You asking Letters to see something he has already decided is not there?
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You asking Letters to see something he has already decided is not there?
Letters will defend AW even if he loses all 38 games in a PL season. There will be some stat or match(es) that will give him hope that next season will be better! :lol:
No more Wenget dick riding, and prolonging this old man's damaging hard on. Time he left ...yeah I said it ...and this time it's personal. Bang Bang ...Don Di Marco!
Well that's the CL gone, chucked in the first leg against the leviathan Monaco.
So that just leaves the PL. If he wins that he can stay. Otherwise out.
Isn't it? :unsure:Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob Loblaw
I'd agree that this isn't a great Utd side, but they've only lost 3 times at home this year - drew with Chelsea, spanked Liverpool, haven't played City yet.
And it was in one of those 'high pressure' games which you (with some justification, tbf) say we always lose.
To then dismiss it when we win does seem like zimtacular goalpost shifting.
We need to start winning these games with some consistency of course, we beat City away which is a good sign and I agree with FY that we need to do Chelsea too.
We've got Liverpool and Chelsea to play so let's see how we do in those two.
Some of the frustrations remain but if we retain the cup and finish 3rd, or even 2nd, it won't have been such a terrible season.
Are celebrating and moaning our tits off the only two options?Quote:
Originally Posted by LDG
The damage was done in the first leg. Over two legs we should have beaten Monaco, clearly. But given the result in the first leg and that stupid, stupid 3rd goal we left ourselves a mountain to climb.
Monaco hadn't conceded a goal in the CL all year at home, they've only conceded 7 at home in 14 league games. I don't know much about them but they seem like the boring boring Arsenal of France.
2-0 out there was a good result on the night but also a frustrating one because if we can do that we can surely beat them at home and so should have progressed.
:yawn:Quote:
Originally Posted by fakeyank
That's like me saying you'll keep criticising Wenger if we won every game all season and won the quadruple.
If I'm defending him at all, it's because we haven't lost that many games and things aren't as calamitous as you keep making out.
We're a point off 2nd place, we're in the Cup semi-final (we're the current holders, by the way) having beaten Utd in the quarter finals, we should get to the final and could well retain the Cup.
IF we can sustain our recent form over the course of a season then we will challenge seriously next year. We have the squad to now, the question is do we have the mentality? A couple of results recently have indicated maybe we're getting better like that, I agree that the Chelsea result will be telling and we have Liverpool to play too.
I tend to agree with Letters here, after the United result there was some jubilation but last night we seem to be angry for a result that happened three weeks ago.
We should have beaten Monaco no question asked and there is a clear pattern of us giving ourselves an impossible task in the first leg, 2012, 2013, 2014 and now 2015.
But Im almost getting the impression that people seem just as annoyed that we failed to overturn the deficit as getting ourselves into that position in the first place.
The first leg was embarrassing and its yet another example of why he isn't the man to take us forward, but frankly I had no issue at all with the performance last night.
Bob Loblaw asked if this result was some sort of achievement.
Letter's response - 'Isn't it?'
:doh:
Two seasons ago, this same result played out against Bayern and we haven't grown any wiser or learned any lessons since. So I don't know how anyone can see it as an achievement. It's Monaco!
We were talking about the Utd game...Quote:
Originally Posted by Power_n_Glory
This is why I'd rather we hadn't won and just gone out on a damp squib. It was a fantastic performance, as good as we'll see from us away from home in Europe.Quote:
Originally Posted by Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie
I didn't expect to win the CL but it's infuriating to exit like this again, especially against a team like Monaco. I just want to see some improvement in this competition we're all too happy to qualify for (because it's a cash cow) but not actually be competitive in.
And at the risk of weighing in he didnt ask whether beating Utd was an achievement he asserted that it wasnt.
I will be honest part of me thought it would have been almost better if we hadnt won than at least there wouldn't be the overriding frustration of how did we manage to lose against such a team (two years against Bayern I was able to look at it as a great stand alone performance).Quote:
Originally Posted by Marc Overmars
But the thing is we were already out before last nights game, even if for no better reason that we frankly don't have the firepower up front to overturn a first leg deficit (which obviously we shouldn't have had). So taking last night as stand alone I can say oh well least we tried.
Which logically makes sense because if you analyse everything in the grand scheme of how we aren't improving under Wenger you'll just make yourself depressed because like it or not he's with us until at least 2017. I say at least because I have a feeling he will be here after that and we are lumbered with him until 2020.
He may have a point. Leicester City have put 5 past United this season.Quote:
Originally Posted by Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie
We played fairly well and 2-0 away from home in Europe is always a good result, no matter who the opponents are. But the pace we played at, and the lack of urgency was ridiculous. Especially after going 2-0 up, we had 17 minutes to score and we only made their keeper make one save. One save :haha:
I probably would have taken a face saving 2-0 win before the match, but the feeling I got after the match was that we could have scored four or five if we applied ourselves. Forget the first leg, we could have done it in this game.Wenger has instilled a mentality into these players that the goals will magically appear if we are patient enough.
