Good season?

[Toronto Gooner]

I know that there will be some (more than a tiny minority) who will find little to comfort them with this past season but I am wondering what people think.

Personally, I think that winning the F.A. Cup (joint most wins with Man U: 11); Champions League qualification for the 17th consecutive year; the 2nd best points total for the past 8 seasons; the emergence of a top quality (world class ) player in Ramsay; and a shattered transfer record, add up to a really good season.

I do not even think the loss of Sagna will be a problem. Perhaps Vermaelen can be convinced to move to right back.

[Munchies]

Great season.

Disappointing with the way the league collapse went, but top 4 and a trophy on top = :scarf:

[Marc Overmars]

Today was defining, so yeah I'd say it's been a good season.

We're obviously lacking in some areas but hopefully they will be addressed in the summer. The feeling of today will resonate deep within the club, lets hope it provides us with the hunger to kick on from here.

[Toronto Gooner]

Agreed, Marc. The fact that the team came back from 2-0 down showed tremendous character, regardless of the "favourites" status.

I am hoping that this trophy will actually be seen as a reason for transfer targets to say yes.

[I am invisible]

Definitely a good season. The key thing for me was the title challenge - I know a lot of people will look at this year and only see that we still had the usual collapse at some point, but I think there's a big difference between being challenging right from the start, and largely falling away due to a shite run of injuries (even if a lot of our problems there were self-inflicted), and never being in contention at all, and only rallying late on to prevent an absolute catastrophe? You have to be in it to win it, as they say, and this year we were in it, even if we didn't have enough to go all the way - that's something we can build on...

[Xhaka Can’t]

A good season.

Finishing 4th is important to the Club.

Winning the Cup is important to the fan - we live for this elation.

Over the years, Wenger has been the model of pragmatism, annoyingly so at times. Today it is wonderful to see him enjoy this as much as we did.

What. A. Day!

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/t1.0-9/10173523_10152185615968095_2195492760274360125_n.j pg

[RomfordPele]

The guardian didn't enjoy it clearly...

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/may/17/arsenal-hull-city-fa-cup-final-match-report

Nor did the mail...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2631334/MATCH-ZONE-SPECIAL-Mesut-Ozil-fails-deliver-despite-Arsenals-FA-Cup-win.html

Great to see bitter journalists embarrass themselves with crap like this.

You sirs, can go fuck a duck.

[Niall_Quinn]

LOL - Daily Hitler running a hit piece on Ozil. No change there. Pathetic shit rag staffed by equally pathetic shit bags masquerading as journalists.

Basically their pre-match attempts to sabotage us with their crappy stories about buses and route planning and now their shitty post match assassination effort has amounted to one thing.

ARSENAL WINNING THE CUP :haha:

They failed and they failed completely. You might say they are specialists in failure.

[Niall_Quinn]

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/05/17/article-2631334-1DF39D2800000578-657_634x457.jpg

Here's the heat map they place so much stock in. Shows he was all over the pitch.

But no goals and only 3 crosses. He seems to have failed as a striker and a winger. Lucky he was playing in midfield then. All over midfield by the look of it. Looks to be one of his most thorough performances of the season when you see the ground he covered. 84 passes too.

Oh yes, stealing a living. Unlike Luke Augustus of the Daily Mail. WHO?

[Xhaka Can’t]

Nor did the mail...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2631334/MATCH-ZONE-SPECIAL-Mesut-Ozil-fails-deliver-despite-Arsenals-FA-Cup-win.html

Great to see bitter journalists embarrass themselves with crap like this.

You sirs, can go fuck a duck.


Ozil created ZERO chances during 90 minutes of their 3-2 extra time win vs Hull City

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/05/17/article-2631334-1DF39B3E00000578-670_634x635.jpg

Yes - the text and the graphic are from the same article.

[Niall_Quinn]

btw - season has been a success, only 7 points off the leaders despite being cheated out of several results by biased officials (they tried to cheat us out of the cup today too), CL spot secured, FA Cup, outstanding season from Ramsey despite the injury, great CB pairing, did it all without Walcott and Ox (our pace) for much of the season. The only reason there are negatives is because we performed a lot better than expected and then the increased expectations were used as a yardstick. But we're certainly heading in the right direction. More improvement next season and we are right in the hunt.

[Niall_Quinn]

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/05/17/article-2631334-1DF39B3E00000578-670_634x635.jpg

Yes - the text and the graphic are from the same article.

