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Unless you are competing for the league title in your respective country, like any cup competiton, the CL is never a marker for how good a team you are. Look at Real Madrid. No one calls that a ‘great’ team but they turned up when it mattered for years in the CL. I mean, Spurs lost 13 times in the league - a third of their total games.
Similar to the way going on a domestic cup run doesn’t show how good a team you are in the league. We’ve certainly seen that enough in recent years
Pretty much how I see it.
We wouldn't have been a great side had we won the Europa League, we're not a terrible side because we lost the final. The league is a better measure of where we are and where they are.
We're a tier below the top 2 who are miles above us and everyone else. After those two we are as good as anyone and better than most.
People act like our squad is a complete disaster and that Spurs have it all sorted out. Not really. As you say they lost 13 league games. 13! :lol:
They pretty much won all the rest which is why they were in the top 4 at the end, but there's hardly this gulf in class between the sides. It boiled down to a point in the end.
Our ineptitude stopped us finishing top 4, theirs opened the door which meant we should have.
Tighten up in defence and we've got a good chance of top 4 next year. That's been our problem for years. Wenger could never sort it out. Can Emery?
Not with these players, going by last season. He had the whole season to work with them and I was hoping to see some improvement by the end, but frankly I didn't. Our defense, our away form... none of it improved. Even our home form went to shit at the end. Jury's still out on Emery.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
It will be interesting to see what happens in the transfer window. Now that he's seen the squad he should have a good idea of what it needs.
Our away form did improve last season - it's probably the main reason why we were back in the chase for the top four, as our home form remained in great shape as per the previous season. The main problem is the away form didn't improve enough.Quote:
Originally Posted by Penguin
Although, as we were only two points off third - which is really our limit at the moment - I still think it's hard to see how much we can improve given the resources available to us. The points needed to secure top four have remained pretty much the same for the past 3/4 seasons and we aren't far off that.
The next challenge is to get back into the top four, but with third our limit, I'm not sure how different our performance levels will be - especially when you consider many of us thought third was there for the taking this season.
It's strange to think how a single win in either the league or the Europa could've put a completely different spin on things for many.
The real shame for me is that the players all peaked at slightly different times and moved on before they all got to play together at their best. No one had the patience to see it through in the end, but I guess you can’t blame them really - it was quite a leap of faith we were asking them to take in the project, and players only have finite careers. Only natural that the best of them would want to make the most of their best years...Quote:
Originally Posted by Marc Overmars
Real Madrid not a great team after winning the CL 3 times in a row :lol: I've heard it all now, they were widely accepted to be the greatest club side due to their achievements, no other club has ever defended it their achievement was amazing and the quality of players they had unreal.
CL generally tells you who the best sides are, the top teams usually get through to the latter stages more often than not, Liverpool have been in the last 2 finals and are a fantastic team.
Our side is average (even Keown called them average recently), look at the personnel, who is actually a decent player, we have 4-5 decent players, other than that they're trash they really are, the defence is awful, the midfield is average, it's only up front and in goal we're decent. Even in a season where clubs have been handing a top 4 place to us on a plate we ended up 5th and frankly overall from the way we've played this season, average sums us up, Watford who got hammered 6-0 by City in the final outplayed us with 10 men for goodness sake. Chelsea wiped the floor with us in the Europa League final and they're hardly anything special, if they'd won 6 or 7-1 it wouldn't have been unjust, they outclassed us in the 2nd half.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
I agree with most on here, this team needs to be dsmantled and we need to start again, the longer we keep this team together the longer we'll be seeing the team collapse like a house of cards. You're not going to like this but it's widely accepted that Wenger assembled a very average group players here and left the new manager with very little to work with, granted he didn't do a great job of that either, but he certainly has been helped by the rubbish left behind for him.
Compared to who?Quote:
Originally Posted by Özim
Compared to the top 2, no. We are far below their level.
Compared to the sides who finished 3rd-6th? Yes, I guess so.
Compared to the PL as a whole? No, clearly we are significantly way above the average.
You really need to stop using that word or, if you’re going to, define your context. The word alone is meaningless.
Do you regard Spurs as average? The media sucked their cocks all season, they finished above us by a point.
There are only 2 sides who are better than us by any meaningful measure in the country. Hardly average.
You can cherry pick results from last season if you like, so can I.
We beat Chelsea, Spurs and Man Utd at home. We were unlucky to only draw away at Spurs and Utd.
See? It’s easy to cherry pick.