A tie is played over two legs, effectively it's like playing a match and being pummeled in the 1st half and then coming back in the 2nd half but ultimately still losing overall, the result last night is entirely irrelevant when you don't win the tie.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
You could have predicted the result though, we've done this so many times now, when the pressure is off we win, but never quite by enough, it's always the same once we're close we just stop playing and often don't even have a shot at goal of note, at 2-0 we should have been throwing the kitchen sink at them, it's not like we couldn't afford to concede 1.
I'm sick of hearing excuses, a loss over two legs is a loss however you put it.
We're probably the worst kind of team to be for kitchen sink jobs. Wengerball is deeply ingrained, so no matter how urgent the situation is we won't stray too far from tippy tappy. Although maybe that's not a bad thing anyway because the crosses we did eventually start loading in were fucking dreadful.
We won the second half against stoke earlier in the season to :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by Özim
You're cherry picking 2nd half results now, anyone can do that for any team.Quote:
Originally Posted by adzzzbatch
To be fair Monaco are expert bus parkers, we were pushing forward for the 3rd but it wasn't enough. It was hardly as though we were creating plenty of clear cut chances till we scored the 2nd goal and then stopped, we didn't have that many clear chances the whole game.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marc Overmars
Forget everything because we will just go round and round on this today, tomorrow, next year and the year after... just a simple yes or no question to you (please do not elaborate): "Do you think Arsene Wenger is the man to get us consistently challenging for the PL title and also make us a major* force in Europe?Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
* When I say major, I mean a team that will be disappointed to get Bayern in a draw, but not scared. A team that will be looked by the European power houses as one of the teams to beat.
Le GroveQuote:
Look, here are the cold hard facts. In 18 attempts, we've failed to creep past the last sixteen a huge 9 times which is 50% of the time (yeah, maths baby!). We've made one final. Appeared in two semi finals. Qualification 18 times is great but never winning it and rarely qualifying past the dross round tells you all you need to know about Arsene and elite level football. He doesn't cut it.
That's not a fair yes or no question. I can't confidently say yes, he is; neither can I say no, he definitely isn't.
What I would say is I think we're close to a side who can do that and I've seen a few signs recently which give me hope that yes, we will under Wenger over the next few years:
We have started to make more major signings, like Ozil and Sanchez.
We have a better squad than we've had for years.
We won a major trophy last season.
We've won a couple of big away games this season, the sorts of games which we traditionally lose or even get hammered in.
One of those away games was in a Cup Quarter Final - again, the exact sort of game in which we've repeatedly failed. So now we're in a semi-final against a team I believe we'll beat. We could yet retain the FA Cup.
Now. I also recognise that we've had plenty of false dawns previously, but some of the above haven't happened for us for a while. If we do win two cups in two years then it won't have been a bad couple of seasons, despite some of the frustrations. I agree with you that the Chelsea game is significant in terms of beating a Mourinho side. If we do that, finish in the top 3 and win the Cup would it have been such an awful season? Would a manager who achieved that really deserve the ridiculous level of abuse you mete out?
As a club, we need to move on from Wenger if only because of his age. I personally don't think there's any big hurry to do that though.
While the billionaires are allowed to run amok I can't see us dominating like we did in the early noughties under any manager, but I do think we're well placed to challege over the next few years. There may be managers out there who would be better placed to do that for us but I don't think there are many.
We have three billionaire "investors" running amok. Difference between ours and the rest is they don't put anything back into the game. Arsenal is a story of structural failure across the board in terms of football. In terms of business and shareholder value we're easily the number one club on the planet, nobody else comes close. That's because this is where all the focus has been placed and this is the prime reason Wenger stays in his job because he delivers year after year. He's the top manager in the world in this respect. This is why nobody questions him, this is why he is allowed to under perform on the pitch because the pitch is not the priority. He never under performs in the primary goal, returning value to shareholders. Why would a shareholder at this club do anything to upset the golden goose?
Even the media plays along with this game - look at what Arsene has done for Arsenal, big new stadium, qualifying for the CL money bonanza every year, self sustaining finances, he must be given more time and more time after that and then more time still. The standard line is it's ridiculous to even question him, an act of disloyalty or ingratitude.
But what does a big new stadium and perpetual qualification for the CL mean for the hard pressed fan who pays world leading ticket prices? It's a convenient high horse we are riding, pointing at the chavs and gypos and laughing off their success because they cheat. Is it them cheating the game or our non-investing investors cheating Arsenal fans though? Yes we have Ozil and Alexis, bought with the fans' and sponsors' cash, not from the pockets of our billionaire club. So let's not say we have world class players because of the board and Wenger. It's not as simple as that.
What it all means is Wenger is going nowhere and is in the luxurious position of being able to write his own terms. Not because he's a top manager. The results tell us he's not that by a long stretch. It's because he's a top accountant who delivers outstanding value to his employers. It's because Arsenal's first priority is profitability. So when we think about other managers who could come in and make a difference we also need to think about what their brief would be. Does the focus remain on profitability? In which case they have their legs chopped out from under them before they start. In such a case Wenger is truly irreplaceable.
