So what do we do to improve our prospects of mounting a challenge for the league and other competitions.

Another similarly titled thread as so many others has moved from it's original and interesting topic to the 'lets all whinge at why there is no point doing anything because Man City spend hundreds of millions of pounds' topic.

Even if you think we face an insurmountable object, surely there are things we as a Club can do to improve our lot, unless you think we have become as competitive as possible with no room for improving our:

-management
-coaching
-players
-tactics
-approach to investment
-utilisation of resources
-ownership structure
-competition prioritisation
-salary structure
-star player retention

Or any of another multitude of things we should be considering. Just whinging at other Clubs spending hundreds of millions will get us nowhere and has become drearily repetitive on far too many potentially good topics on this board.

Utilisation of resources is the main one IMO. The frustrating thing for me in the last few years is that Wenger has done brilliantly to keep us 'up there' but really poorly in terms of finishing the job or delivering trophies. Too many times we've had promising sides who didn't need £100m spent on them to push them to the next level, just some sensible investment and instead we've sold our best players and gone backwards or sideways. We're in the same position now. After last summer's car crash we got it together and finished strongly (well, we didn't finish that strongly but we got ourselves in a position where we could stumble over the line). Do the right things in the summer and while I don't think we can win the league next year we can at least push the top 2 harder and maybe challenge more strongly in the cups. The early signing of Podolski gives me some hope that maybe, just maybe, we're going to get it right this year. But we need to sign up RvP too and maybe the signings are as much for him as for the club, to show that we are trying to go somewhere. If Podolski is a replacement for RvP then we might as well all go home.

Look at the Chavs for example, the Old Boys may be on their last legs but you cannot deny there are some incredibly driven players in that squad.

We don't have enough players with the right "minerals" so to speak. The truth is, a lot of our squad has minimal experience of winning trophies and their naiveity always bites them in the arse when it's business time. As I mentioned in the other thread, we need to start getting some hungry players into the squad, ones with a point to prove. Podolski is most certainly a step in the right direction but we need more. Keeping our core players together would also be a good idea this time, Fabregas has stated many times since he joined Barca how hard it was to gain some continuity at Arsenal because everyone kept leaving around him.

Also, it would be nice if we stopped handing out hefty contracts to players who haven't achieved anything with the club - although I guess this is more a football problem than Arsenal specific.

Personally I think it's unrealistic to expect Arsenal under Wenger to challenge for the title again, and I mean really challenge, none of this fall away in March shit.

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Management

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This would be a start, but will never happen. If we get someone in with fresh ideas and a fresh approach could they really improve on 3rd with our board? Better the devil you know seems to be our boards approach. Also how much of a shit do they give about trophies? We finished in the money for 15 years in a row while building a global brand and moving stadiums to increase the revenue even further, Wenger is a god to them without a trophy.

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Coaching

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They can only do so much, i take it from the staffs reaction on the sidelines that the players are not doing what they ought to, i think we have world class coaching and training and development facilities we just dont have the application or tactical prowess to utilise it properly.

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Players

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Only 2 issues for me here,
1.get rid of the overpaid and underachieving shite in the squad and we free up over half a mil a week in wages
2. Sort the injuries out, its beyond a joke.

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tactics

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Useless, absolutely useless. Pay no attention to the opposition, don't adapt and rely on individual talent to get us through, its always been this way.

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utilisation of resources/Ownership structure/Salary structure

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Yes this needs its own thread tbh, where does all the money go?

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Competition prioritisation

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1. The league 2. The champs league. 3 The FA cup. 4. The league cup 5. The morality cup

In that order

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Star player retention

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This isn't just us, this is a symptom of the sugar daddy era as a whole. The influence of agents and advisor's combined with the fucking Bosman rule have pretty much ruined football in that every time a player emerges as stand out from a team without a sugar daddy that player will be taken away by a team with one. Look at Man Citeh's team, they are about 80% full of these kinds of players. The divide between the rich teams (not the big teams) and the rest will just get bigger and bigger and the FA do nothing about it, the FFPR was a joke at best.