End of the day the top 2 finished miles above us and everyone else.
There’s virtually nothing between us and the next tier of teams.
Average in a general sense, I don't think we were impressive last season, if you analyse the season we had the 1st part where we started with 2 defeats and then went on a bit of a run, but in truth during that run we laboured to a number of wins and couldn't come in at half time leading for a long time, our away form was frankly embarassing as well. Then you have the collapse at the end which was let's face it a disaster, we couldn't buy a win and even struggled against 10 man Watford and were lucky to come out with the win as their 10 men dominated the game. Ending up 5th was more due to how poor the league was than how good we were, so yes the teams below us are also very average.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
In the cups we obviously were knocked out, but even in the Europa we were lacklustre for large parts, there were some awful results along the way it has to be said.
Chelsea had a poor season by their standards and Spurs finished the season badly, despite that we still couldn't beat them to 4th place, they literally handed it to us on a late and we turned it down. Spurs finished poorly I grant you, but player for player they're superior to us, this despite not buying a player since 2018! I think the reason the press like Spurs is because they play good football and the manager has done a decent job with them given he's spent no money, they're far from the finished article of course but with a bit of money they are far closer than we are, they need a bit of tinkering wherease we almost need a new team.
Any club on a given day can put in a decent performance and win, but what matters is where you are at the end of the season, how you've done in the major competitions and how you perform when there is pressure, not one off results. Spurs got into the CL and into the CL final, sure it's a cup competition but how many times did we try to reach the latter stages and get hammered? You haveto give them credit for beating, in form Dortmund, Man City (no mean feat) and then the peoples' favourites Ajax.
Anyway I'm not too interested in other clubs, I'm more interested in Arsenal and when I look at the players, aside from Leno, Aubameyang, Lacazette and Torreira (I'll give Guendouzi a bye as well as he's shown potential and is young, you could also argue Bellerin, but he's still unproven IMO, started well enough thn go inured but was awful the season before so the jury is out on him), what decent players do we actually have who you wouldn't say were not average last season?
There isn't really a general sense of the word. Average can only be understood in a context.Quote:
Originally Posted by Özim
No, we weren't that impressive last season. Only 2 clubs in the country were consistently impressive.
After that we were as good as anyone and better than most. We were a 1 point off Spurs and 2 off Chelsea.
You think a team who finished 1 point above us are better player for player?!
They lost 13 league games! They were in the top 4 because, inexplicably, they won most of the rest but it's so bizarre you think that a team who finished on 71 points need a "bit of tinkering" and a team who finished on 70 need a "new team". How are they "far closer" than we are? They finished 27 points off the top, we finished 28. We're both miles away from the level of the top 2 and as you say we really should have finished above them.
What matters is where you are at the end of the season, you say. Well, Spurs finished with 0 trophies to our 0, and they finished 1 place higher in the table and 1 point better off. Their CL run was admittedly impressive but let's not forget they (I think) lost their first 3 group games. They only got through the group because of a late equaliser against Barca and I think they had to rely on the other result going their way too. They do (as much as it hurts to admit it) deserve some credit for their CL run but they rode their luck a bit at times and end of the day they came away potless again.
You say Chelsea had a poor season by "their standards". They actually got 2 points more than the previous season. Since they won the title a couple of years ago they've not been great. I'm not sure what "their standards" are, the season before they won the title they finished with 50 points in 10th.
Our main problem, as always, is defence. We scored more than anyone other than the top two but we conceded 51 goals, significantly more than any of the top 4 (it was more than City and Liverpool combined, embarrassingly!). And there's a mentality issue as well. Those are the biggest issues I see. I think they're perfectly sort-outable without going nuclear and starting again. We don't have the budget to anyway. A couple of additions and we could be better. Not at Liverpool or City's level but we are miles away. Let's be realistic and start by targetting the top 4. We were close this year (we weren't last year). The points total to get into the top 4 was admittedly a little lower this year but not by that much, it's certainly doable next year. There was some improvement from the previous season. We got 7 more points, we got to the final of the Europa instead of the semi-final. But winning it wouldn't have made it a great season any more than losing it makes it a terrible one.
I'm giving Emery a C for this season. Maybe a C+ as we got to the Europa final. He has work to do and there will be pressure on him next year if we don't improve. We're not going to make the leap from where we are to Champions in one season. I question with our owner whether we can anyway. But we don't need to rebuild the entire team to improve. Let's get into the top 4 first, then we can try and push on.