looking for the negative in every game, every result, every transfer, every quote?

[Niall_Quinn]

Anyone who has ever watched football knows that when a side thumps another side in the 1st half of a game they rarely continue to do so in the 2nd half. There is a tendency to relax a bit, that is not an Arsenal problem or an Arsene problem or even a football problem. I don't know if it's a problem at all, it's just human nature.
I don't have any stats to hand but I'll bet that if you look up all the games where one team was 3-0 up at half time they rarely ended 6 nill or as real pastings. Obviously it becomes a problem if you do something ridiculous like drop points from that position but we didn't and we really weren't fortunate, let alone 'very' fortunate, to end up winning the game.

Wenger out is a reasonable assessment from the last 2 years (not the last 10, there were financial constraints for much of that time which must be factored in to any assessment) but it's not a reasonable assessment from Saturday's game which is what we're talking about. OK, we get it, you want Wenger out. A lot of us do. But what's the point in posting that after every single game (he's going to be here all season whatever you post) or always looking for the negative in every game, every result, every transfer, every quote?

Complacency is not the solution to the problem of Wenger. If fans just sit there and accept he has another season and fail to apply pressure then the new contract will soon appear. He must be forced out with an increasing level of intensity or else he will stay.

[Globalgunner]

Complacency is not the solution to the problem of Wenger. If fans just sit there and accept he has another season and fail to apply pressure then the new contract will soon appear. He must be forced out with an increasing level of intensity or else he will stay.

Absolutely!. There is no future with Wenger still here next season and beyond.
In pure analytical terms there is little left to debate. If the only defence Letters still has for Wenger is that he is not a total idiot then fine, let him hold on to that, However for the many of us he is a total idiot. He is an idiot because he makes idiotic decisions all the time. Saturdays line up would have been ruined if Ramsey had been available. Most likely Cazorla would have been dropped. He is an idiot for dumping Campbell, who is twice the player that Walcott is on that right hand side. The irony is when Campbell contract comes up for renewal he will probably be offered a new one. (Campbell would then be the idiot to sign it if Wenger is still here).

He has ruined the careers of both Ramsey and Walcott as well as potentially the OX. Players who would have benefited better under a different manager. The problem is Wenger is always on a crusade with his players comsistently playing the underperforming ones even when they obviously cost him points and games. He does this because he can. We have always been good enough to make top 4 even when we barely did, each of those seasons we made it inspite of Wenger not because of him. He crusades with players because he does not want to be proven wrong. He has now made it a mission to regain England places for Walcott and Wishire, who gives a tuppenny piece about their England places?. Guardiola doesnt about Hart, but Wenger keeps finding reasons to fail. He plays Almunia for 5 seasons, a disastrous keeper that makes Gomez look like Shilton. He kept playing the Swiss comedy duo of Djorou and Senderos even when they were that bad in every game. Buys Stepanovs, Silvestre, Squillaci et al.

He does it because he plays the odds like a compulsive gambler, reckoning that we can always make 4th place which is the target whether stated or not. This season we have 3 teams which are palpably better than us with extremely superior managers. with another 2 teams with managers who are singularly devoted to making 4th place. literally under pain of being fired otherwise. If Wenger doesnt get his act together 6/7th place could be a reality. Bottom line is there is NO future with Wenger, we have seen all he has to offer in 20 seasons. I am glad that we have Mustafi and Perez in as even the complusive gambler realised he needs a better hand to be competitive this season, but what has be gained from all his stone walling?. There was no reduction in the Mustafi price, He could have gone for Perez immediately after the Vardy deal fell through. Both players he could have had a month ago and could have started the game with Pool instead of putting 2 kids to the fire in defence, losing 1 or 3 points in that game for no reason. I am pretty certain that had we won our first 2 games he would have bought no one after Xhaka, instead he would be chortling in front of the media with a twinkle in his eye proving again how right he is.
Will we win the EPL this season?......No
Will we win the CL this season?........No
So what is the point of each season then?
Stupid is as stupid does as some great philosopher once said.