Originally Posted by
Niall_Quinn
The high tech, tippy-tappy thing may also have been a consequence of the (failed) youth policy the club (Wenger) adopted as an alternative to buying experience when the funds were tight. Younger players aren't as physical. So we've attempting to bring on a bunch of relatively cheap (but still overpaid) youngsters designed to keep the ball away from the opposition and pass them to death, but it didn't work. It's too easy for the brutal teams in the PL to compensate for their lack of footballing ability by kicking their opponents into orbit, part and parcel of the game over here. I wonder how Barca, even at their best, would have coped week-in, week-out in this league, especially if they had been tagged with a weakling, "don't like it up 'em", reputation that the refs were happy to go along with?
Now we're caught in the worst of all places, we can afford to bring the experience in but the whole philosophy is geared towards a system that's probably incompatible with the league we play in. It will take time to change it and realistically it will take another manager to do it. Wenger's not going to start from scratch at the tail end of his career, somebody else will have to do that. If only a face saving solution could be found that saw Wenger kicked upstairs and Bould brought in on a temporary basis to instil the basics of what it takes to win in the PL. Alexis, Ramsey, Jack, Welbeck, Ox, they may not be the biggest but they are tough enough for the league.
To think Wenger used to be slaughtered for his teams picking up too many red cards. Those were the days. More red cards is what we need, resulting from nastier bastards on the pitch. Like all the other teams in this league. Our players wouldn't get injured as much either, if the opposition knew they'd get a swift kick in the bollocks for trying to rough us up.