Not only that:

Babies delivered - big fat ZERO
Wars averted - big fat ZERO
Successful moon landings - big fat ZERO
Olympic golds - big fat ZERO
Presidential election victories - big fat ZERO
Cancers cured - big fat ZERO
Successful summits of Everest - big fat ZERO

I really don't know why we bother with this guy at all. He's taking the piss.

[Niall_Quinn]

From the comments :haha:


Why does it say in big bold caps that Ozil created ZERO chances, when the stat line shows he created TWO? That whole "journalistic integrity" thing is just too much of a hassle, isn't it Luke?


DM im sorry but yur article lost all credibility when you said Ozil was 24. YIf you cant get your facts right in such a simple piece of journalism then you dont stand a chance. Sloppy journalism yet again by this shambolic excuse for a paper.


Did we lose?

[Niall_Quinn]

They also rated Sagna as our best player on the day 8/10

The bitterness is hilarious.

[fakeyank]

I think we had a successful season and that is all because we won a trophy. PL campaign was similar to other years and so was the Champions league. BUT a trophy at the end makes a HUGE difference.
I am really hoping that this means that we are done playing the bridesmaid, and ready to go back to domination. Not 2% away, not playing in hand brake, no excuses but just top quality football.

[Letters]

Domination is a bit over-optimistic IMO, we're still competing with two sides with the infinite money cheat on now. But we are well placed to do what we can to challenge them, we arguably did this year but a few key injuries hurt us - that is an issue we need to deal with but it's one that City and Chelsea don't need to worry about. Aguero gets injured? Fine you've got other £20m+ players sitting on the bench. A real club can't do that.

But returning to the original question: yes, it's been a good season. I never felt we were true title contenders and while people will say we bottled it that, to me, is a lazy argument. We won the Cup, the semi-final on pens and yesterday we came back from 2-0 down despite the ref doing everything in his power to stop us. I think we've showed we can handle high pressure situations. We came up short in the league because we didn't have a really top striker and basically I think we just ran out of steam. We cannot afford to have Ramsey, Ox, Walcott all injured and be as effective, the players coming in aren't as good. We do need to add more depth but we also need to sort out the injury problems which hurt us every year.

Whether you think it's been a good season comes down to this: After last season would you have taken 4th place and the FA Cup this year? Especially after the Villa game! I think most on here definitely would so yes, it's been a good season.

[Letters]

The guardian didn't enjoy it clearly...

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/may/17/arsenal-hull-city-fa-cup-final-match-report
Wow :lol:

I'm generally not one who subscribes to the theory that the press are all anti-Arsenal but what a load of bitter nonsense.
Zero mention of the fact we should have had 4 penalties (one brief mention of Giroud going down easily aside).
They've spent the last 9 years gleefully reminding Arsenal fans how long it's been since our last trophy, now they're saying "You only just got past Wigan in the semi-final and was only Hull in the final, that doesn't count". You know what? Yes it does, so fuck you. Fuck you very much. :tiphat:

[Bumble]

btw - season has been a success, only 7 points off the leaders despite being cheated out of several results by biased officials (they tried to cheat us out of the cup today too), CL spot secured, FA Cup, outstanding season from Ramsey despite the injury, great CB pairing, did it all without Walcott and Ox (our pace) for much of the season. The only reason there are negatives is because we performed a lot better than expected and then the increased expectations were used as a yardstick. But we're certainly heading in the right direction. More improvement next season and we are right in the hunt.
you still going on about the City game!!! they could have scored 20 that day if they tried.

anyway 7 points off and a cup win is a massive improvement on last season but the CL was still a huge disappointment. It was quite fitting that Koscielny and Ramsey got the key goals yesterday as they have been our best players this season. Szczesny should have played yesterday as Fabianski is off in the summer and he is 2nd choice keeper so who cares. Sagna is different he is first choice right back.

If we don't make the right signings though I think next season wont be better than this season. Chelsea are already signing a new striker, City just need a proper defender alongside Kompany, Liverpool need to get more depth but with CL money could happen and United just need about 10 players to become competitive but will have a new manager.

We are already losing Sagna, Fab and probably Vermalaen and all 3 will need to be replaced before we can even improve the squad.

[Letters]

anyway 7 points off and a cup win is a massive improvement on last season but the CL was still a huge disappointment.
Was it? We got through a difficult group which some didn't expect us to progress from, we were holding our own against Bayern till the (ridiculous, frankly) sending off. Once that had happened the die was cast. I'm not suggesting we'd have beaten them over 2 legs otherwise but we were playing pretty well and it would have been close IMO. We hardly dropped out of an easy group or went out to some pub team.

