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Letters I think you're the only one who thinks we performed well against West Ham, we didn't seriously test Adrian until we were 2-0 down
Palace we were good going forward but shocking when out of position
Liverpool the first half we were utter drivel, second half Liverpool didn't press home their advantage and we controlled the game
Newcastle we did miss Ozil, but also we were reluctant to run with the ball to draw fouls and open up space.
our performances would improve with a leader in midfield pushing the team forward & a clinical finisher who has movement upfront. But Wenger chooses to stick with players who will not improve our performances. He doesn't know who to play upfront, how can that be when he's had so long to address it.
I didn't think we were that good against West Ham, but we weren't that bad either. I've been travelling a lot over the last 2 weeks and missed the other games so can't really comment but 2 wins and a draw is decent enough so while it's not the stellar start we'd have hoped for, we're holding our own so far.Quote:
Originally Posted by Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie
People are so negative on here these days I suspect even if we had won all 4 games some would be saying we'll only collapse at the business end of the season (with some justification, I suppose, but last season in particular gives me more hope we can stand up and be counted when it matters).
Monk IN
Wenger OUT
We're not suddenly a poor team but we're not looking like contenders either. That's the point. What our rivals do isn't important because the struggles they're having now I suspect will be ironed out over the course of the season. With us, we've had problems for years with teams that defend deep and also we've got another important player out injured. It's not looking good for our title hopes and we need to sharpen up quickly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
Based on what? Are you looking at the title or 4th place?Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
I'm looking at the games in Manchester, particularly the Utd quarter final which is the exact sort of game we've fallen apart in. And the final was a very comfortable win - it should be against Villa but we nearly made a hash of the previous year final against weak opposition. We showed we can win under pressure. You win the title in the last 10 games, not the first 10. What we can't do this year is start so poorly we're out of it before we get going. So far, despite some patchy performances, our results have been fine, good enough to keep us in touch and right now that's the most important thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Power_n_Glory
That's the cup run. What about the league? You say you don't win the title in the first 10 games but you were pretty vocal about our slow start costing us and we're off to a slow start. If you look at our performances you can see we're not in the best of shape and it's not good looking at big games against Utd and City. What about the loses to teams like Swansea, Stoke, Spurs and Southampton? Drawing against Leicester City and Hull? Besides not being able to beat Utd or Chelsea in the league last year, we only took 1 point from both games against Spurs and 0 points from both games against Swansea. We still make a hash of things against smaller teams and it's the park the bus teams we just can't seem to break down.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
I think that's a very good post.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
It comes as no surprise that the last time we won our opening two games in a premier league season was the last time we finished in the top two. Moreover, the last time we started as Man City did was in the Invincible season.
Start as you mean to go on. While a four to six game winning streak isn't beyond the realms of expectation for this side, I dread to think how far off the top we'll be when we get a run like that together.
I'm not convinced it matters what competition it's in. Pressure is pressure, and the City game was in the league.Quote:
Originally Posted by Power_n_Glory
And last year when we got going we got as many points as Chelsea, not over a short run but over 26 games in the league
And we had that run of 9 wins in a row. After our start though we'd made it impossible to compete. Are we off to a slow start this year? City are sweeping all before them thus far but of the other teams who you may considers contenders our start is the same or better than all of them. You can cherry pick bad results from last year, I can cherry pick good ones. End of the day all we have to do this year, for now, is stay in touch. Last year we sorted ourselves out but it was too late. This year the performances may have been poor but the results have been good enough to keep us in contention. I agree we need to pick up but if Chelsea are contenders after their bad start then we surely are - as much as anyone can be considered a contender or not after 4 games.
Would you consider us contenders had we won all 4 games or would you just think we'll mess it up anyway?
If we're there or thereabouts with 10 games to go then we have a chance.
You have blind spots, don't you? The chavs have a bollocks of a bloke in charge, but he's a top manager. We have a bollocks of a manager who is a top bloke. Hence, yes, the chavs will be challenging and no, we won't. For confirmation please see previous nine seasons.Quote:
I agree we need to pick up but if Chelsea are contenders after their bad start then we surely are
You know full well that the previous 9 seasons are increasingly less relevant the further you go back.
By that logic we can't have won the Cup for the last 2 years because of the previous 7 seasons.
