Who Will Win The League - 2

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Originally Posted by Letters

but the last 10 years have not been the unmitigated failure you make out.

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Depends on what your expectation is really. If a club of Arsenals size cannot even muster a title challenge beyond the month of February for 10 years running, that is an unmitigated failure. The lesser I talk about our CL shenanigans, the better.. that'll just make my point stronger.

Let me ask you this... have you even once in the last decade felt that we are putting our best foot forward in almost all the games throughout the season? Many, if not most of the fans could see a mile away that we are almost handicapped right at the beginning of the season. Adequate cover for players in suspect positions were never developed or purchased. Every season we would go in depending on injury prone players (Diaby, Rosicky), playing players out of position and being tactically childish.

It is a vicious cycle with our manager. 2 years ago when we were leading the table at the top in February, there were a few on here who said that we will fold and die when we hit a tough run of games. Ditto for what happened this season. Where do you think 'these people' on here have their wisdom from? It is because Wenger tries the same nonsense EVERY season and expects different results. At least if he tried something and failed, I'd acknowledge his efforts but he hasnt done it in 10 years and he wont do it if he is here another 10 years.

So yes, he is a failure in terms of what we could have and should have achieved. Has he completely ruined the club? No, I think with whatever nonsense he has pulled off in the last decade, we are still one decent manager away from being a strong team in England (and possibly Europe) and that is the only thing that makes me sleep at night well. However the concern that almost everyone shares on here right now is that if he continues any longer, he is going to actually damage the club.

If that is your expectation then that comes almost entirely from Wenger's era. If you look back historically before that we were never consistent title challengers, the title in '89 was the first since '71 which was the first since 1953. Between '53 and '70 there were no trophies at all.

We won 2 titles in 3 years in the Graham era but that was the exception and didn't look like being repeated any time soon till Wenger came along. Read Fever Pitch if you want to know what being an Arsenal fan was mostly like in the 70s and 80s

Could Wenger have done better in the last 10 years? Of course. But in an era of billionaires buying up titles left right and centre right at a time when the stadium move and financial deals hampered us somewhat, he could have done a lot worse. I firmly believe - although we'll never know of course - had the billionaires not muscled in we'd have won another couple of titles under him. There have been a couple of years when the only teams finishing above us were those fueled by billionaires, clubs who never used to trouble us.

As for the state of the club if he stays much longer, people have been saying for years that he'll take us into mid-table but he never has. He is if nothing else a safe pair of hands. I don't think he's able to push us on any more so I agree he should go, but I don't think he deserves the level of abuse he gets - not just in the heat of the moment. I do agree with some of Zim's comments though that he doesn't help himself by the way he speaks sometimes.

Who Will win the league ? It is still wide open for me . Leicester are big favorite as they are leading the lot with a 5 point cushion . With 8 games remaining and some tough fixtures coming up ,are they going to be unbeaten till the end? Possibly but I doubt it . They will falter somewhere with pressure .
Tottenham, second favorites due to their position . Are they going to resist the pressure of being just 3 points above Arsenal ? They have never been in this position and went all the way to beat Arsenal in the league position. But they look quite good but pression and some tricky fixtures will tell us more about thier title credentials . Arsenal , third favorites after blowing up their chances . Normally the Gunners always finish on a high . But this is about pressure. Are they going to finally show some class? Will they benefit the luck of seeing Leicester and Tottenham droping points without doing so themselves ? Hard to tell but anything is still possible . Good luck might win it for someone. Still wide open.

It is wide open, for Leicester and Spurs at least. Spurs are 6 points above us btw, not 3.

We need a hefty amount of luck to go our way to even have a sniff.

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Originally Posted by Marc Overmars

It is wide open, for Leicester and Spurs at least. Spurs are 6 points above us btw, not 3.

We need a hefty amount of luck to go our way to even have a sniff.

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We have a game in hand though. Although with their goal difference it's as good as 4 points even if we win that.
With our respective run ins though I fancy our chances of finishing above them. No chance of finishing above Leicester unless they get a massive nosebleed

We need points on the board and fast, the game in hand isn't for another month so I'm not bothered about that right now. Given how seldom wins have been since Christmas I'm not sure we can bank on 3 points anyway.

We need to win all our games left to even have a chance.

Can anyone seriously see that happening?

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Originally Posted by Douglas Reynholm

We need to win all our games left to even have a chance.

Can anyone seriously see that happening?

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I can see us winning all our games until we reach a point where one more win would put us back in serious contention. That is the game we will lose.

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Originally Posted by Douglas Reynholm

We need to win all our games left to even have a chance.

Can anyone seriously see that happening?

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Nope! That is why I have bee cheering on Leicester for weeks now. I was even slightly disappointed when we beat them 2-1 because I knew we'd fuck it up! Wenger out.

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Originally Posted by Letters

If that is your expectation then that comes almost entirely from Wenger's era. If you look back historically before that we were never consistent title challengers, the title in '89 was the first since '71 which was the first since 1953. Between '53 and '70 there were no trophies at all.

We won 2 titles in 3 years in the Graham era but that was the exception and didn't look like being repeated any time soon till Wenger came along. Read Fever Pitch if you want to know what being an Arsenal fan was mostly like in the 70s and 80s

Could Wenger have done better in the last 10 years? Of course. But in an era of billionaires buying up titles left right and centre right at a time when the stadium move and financial deals hampered us somewhat, he could have done a lot worse. I firmly believe - although we'll never know of course - had the billionaires not muscled in we'd have won another couple of titles under him. There have been a couple of years when the only teams finishing above us were those fueled by billionaires, clubs who never used to trouble us.

As for the state of the club if he stays much longer, people have been saying for years that he'll take us into mid-table but he never has. He is if nothing else a safe pair of hands. I don't think he's able to push us on any more so I agree he should go, but I don't think he deserves the level of abuse he gets - not just in the heat of the moment. I do agree with some of Zim's comments though that he doesn't help himself by the way he speaks sometimes.

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Why should I keep thinking about the 70s and 80s? I was born in the mid-eighties. I dont need to go back 40 years where we were miserable to think that we are doing well now. You think thats the way SAF was thinking when he was picking up his first couple of titles? My expectation was raised in the first 10 years of Wengers era and I thank him for that... the problem was the dream he and his partners sold us i.e. move to Emirates and we will be challenging the best in the world. Forget best in the world, we are struggling at times to be 4th best!

My expectation is that Arsenal should be consistently challenging for the PL title and the fans actually have more than a glimmer of hope when playing the big teams in Europe. Lets just assume Mourinho or Klopp is our next manager (I despise Mourinho as you know), and we are scheduled to play Bayern or Barca in the CL. Do you think the fans will still go in with the same thought like we do now.. "We will most likely lose, hopefully it wont be a massacre". That is a shame for the manager of a club of Arsenal's resources.

As for going into mid-table, Wenger previously had to fight the likes of Utd, Chelsea, City and either Liverpool or Spurs to battle for the 4th place. Now you know things have changed with Leicester popping many a bubble about Wengers excuses. May be we will finish top 4 again next season and probably the season after but it'll be very soon when we will be kicked off our 'comfort zone'. You only need to look at Nokia to realize how sitting on your arse and not responding to change does to you. I can see Wenger sitting in a press conference and saying "“we didn't do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost". Well, may be not, that man it too thick skinned to accept he has made a mistake. He will probably blame the fans for it.