[sibreen]

I have three criticisms:
1. We didn't seem to create so many chances or score so many goals as years gone by (not sure if that's actually true or not, but that's what it felt like).
2. Sanogo as the only striker to bring off the bench in an FA Cup final is pretty crap. Imagine if that had been Higuain or Suarez.
3. There's not enough pace in the side.

Having said that, I feel in all other respects we made progress: more points, more consistency, and, of course, the cup!
Very happy all in all, and I think we can make progress next season, too.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

We played 56 games this season, and I think I'd say that Four of those games were what I'd call disgraceful performances. Four is four too many, but it doesnt really equate with the car wreck of a season that we've had accordingly to the short term ist sensationalist reactionary print and tv media.
Good season? Yes Great Season? Given the broad context of how long we've gone without a trophy I'd argue yes

Disappointing season? In many respects also yes....we are left wondering what might have been. And things need to improve, and not just in squad strengthening our match preparation mentally for big games is clearly non existant. And we can get in as much top talent as we want, if we don't sort this out we are going to miss out on bigger things.

We have improved in many respects, but this has to be only the beginning.

[Özim]

btw - season has been a success, only 7 points off the leaders despite being cheated out of several results by biased officials (they tried to cheat us out of the cup today too), CL spot secured, FA Cup, outstanding season from Ramsey despite the injury, great CB pairing, did it all without Walcott and Ox (our pace) for much of the season. The only reason there are negatives is because we performed a lot better than expected and then the increased expectations were used as a yardstick. But we're certainly heading in the right direction. More improvement next season and we are right in the hunt.

True, if we hadn't been cheated so many times we'd have won the title by at least 36 points, everyone hates us and wants to cheat us out of trophies :(

[Özim]

The FA Cup made it a good season in my eyes, as after 9 years of waiting finally another trophy to add to our collection.

Was the season good enough, debatable after 9 years of building, I'd have expected us to be much better than we are if you'd asked me 9 years ago.

[RomfordPele]

Hmm, despite all the euphoria I'm still a bit ambivalent about this season.

Plus points:

- won a major trophy and won it well in adversity (no matter what the bitter hacks say)
- were very competitive in the league for two-thirds of the season
- showed a flash of ambition in the transfer market (better late than never)
- have a spine of very good players, particularly with characters like mertesacker, chesney, jack and the ox, who genuinely look like they bleed arsenal
- incredible transformation of Ramsey as genuine world class talent who again seems genuinely committed to the club judging by yesterday

Minus points:

- about to lose one of our most effective senior players to a premier league rival (again)
- were extremely weak for a third of the season (and played poorly for about half the season in all honesty)
- continue to bottle the big games and big occasions (v nearly did the same yesterday)
- continue to be let down by tactical blunders and miscalculations by AW - his longstanding flaws of stubbornness and refusal to adapt exploited mercilessly by top teams
- reverted to low risk, status quo approach to transfer market in Jan when we should have pushed on (same to come this summer...?)
- top of the injury league table for pretty much the entire season (again) - yet no sign of anyone resolving a clear problem either with medical staff or training methods, or both.
- still a lot of deadwood needs clearing out, chief one being Arteta - not good enough for absolutely pivotal position.
- scant signs of any outstanding youngsters coming through the ranks (gnabry aside possibly)
- the enigma that is mesut ozil (who has an awful lot to prove next season)

I think on balance wenger has probably done enough to be given the benefit of the doubt. But am I confident we'll add a few more trophies to the cabinet in the years ahead? Well, no, not really.

[Niall_Quinn]

True, if we hadn't been cheated so many times we'd have won the title by at least 36 points, everyone hates us and wants to cheat us out of trophies :(

You watched the game yesterday and STILL claim there's no cheating? What will it take before you admit to what's right in front of your eyes?

[hobson's choice]

This is a very hard question to answer, we won a trophy, but there wasn't much improvement, we've stayed the same.

Our midfield play has been spotty and inconsistent, Ramsey for all his goal scoring, his overall play is still spotty. Wilshere had moments, not very consistent, Arteta and Flams, meh. Defense improved a bit, particularly on set pieces and long balls. But the attack really regressed, not too much fluidity or creativity, every game featured large spells were they couldn't muster a single attempt on goal.

Still a lot of work to do if this club has any thoughts off challenging the big boys in Europe and in England.

[fakeyank]

This is a very hard question to answer, we won a trophy, but there wasn't much improvement, we've stayed the same.

Our midfield play has been spotty and inconsistent, Ramsey for all his goal scoring, his overall play is still spotty. Wilshere had moments, not very consistent, Arteta and Flams, meh. Defense improved a bit, particularly on set pieces and long balls. But the attack really regressed, not too much fluidity or creativity, every game featured large spells were they couldn't muster a single attempt on goal.