It's up to the board. Is it time for us to focus on football yet? After a decade of promises and soaring share values? I don't think so. I don't think they have any regard for the football beyond its utility as a vehicle for profit. That's where our ambition and winning mentality lies, in the balance sheet. Which means we don't have ambition and the winner's mentality on the pitch where it needs to be undiluted. We have a few individual winners who drag us along but it doesn't extend to our manager whose focus is elsewhere. He has said he treats the finances of the club as if they were his own. Why? Why is he even bothered by the finances? What's it to him? Well, it's his job description unlike any other manager in the game.
It's actually 11 times in 17 that we have failed to get to the quarter finalsQuote:
Originally Posted by Power_n_Glory
It's actually 11 times in 17 that we have failed to get to the quarter finalsQuote:
Originally Posted by Power_n_Glory
I can definitely say he isnt and thats why I want him gone. Majority on this board think like me. Unfortunately the people who matter think like you.. :(Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
No, the people who matter do NOT think like me, or you. See NQ's post for how they think.
EDIT: and yes, you can say he definitely isn't, but that doesn't make you right any more than me saying he is would make me right. Neither of us know really. I understand why people don't believe he is, I certainly have doubts myself, but I also see a few signs of hope which I've gone over. I do accept this isn't the first time though.
I do not think the board are ONLY worried about money, though that is their chief motivator (like any business person). But I do think their thinking is closely aligned to yours i.e. they think that AW is possibly our best option to becoming a contender at home and in Europe.
I'd prefer a more ruthless board, not a passive one where someone like Wenger can reign on forever without accountability.
I think they see Wenger as the perfect balance - he makes a profit and keeps us relatively competitive thus meaning the CL money keeps rolling in.
He is accountable, but the board's requirements of him are not the same as the fans. Had we been languishing in mid table I reckon he'd have been long gone.
Ive been Wenger In since as far back as January 11, but with these comments I dont know what to say.
But i'll try....what a self-pitying settling shyster.
Quote:
David Hytner
@DaveHytner
Wednesday 18 March 2015 18.32*GMT Last modified on Wednesday 18 March 2015 19.16*GMT
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Arsčne Wenger was so distraught at the finality of Arsenal’s Champions League exit that he wondered whether it might have been better for the club to have dropped down into the Europa League and remained alive in European competition.
The manager offered the bleak and introspective comments in the wake of the last-16 second leg at Monaco, which Arsenal won 2-0 only to exit on away goals. It was the fifth season in succession that Wenger’s team had exited at this stage and, once again, the closing months of their season will be free of European football.
“Maybe it would be better not to advance from the group phase and play the Europa League than be eliminated right away in the last 16,” Wenger said. “We would have more chances to win a title.”
Wenger went on to say that if a club went “out after the group stages, you have no chances after to play again, like you do in the Europa League”.
If Arsenal had finished third, rather than second, in their Champions League group, they would have entered the Europa League and, possibly, fancied themselves to progress in the competition.
Wenger would never want to finish third instead of second in a Champions League group and here was evidence not only of his post-defeat angst but his habit of seeking a target for the frustration in such circumstances.
In the heat of the moment, he found himself alighting upon an unusual one – the second chance that defeated teams in Champions League groups are afforded. Wenger seemed to suggest that it was an unfair quirk that sides who finish third have the opportunity to prolong their European seasons, while teams like his own are finished when they lose.
http://www.theguardian.com/football/...-europa-league
The deluded one speaks again. What happened the last time we were in the Europa?. Wenger did what he always does, bottles it the moment the whole worlds eyes are on him. He cant win the Europa any more than the CL or the PL. #Specialist in failure.
He's desperate for success in Europe and no matter how many time he tries to play it off as if qualification for the competition is a good record, I suspect he also looks at the flip side of the coin and recognises the failure on each attempt. Sad times.
I feel sorry for him. He needs to really get his act together if he wants the CL title.
While his ability to get his teams into the CL every season is impresive, the fact that he has not yet won it (and hasnt looked like winning it) is a dreadful record and something that probably plays on his mind.Quote:
Originally Posted by Power_n_Glory
We have had better teams then the current one and have faced all sorts of teams in the knockouts from Bayern and Barcelona to Monaco and PSV yet we always fall short.
The side circa 2002-2004 really should have won a CL, it's one of the best club sides I've ever seen.
If he couldn't do it with that team he never will, sadly.
European football tends to be a lot more methodical and unfortunately I don't think he's ever really got to grips with that. The team of the Cesc era is about as strong as we've been in Europe and even they imploded at the crucial moments. Ironically the weakest domestic season we had also provided the strongest in Europe, getting to the final and all those clean sheets en route. Bit of an anomaly though when you look back.
Wayne Bridge :sick:Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
:upset:Quote:
Originally Posted by WMUG
PS: Was in York last weekend, you didn't even come and say hello :sulk:
at home aswell :doh:Quote:
Originally Posted by WMUG