Just on the star player retention thing, are there any players who have left who we should really have kept? Seems to me they (or at least their "people") had already decided they were going and they did all they could to engineer a move away.

Ade, Nasri, Clichy, Toure, Fabregas and so on all wanted out so i don't see it as a loss. If they are lured away with money there is nothing we can do but get rid.

Oh yes, ooooh, ooooh, I know, lets just replace the manager...

What another pointless thread.

Are we allowed to have a laugh in this thread or is it only for very serious discussion that, in the grand scheme of things, we have absolutetly no control over what-so-ever?

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Originally Posted by AKBapologist

Oh yes, ooooh, ooooh, I know, lets just replace the manager...

What another pointless thread.

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yes, let’s just cry about the money being spent by the big bad boys and sit on our arse complaining why we never win anything and nothing can ever be done about it

dropping a manager that doesn’t give a shit about cups would at least increase our chances of winning something, or giving them a realistic shot

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Originally Posted by AKBapologist

Oh yes, ooooh, ooooh, I know, lets just replace the manager...

What another pointless thread.

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You didn't read it - the only thing pointless is you and your reply.

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Originally Posted by AKBapologist

Oh yes, ooooh, ooooh, I know, lets just replace the manager...

What another pointless thread.

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Fail.

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Originally Posted by Terry Tuffnutz

yes, let’s just cry about the money being spent by the big bad boys and sit on our arse complaining why we never win anything and nothing can ever be done about it

dropping a manager that doesn’t give a shit about cups would at least increase our chances of winning something, or giving them a realistic shot

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I'm not the one crying about SAF not being our manager.

I wonder what chelsea supporters would say about there manager switch last season.

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Originally Posted by Jeebus

Are we allowed to have a laugh in this thread or is it only for very serious discussion that, in the grand scheme of things, we have absolutetly no control over what-so-ever?

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Of course we have no control, but there is plenty of scope for discussion - there are many areas to look at. For instance I have strong views over our wage structure. People are of the opinion that we are very parsimonious in our approach to the transfer market - and they are right. But I feel that a major part of why we are like that is not because our Manager is afraid to spend money - he is spending shedloads of it - on player contracts. We have an awful wage structure that does little to award brilliance but throws an obscene amount of money at mediocrity without merit.

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Originally Posted by Terry Tuffnutz

yes, let’s just cry about the money being spent by the big bad boys and sit on our arse complaining why we never win anything and nothing can ever be done about it

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Shall we instead sit on our arses complaining about other stuff which we can't do anything about?

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Originally Posted by AKBapologist

I'm not the one crying about SAF not being our manager.

I wonder what chelsea supporters would say about there manager switch last season.

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no you are crying that we can't do anything about the current situation, so why bother doing anything.

wenger could and should have achieved more than he has in the past 7 years instead of just firefighting season on season and the end to this season illustrates the loop will continue.

an amazing man that has done amazing things for our club but now is the time to change him to at least get back to trying to nick a cup or two.

Some people seem to have misunderstood what a message board is for.

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Originally Posted by Letters

Shall we instead sit on our arses complaining about other stuff which we can't do anything about?

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no you are doing a great job here.

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Originally Posted by Terry Tuffnutz

no you are doing a great job here.

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:woohoo:


I feel validated by that.

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Originally Posted by Terry Tuffnutz

no you are crying that we can't do anything about the current situation, so why bother doing anything.

wenger could and should have achieved more than he has in the past 7 years instead of just firefighting season on season and the end to this season illustrates the loop will continue.

an amazing man that has done amazing things for our club but now is the time to change him to at least get back to trying to nick a cup or two.

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Would I say no no Guardiola? Of course not, but I doubt even he would be garenteed to win anything with this squad (which I think is poorer than most want to accept) and in this league.

But no, I'm satisfied with a manager that by all credible estimates, OUTPERFORMED given the starting conditions and the competition we had for this place this league. I'm satisfied with coming a place higher than last season, finishing the season with more points, with the development of many players and with the general atmosphere of the club.