The new level of signings have made a difference, we were winning games last year which we wouldn't have won in previous seasons and while I wish we'd done more in the summer we should be good enough to compete.
Edit: I agree there's little evidence of that so far in terms of performances but you could say the same for Chelsea and we know they'll be up there come May.
Of course it matters. The opening day was a pressure game and we lost. What other teams do doesn't matter. The focus is on us and whether we've actually learned anything from the past few seasons and it's looking like we haven't.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
If we'd have won convincingly won the 4 open games and I'd seen something in the side I haven't seen before then I'd be convinced. Think back to the 2013/14 season where we had that discussion on our title chances and I was convinced we had a shot. We only needed to sign a striker. The squad looked more organised and we had a boost in confidence with that Ozil signing. This year, there isn't anything to go on. We have injuries already, shaky defensive displays, disjointed midfield play and no goals. Besides that, Wenger still doesn't know how to utilize his squad, makes odd subs, we still have no answers tactically for a well organised defensive team we've already got injuries to key players. It all sounds very doom and gloom but there isn't anything on offer to make me think we'll have a different season. A long way to go but it's not as if I haven't been watching the pattern and trends for the past decade or so.
Last season we picked up a paltry 14 points from the teams in the top 8. That's a total of 14 from 42.
Talking about beating City and Utd sounds great in isolation but set against a wider context of our performances against the better teams in the league, immediately above and below us, and it looks less impressive. There is an argument that you can win the league and still perform poorly in the top 4 mini-league but I'm sure that doesn't extend to almost half the league too.
The new signings haven't made a difference, because Wenger doesn't know how to use them. Stick Ozil and Alexis in any other club and it's an instant improvement - here they just get drowned in Wenger's tappy sewageball. How many more seasons are you going to bang on about progress and improvements when such things simply don't exist? So what if we had the odd decent game here or there, you'd expect at least that wouldn't you, considering the money sloshing around the place and the facilities and the operation as a whole. What, 10 decent performances a year tops? Where you can come away and say we really played some decent stuff there (regardless of the result). And 50 lumps of shit for the rest of the time, the players jogging around playing pretty triangles and running into brick walls. 1 day for Wenger to bring in a couple of players that can work with the likes of Ozil and Alexis to overcome the ongoing and extreme deficiencies of our manager.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
Do you know what will make things better?
Crying about it.
Rubbish. We've had seasons where we've beaten Chelsea and City. Beat the breaks off Chelsea 5-3 in that season. Seasons where we've beaten Milan and Bayern and it's gone down as some landmark as a testament of our 'growth and belief'. This is before our new signings. It's not about who we beat.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
What was the unedited version?Quote:
Originally Posted by Douglas Reynholm
:blink: What?!Quote:
Originally Posted by Power_n_Glory
The basic argument boils down to "we can't win the league because Wenger is a bumbling incompetent ™".
If you believe that then why bother watching? One of the great things about sport is its unpredictability. Go and see a concert or show and you're pretty much guaranteed to have a good time, with football...FY may be there and thus ensure a limp home defeat and you may have an awful afternoon - and to cap it all you'll have had to meet FY before the game :ilt: (love you really, FY :hug: - no homo). One of the things which had made football rubbish is the ever spiralling money and the inequality in its distribution which has made football predictable. That is a bad thing in any sport. If you look at the league tables in the 60s and 70s you'll see a lot of different sides winning the league and a side may win the league one year and finish 8th the next. Unless Moyes takes over the reigning champions that is pretty much impossible now and only one of a few teams can realistically win it, and they're the same teams every year. All that said, we are one of those few teams IMO. Wenger has his flaws but he's not incompetent - no-one outside the Arsenal fanbase believes that he is.
It's not unreasonable to think that Wenger can't win us the league but stop trying to dress the argument up as "we can't win it because or our bad performances so far" or because we haven't won every game like City have, that argument doesn't wash because if we're out of it already then so are Utd and Chelsea. If we stay in the hunt and are there or thereabouts with 10 games left then we have a chance IMO. The performances have been poor so far but we know they're capable of much better, right now it's all about results.