Still a lot of work to do if this club has any thoughts off challenging the big boys in Europe and in England.

:gp:

Very well put. I am hoping against hope that the taste of success transforms the lads and the manager. Wenger IMO has to take the initiative this window to strengthen the squad and also set proper tactics. My biggest gripe against Wenger has been his lack of tactics and utilization of players. I really hope that we see a huge difference in what he has done for 8 years and what we see next season.

[Letters]

This is a very hard question to answer, we won a trophy, but there wasn't much improvement, we've stayed the same.
Don't agree with that at all. We've got the most points for about 4 years for one thing. The last 2 years we just about scraped into the top 4, this year we were actually in the title race with 7 games to go. Other years we've been accused of 'bottling it' in high pressure situations but we've had plenty of high pressure games this year and while we've not won all of them we battled through well against Wigan when we were on a terrible run (yes, we should be beating Wigan but so should City and they lost to them twice in a year in the Cup) and if being 2-0 down after 7 minutes in a Cup Final isn't high pressure then I don't know what is.

There is work to do, clearly, but I can't agree there has been no improvement.

[selassie]

If you would have offered me top 4 and the FA Cup at the start of the season I would have bitten your hand off. It's been a good season in the fact that we have ended our 9 year wait for a trophy but we still have plenty of work to do to progress as a football team.

Our league form in 2014 has been very disappointing as has our lack of desire to sufficiently improve the squad.

There has been progress but not enough for me to be content with the way we are heading. This summer is really crucial and Wenger has to get it right. We have the basis of a very good team but we desperately need additions in Attack and Central Midfield, we also need to replace Fabianski and Sagna if we want to push on and build on this success. Essentially we are looking at signing 3 starting players for the first XI, that's quite a big ask for Wenger but if we want to push on then he is going to have to do it IMHO.

We have absolutely no excuses not to strengthen the squad, the money is there so let's go out and spend it and bridge the gap between top 4 and potential winners.

[The Wengerbabies]

Not really.

Who cares about 4th.

The FA Cup was handed to us and even then we made hard work of it.

[Letters]

Mate, if you're going to WUM then at least put some effort into it.

[The Wengerbabies]

I'm not WUMming.

Don't get me wrong I'm pleased we finally won something but lets be honest we fell way short in the league once again, disappointed in the CL and had an easy route to the FA Cup yet we only just managed to win it.

Fourth means absolutely nothing to me. We've been there every year for the last 9 years (with a couple of thirds) and for what? We have never pushed on from their to mount a sustained challenge for the league and not made an impact in the CL. Its boring. Pointless.

inb4 your face is boring/pointless.

[PGFC]

Yes.

[Letters]

had an easy route to the FA Cup
:lol:

[GP]

It's been a good season. We've made good progress in the league, though due to injuries we weren't able to sustain it.

And of course we won the cup, beating some big sides along the way.

Need to really kick on from here, though.

[Ollie the Optimist]

Not really.

Who cares about 4th.

The FA Cup was handed to us and even then we made hard work of it.


are you taking the piss?

we had to beat spurs (NLD are always tough games), coventry was a good draw, then we had to beat liverpool who 8 days earlier had just thumped us 5-1, everton was another tough draw. we deserved this cup because we fucking won it. now enjoy it or piss off :good:

[Marc Overmars]

We were fortunate with the home draws but that's it, we still had to face some good sides who gave us a run for our money. As for Wigan and Hull, yes we were heavy favourites but that doesn't mean they were going to turn up and roll over for us, they were always going to raise their game for the occasion. Even Sheffield United ran Hull close in the semi, these things can happen. It was a lot of pressure to deal with knowing we simply had to win it.

[Ollie the Optimist]

our win percentage in 2013/14 season was 66.07%, our best ever. thats a good sign of progress, add in the trophy too and i think Arsene deserves time to really go ahead and finish this job with the league title

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Still a long way to go, Saturday showed that our preparation mentally for big games is lacking, we just weren't in the game the first ten minutes, and when you look at Chelsea and Liverpool Games we hàve gone behind early there and ended up getting decimated where we are pushing up to get back into the game.
I think that's the big improvement AW needs to make next season. As well of course strengthening us in terms of pace and fire power.
I'm not entirely comfortable with him been given three year contract, it seems to be totally about sentiment to make sure his reign goes over twenty years. My preference would be for a two year contract that can be extended by another year or so depending on results.
I also hope it's his last contract because it will show that the board are purely offering him contract extensions because they'd have no idea what to do if he leaves.