At this point, it just seems like the same old babies whining about the same old shit even though the context has completely changed.

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Originally Posted by GB.

Of course we have no control, but there is plenty of scope for discussion - there are many areas to look at. For instance I have strong views over our wage structure. People are of the opinion that we are very parsimonious in our approach to the transfer market - and they are right. But I feel that a major part of why we are like that is not because our Manager is afraid to spend money - he is spending shedloads of it - on player contracts. We have an awful wage structure that does little to award brilliance but throws an obscene amount of money at mediocrity without merit.

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:lol: relax GB!

I was just being humerous thats all, you seem to have a stick up your arse and really grumpy since you stopped being a mod.

Just chill a little bit ;)

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Originally Posted by Jeebus

I was just being humerous thats all

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Fail

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Originally Posted by AKBapologist

Would I say no no Guardiola? Of course not, but I doubt even he would be garenteed to win anything with this squad (which I think is poorer than most want to accept) and in this league.

But no, I'm satisfied with a manager that by all credible estimates, OUTPERFORMED given the starting conditions and the competition we had for this place this league. I'm satisfied with coming a place higher than last season, finishing the season with more points, with the development of many players and with the general atmosphere of the club.

At this point, it just seems like the same old babies whining about the same old shit even though the context has completely changed.

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Although you could add that the starting point was a position which was created by wenger for not strengthening the team a lot earlier in the summer.

Good thread and reasoning, GB

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management

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Personally, I don't think I have too much of a problem with this. AW fecked up in last Summer's transfer window, and was punished for it. It was the start of the season that killed us, not the end. Our team shape has looked flakey recently because of key injuries, not because we've been playing any different. Its easy to forget that we were all commenting mid-season on how nice it was to see players wanting to play for each other again, and Wenger turned things around in this respect this season. We might have been well off the pace, but 3rd is no mean achievement - and I don't think another manager could have retrieved things like Wenger did.

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-tactics

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We need to play the opposition more, IMO. Otherwise again, I think we are over critical of our team.

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Players/approach to investment

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The club is at acrossroads. We need 15% less caution in investing in proven players that we need. Arteta/Mertesaker is going inthe right direction, but we need at least one other player of the stature of Podolski to come in in DM - and we need to break the bank to keep RVP, if he will stay.

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competition prioritisation

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This is a difficult one. I don't think we threw the cups this year as we have done in previous years. You have to rotate these days. Our issue IMO is not wrong prioritisation, its carrying too many players who are just not good enough - see above.

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-salary structure-

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IMHO the biggest problem at our club is that we take too many 'punts' on players who aren't proven. And reward them to a degree that makes it difficult to move them on when they fail to shine. I think our salary structure needs to be looked at. We need to pay our best players what they are worth, and cut down on our £50/60M dross to fund it.

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star player retention

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As Flavs says, ain't a great deal we can do about this. With RVP, for example, provided that we offer him £150K pw, the club will have done everything it can realistically do to to keep him - automatic CL qualification plus genuinely offering as much as it can afford. He may well choose to go to a club with bigger resources than our, and short of going cap in hand to Usmanov, there is simply nothing we can do about this. Our club has been around for 126 years. If we think of it in these terms, depending on an oligarch/petro dollars is not IMO the way to roll.

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Originally Posted by Flavs

Fail

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So's your face.

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Originally Posted by AKBapologist

Would I say no no Guardiola? Of course not, but I doubt even he would be garenteed to win anything with this squad (which I think is poorer than most want to accept) and in this league.

But no, I'm satisfied with a manager that by all credible estimates, OUTPERFORMED given the starting conditions and the competition we had for this place this league. I'm satisfied with coming a place higher than last season, finishing the season with more points, with the development of many players and with the general atmosphere of the club.

At this point, it just seems like the same old babies whining about the same old shit even though the context has completely changed.

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wenger has taken us as far as he can –things will not change but can only get worse under his leadership and i would gain no satisfaction sitting in the stadium watching his legacy completely fall to pieces.