Our trophy cabinet begs to differ.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
Oh by the way, this is utter balls. No game at this stage is a pressure game. An FA Cup quarter final is a pressure game, a game against...well, anyone really in the last 10 games when you're in the title race is a pressure game. The first game of the season? Not really. And if that was a pressure game then surely the Palace game was even more pressured - lose the first 2 and you're arguably out of it already - and we won that one.Quote:
Originally Posted by Power_n_Glory
The performances have been shoddy so far but we know we're capable of better and while we're pubbing results and staying in the hunt that's good enough right now.
It was a game to make a statement and Wenger. It's not the pressure of the FA Cup or back to wall type of pressure put it's the first impression/audition type pressure where you fly or flee.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
Argue it until your blue in the face but the aim for us was to start well and we didn't. The players and manager set a target for a strong start and we're not looking strong at all.Quote:
Arsenal face two London derbies in August - against West Ham and Crystal Palace - as well as testing games against Liverpool and Newcastle before the end of the month.
He said: "We're ready for a fight and we're motivated to start well. One of our targets is to start strong.
"We have the needed ingredients to succeed but we have a tricky start with two London derbies."
Everyone wants to start well, only City have.
Yes and we're 5 points behind them. It doesn't matter what our rivals do in this case. If you're going to churn out stats about our run last season where we matched Chelsea 'stride for stride', then why can't we do it when it counts? Why do we look so miserable in all departments when our aim was to get off to a good start. It's a message I was trying to get through to you last season. We need to match teams stride for stride when it counts.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
Why are Chelsea contenders if we aren't? They're below us.
What do you mean, when it matters? It always matters but really you win the title in the last 10 games, not the first 10.
What we can't do is let anyone get too far ahead of us like we did last year. 5 points at this stage is nothing.
If we'd lost the first 4 games I'd be worried, so long as we're pubbing results and staying in touch that's fine for now.
Obviously I'd be happier if we'd won all 4 games convincingly but that wouldn't make us champions elect any more than our results and performances so far make us alsorans.
Of course there was pressure. Wenger, the players, our fans and even pundits have been saying that we need to start well to have any chance of winning the league after what happened last season. We flopped as usual. It's all good though, because we'll put together a 6 game win streak at some point to secure 4th.
I must have missed it when we won the league last season :sarcy:Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
We flopped :lol:
Yeah, but Chelsea have a great chance.
We just need to do the double over Citeh and the league is ours...that's how it works right? :unsure: #5ptsofftheleadafter4games
You weren't saying that last season because we had a good run towards the end of the season but the title was out of sight by then. Moving goal posts as usual.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
Again, I don't care what Chelsea are doing. They're title winners and it's not like they've gone a decade without winning the Prem.
I wasn't saying the opposite last season either so how have I moved the goalposts? We were never in the title race so while the run was very good we needed Chelsea to slip up massively to get us back in the race and they never did.
Not caring what Chelsea are doing is ridiculous. They and City are the 2 sides who finished above us last year so they are the teams we have to finish above this year.
You are the one moving the goalposts even within the same posts. We have no chance because of our stuttering start. Chelsea do have a chance though despite being below us.
As I said above, your argument is basically we can't win it because of Wenger so stop pretending our results have any bearing on it.
I think we need to beat ALL the teams on points to win the title, so long ago I might have got that wrong. :unsure:Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
You are doing the dressing up mate. Nobody said that so you've helpfully put the words in their mouths. Just about everyone has explained the chav thing to you, but you can't or won't hear it. Your opening salvo about people complaining is another example of the way you shift your arguments to suit the moment, as noted above by PnG. If the results are no good then the performances show progress, if the performances stink then the results are what count. But the elephant you can't shove out of the room is the last decade where our performance levels have dropped and the "great" football we play has become nothing but a media myth, and the results have amounted to a pair of cup wins late in the day. Not that cup wins are insignificant, but what has it taken to obtain them? Measure the input against the output and any fool can see that Wenger has tragically underperformed. Not because he hasn't won a title, not because he hasn't won the CL, but because he hasn't come close. The excuses for this guy are all washed away. You want to talk about the performance level? Well he doesn't deliver performances, he delivers tippy, tappy, slow, congested bullshit. You want to talk about results? Well he doesn't deliver any in the big competitions. What else do you want to measure him by? Financial returns? Share price? The 4th place trophy? Fine, he's done well in that respect, and there's the issue. He;s done superbly well for the board, but what has he done for us lately? Like in the last 10 years? Ruined our football, sucked the entertainment out of our play and left us a laughing stock when the chips have been down. This is the truth - look at the record. He's been living on past glories for way too long, cemented in place by a board that loves the cash he generates and the fans that live in the hope of next season, next season, next season finally being the one. Ain't happening. How do we know? Well did you see the first 4 games this season? That's how we know.Quote:
It's not unreasonable to think that Wenger can't win us the league but stop trying to dress the argument up as "we can't win it because or our bad performances so far" or because we haven't won every game like City have, that argument doesn't wash because if we're out of it already then so are Utd and Chelsea. If we stay in the hunt and are there or thereabouts with 10 games left then we have a chance IMO. The performances have been poor so far but we know they're capable of much better, right now it's all about results.