Im proud the team turned things around and happy we finished third – however the same problems will continue and there is only so long you can firefight without ever putting out the flames before the house burns down and wenger is very close to burning completely.

I had faith in wenger until the poor end to the season. Reflecting back there is no excuse for not winning a cc or fa cup in 7 years and we need a man that can deliver that – of course those managers exist and of course that is what we should be aiming for as a minimum.

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Originally Posted by Jeebus

Although you could add that the starting point was a position which was created by wenger for not strengthening the team a lot earlier in the summer.

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Starting point being the rest of the top 6 massivily out spending us, us losing players to richer clubs whilst failing to get transfer targets because the elected to go to richer clubs?

Wenger can be blamed for a lot, but if all the other shit wasn't as heavily stacked against us, we'd be in a much more healthier state.

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Originally Posted by AKBapologist

Starting point being the rest of the top 6 massivily out spending us, us losing players to richer clubs whilst failing to get transfer targets because the elected to go to richer clubs?

Wenger can be blamed for a lot, but if all the other shit wasn't as heavily stacked against us, we'd be in a much more healthier state.

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wenger has had more than enough talent to win a cup competition over the past 7 years - the failings in that regard have nowt to do with anything off the pitch.

Actually i am going to go on the record here and say that for the first time in a while I DON'T want Wenger sacked. I am more intrigued as to the effect the Bould/Banfield input will have as well as seeing how effective we are ion the transfer market both in and out this summer. I am also intrigued to see which of the kids is allowed to leave and if any make the first team squad next year.

In fact i am quite optimistic about this coming summer so far and am happy to be where we are.

But, should we get to xmas and shit all has changed then i will revert back to my sack Wenger opinion.

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Originally Posted by Terry Tuffnutz

wenger has had more than enough talent to win a cup competition over the past 7 years - the failings in that regard have nowt to do with anything off the pitch.

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Agreed. Things in the transfer market might be out of our control.

Needing to win 1 game at Wembley against an Alex McLeish side wasn't.

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Originally Posted by Marc Overmars

Agreed. Things in the transfer market might be out of our control.

Needing to win 1 game at Wembley against an Alex McLeish side wasn't.

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i would absolutely love for things to change for the better for wenger and we all live happily ever after but it has gone too far now.

he is doing very good as a manager but we can do even better with the groundwork he has laid out for us.

try telling montpellier that it can't be done.

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Originally Posted by Marc Overmars

Agreed. Things in the transfer market might be out of our control.

Needing to win 1 game at Wembley against an Alex McLeish side wasn't.

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Maybe we should get Alex Mcleish as manager because being able to win one game at wembley is the most important thing right? I hear he's available.

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Originally Posted by AKBapologist

Maybe we should get Alex Mcleish as manager? I hear he's available.

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expertly avoided the question. well done.

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Originally Posted by AKBapologist

Maybe we should get Alex Mcleish as manager because being able to win one game at wembley is the most important thing right? I hear he's available.

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What?

I mentioned it because it is the most extreme example of why fans may place more importance and significance on internal matters, things we can control, rather than accepting the idea we'll never compete again because of the current climate.

If we had managed to pick up a cup or 2 during these barren years, I'm sure people would be a lot less jaded and disconcerting towards Wenger and his ability right now, I know I would be.

Thing is are we actually trying to compete in the transfer market with Citeh/PSG/Malaga and so on?

The way i see it is that we have a pool of players we can shop from, teams in lower leagues , teams who aren't in Europe, teams who are in Europe but not with the prestige of us, players no-one has ever heard of, the whole of south america and so on.

The only players we cant buy IMO are the ones already at the rich clubs or at least the first teamer's and the ones who carry media prestige and have the pimpy agents, like Hazard, Ganso, and so on.

Where i think we need to alter our policy, and this seems to be happening, is that we need to balance the amount of young talent/potential with proven first team players. Less Denilson more Arteta if you see what I mean.

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Originally Posted by Terry Tuffnutz

expertly avoided the question. well done.

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What, because AW hasn't won a final since 2005 we should get someone else who has?

Pointless thread.

It's not black and white. Some managers who are good on paper just might not be a good fit for a club, and for every pardew, there are hodgsons, AVB's etc etc. Essencially, changing AW for anyone else is far less likely to bring any cups than just spending a load of money on decent players transfers and wages.

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Originally Posted by Flavs

Thing is are we actually trying to compete in the transfer market with Citeh/PSG/Malaga and so on?

The way i see it is that we have a pool of players we can shop from, teams in lower leagues , teams who aren't in Europe, teams who are in Europe but not with the prestige of us, players no-one has ever heard of, the whole of south america and so on.

The only players we cant buy IMO are the ones already at the rich clubs or at least the first teamer's and the ones who carry media prestige and have the pimpy agents, like Hazard, Ganso, and so on.

Where i think we need to alter our policy, and this seems to be happening, is that we need to balance the amount of young talent/potential with proven first team players. Less Denilson more Arteta if you see what I mean.

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True, the problem is Wenger's got this snobbish attitude towards buying players from the Premier League. That's why we didn't go for Scott Parker. We don't need to be competing in the same market as City, there are always quality available if you look properly. We've signed players like Sagna, Vermaelen, Koscielny who've turned out to be good players, there's no reason why we can't look for more of the same.

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Originally Posted by Joker

True, the problem is Wenger's got this snobbish attitude towards buying players from the Premier League. That's why we didn't go for Scott Parker. We don't need to be competing in the same market as City, there are always quality available if you look properly. We've signed players like Sagna, Vermaelen, Koscielny who've turned out to be good players, there's no reason why we can't look for more of the same.

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To be fair, we didn't sign parker because he's shit.

Wenger got that one spot on.

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Originally Posted by AKBapologist

What, because AW hasn't won a final since 2005 we should get someone else who has?

Pointless thread.

It's not black and white. Some managers who are good on paper just might not be a good fit for a club, and for every pardew, there are hodgsons, AVB's etc etc. Essencially, changing AW for anyone else is far less likely to bring any cups than just spending a load of money on decent players transfers and wages.

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no, because wenger has failed to address the same problems in the team, issues very much under his control and influence that would of had a significant difference in how certain seasons developed.

that is why it is time to go.

you don’t need to spend crazy money to win a cup or two, or even make an effort to win one.

you are right, some managers may look good on paper but who the fuck was wenger before he came here? That is what we all asked. Are you saying no one could ever do the same again ever and that he is completely unique to footballing history? That a club the size of arsenal cannot source a manager capable of maintaining the current static situation and developing it further – which does not mean winning prem after prem but at least getting us to lift a trophy for a while or really challenge for one.

We do need a new manager IMO, Wenger doesn't seem to have the ability to win trophies anymore. There's no point whinging about City's wealth when we fail to beat a side like Birmingham (with vastly inferior resources) in the Carling Cup final. In fact look at our record in semi finals/finals since 2005 and it's been abysmal. Wenger's a safe pair of hands to keep us in the top 4, but he seems to have become so obsessed with treating this club like a business that some of that competitive desire in terms of winning trophies seems to have gone.

That's without mentioning the fact that tactically, I think he's been extremely mediocre for a good while now. This doesn't mean we want Alex McCleish or Steve Kean to take over, but there are clearly many managers out there who have a better understanding of tactics and how to put together a team that complements each other than Wenger. You only need to look at difficulty keeping hold of leads to see that Wenger is clueless when it comes to that side of the game.

You don't have do much to win a cup tbh, thats the entire fucking point. Mostly, luck, ref decisions, injuries have way more greater influence than what ever wenger did or didn't say to koscienly on that fateful day.

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Originally Posted by AKBapologist

You don't have do much to win a cup tbh, thats the entire fucking point. Mostly, luck, ref decisions, injuries have way more greater influence than what ever wenger did or didn't say to koscienly on that fateful day.

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oh fuck off - so it's everyone else's fault but wengers? have a word with yourself.