:lol: We do, but beating most of the other teams is a given. Utd are the only other credible contenders IMO after their splurge in the summer and they're looking awlful right now too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Injury Time
Uhhhh....so the title isn't decided in the last 10 games, right?Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
No, Letters. Winning the league means you have to be above everyone not just Chelsea and City. :doh: I'm not going to take solace in the fact that we're above Chelsea when they currently reside in 13th place. Their bad start doesn't excuse our bad start. We set out to do things differently this season.
Please show me where I say we have 'no chance of winning the league'? If you read my posts you'd see I said we need to sharpen up quickly. We need to find our best starting 11, approach games with some sort of tactical nous, keep our players fit and avoid all the crap that's stopped us from winning it over the past decade. So far we don't look like title contenders when the aim was to come out the blocks flying and showing our intent. Don't start making up an argument and read. The performances so far haven't been good enough and we need to find our form and momentum early.
No. No it isn't :lol: And you know it isn't. You accuse me of changing my argument (which isn't true, and I think you know that) but I at least believe my argument, I don't think you believe yours for a minute.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
Our results so far don't show anything. And four convincing wins wouldn't show anything either. If it did then City are champions, Chelsea have no chance, let's all give up and go home and try again next year. You've been watching football long enough to know that over a long season things change as clubs have purple patches or poor runs.
We lost it last year in the first 12 games, we got it together after that but it was too late. This year we've got off to an indifferent start but so have the rest of the potential contenders, bar City. If we end up after 12 games 15 points behind as we did last year then yes, it's all over, Wenger Out, etc, etc. But it's 4 games in and we're in touch so stop all the hysteria.
Exactly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
It is, but you have to be in the race. Last year we weren't. I've said over and over you can't win the title in the first 10 games but you can lose it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Power_n_Glory
Last year, we did. This year, I don't know yet but after 4 games we're doing OK, results wise.
Wow. You could be a pundit with that kind of insight.Quote:
No, Letters. Winning the league means you have to be above everyone not just Chelsea and City.
Yes, obviously. But are you worried about Leicester being above us? Will they be there come May?
City and Chelsea are the sides who finished above us last year, they're the teams we should be most concerned about.
OK, if that's your position then I agree. But meanwhile we need to pub results and stay in touch.Quote:
Please show me where I say we have 'no chance of winning the league'? If you read my posts you'd see I said we need to sharpen up quickly.
Your whole argument about whether we could challenge before the season started was based around the fact we matched them stride for stride last season (Chelsea) and just started badly, now we've done it again you're making excuses as to it not being that important and that's it's only once you get to 10 games that you'll find out whether we can challenge, that sounds like moving the goalposts to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
We've shown time and time again we can't maintain a run for the entire season and that when it really matters we collapse, yes we can go on a run when we're 6th and in with no chance of the title but there's no expectations then.
We've started poorly and to me as I suspected are nowehere near good enough to be title contenders and Wenger once again has failed in the summer transfer window so far, with Wenger in charge we're always waiting for things to change when in reality they never do.
We haven't done it again.Quote:
Originally Posted by Özim
It's 4 games in and only City have started significantly better. We need to stay in touch, clearly, but unless we fall too far behind it's nothing like last season.
Well no, I've been talking about losing it in the first 10 games. This year it's only 4 games in so we're not comparing like for like.Quote:
that sounds like moving the goalposts to me
If, after 10 games, we're miles behind the team at the top then yes, it's like last season. 4 games in and performances have been poor, results have been OKish.