We could have beaten Barca if Mad Jens had not had been sent off :(Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
We were so good then. That really was a team we will only see once or twice in a lifetime.
Now look at us :crying:
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We could have beaten Barca if Mad Jens had not had been sent off :(Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
We were so good then. That really was a team we will only see once or twice in a lifetime.
Now look at us :crying:
And maybe if Henry had scored when one on one with the keeper to put us 2-0 up.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chippy
if the Saudis had bought Arsenal would we have been happy with that?
Fuck no.
Hell yes!! :jumpnana:Quote:
Originally Posted by Bumble
AgreedQuote:
Originally Posted by GP
This :good:Quote:
Originally Posted by GP
Why not? I don't think there's any bottom to this barrel. So what if it's the same as the 30's Arsenal team being bought by Adolf Hitler? He had the cash, he had the power. Means a better manager and a stream of high earning mercenaries queuing up to kiss the badge. What more could a football fan ever want?Quote:
Originally Posted by Bumble
Yep!Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
If the Champions League trophy came to the Emirates via a Saudi owner, none of you would give a fuck :lol:
True. But only because I couldn't give a fuck if the trophy came or not. I'd always be against criminals washing themselves in the history of English football.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chippy
Not for me. Even if you could mentally distance yourself from the moral side of it, I just find the billionaire- / state-backed ownership model utterly boring.
For me, the best season we’ve seen in the last 15 years was the year Leicester won it, and that wasn’t because everyone was super-brilliant and packed full of the world’s best players slugging it out - it was actually because everyone was a little bit shit and a little bit shambolic that year, and that blew it wide open.
Part of the fun of football is the chaos and unpredictability of it - how you manage the unexpected and whether you can find clever workarounds to problems. With these owners, there is never any unpredictability or unexpected - their pockets and the squads they buy are so deep that they never have to worry about problems. Technically it’s perfect on the pitch… but there’s no excitement there. Not really. The excitement all comes from there being genuine risk and jeopardy involved (which is why nobody wants the comfort of the closed shop that is the European Super League) - when there’s never anything to worry about and you’re always comfortably in control the game just loses something.
The big question for me right now (and this is something that’s been discussed on a few podcasts this week) is how do the rest of us define success going forward?
And also how and where do the rest of us look for happiness and draw satisfaction from following our clubs?
Because in both cases it’s unlikely to come from seriously challenging for titles. Maybe once a decade one of the also-rans might put together a squad that might be able to put up a fight for a couple of years, but mostly it’s going to be City, Chelsea and now Newcastle, year after year after year.
Success is going to be defined as luring billionaires into the game who are prepared to splash cash and inflate everything into orbit. The natural progression of this is all 20 PL clubs having to "compete" in the only way they realistically can, by welcoming in deep pockets with no questions asked (or allowed). Eventually everyone will be back on a level playing field but the football won't have improved, the entertainment won't be raised, all that will happen is everything will become wildly expensive and exclusive. No place for "legacy fans", as the very people who built the game through their unconditional support through thick and thin are now called.Quote:
Originally Posted by I am invisible
We'll be back to where we were before the first billionaire scumbag pitched up and tipped the table, in terms of competition. The difference being highly dubious individuals will be viewed as respectable, the fantasy gap between the players and the fans will have widened by galactic proportions and the corrupt individuals who run the whole show will be putting bigger envelopes in their back pockets.
On the bright side, we do have a World Cup in Qatar to look forward to.
The game's not dead yet, its last gasp will come when the last PL club excitedly announces its new billionaire war criminal owner.
It’ll be a World Cup in Qatar every 2 years soon! Good times.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
A lot of Arsenal fans wouldn’t - that’s proven by the fact that Chelsea and City fans strut around crowing about their “achievements”. Personally, it would bother me for the same reason that a lot of things about the modern game bother me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chippy
Speak for yourself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chippy
My interest in what this sport has become has resulted in me just about checking out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chippy
If it happens at Arsenal, that would be the final nail in the coffin.
Says a lot (all of it bad) about the PL when the Kroenke family appear virtuous compared to the opposition.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xhaka Can’t
That’s a good point. I hate our ownership and their lack of interest in the Club (it isn’t really a Club anymore). But they are marginally preferable to a bunch of crooks robbing petro-states.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
What type of evil cunt must you be to fail a PL fit and proper test?
Maybe one day all the clubs will be owned by evil billionaires and the advantages that confers will be cancelled out.
All it'll do is just mean all the players will be getting a million pounds a week and none of them will be able to take a corner.
Wenger is on the case. I used to respect that man. Not any more.Quote:
Originally Posted by I am invisible
The danger that the Premier League now has is the cost of competition will become so high, and the chances of even making the top 4 so low, that the other 16 clubs won’t even bother. Their business models will become nothing more than 1) get wages under control, 2) sell to Newcastle / City / Chelsea / United for 9 figures wherever possible, and 3) don’t get relegated.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
I would actually laugh my arse off if the rest of the clubs started saving all their best players for the games they can realistically win and started playing 11 kids and reserves against these clubs! Sure, they’ll win every game 20-0 and will get 100+ points every season, but let’s see how quickly everyone loses interest when every game they play is an u23-level kick around…
Not when there's the risk of relegation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
Super League :bow:
what competition how many times since the PL has existed has there been a real title race between more than 2 clubs. So perhaps 4 mega rich clubs will make it more competitive at the top.Quote:
Originally Posted by I am invisible
Most other clubs objective is to not get relegated and maybe a cup. Europa league isnt really much incentive as it just messes up the league season by playing Thursday/Sunday/Thursday anyway.
i am actually glad another club is about to come to the trough. i am just glad they bought newcastle and not spurs.
The point is that it used to at least feel possible for anyone to mount a challenge if they got their shit together (at least in the first 15 years of the Prem). The fact that very few clubs actually did is neither here nor there - the opportunity at least always felt like it was there for the taking at the start of each season if you had a good plan and hired the right people.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bumble
Right now, I’m struggling to even picture a realistic scenario where we compete for the league again. Maybe a cup or a 4th place finish every 5-10 years, but that’s it. Doesn’t feel worth the time or effort required. The prospect of watching City, Chelsea and Newcastle buy the title off each other each year really doesn’t interest me, and I’m not sure I want to legitimise it by plastering on a fake smile and going through the motions for 10 months a year, every year, just so those 3 can pretend that they achieved something.
It's a bit like being glad there is a new strain of cancer that will undermine the grasp the current strains of cancer have on the victim.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bumble
I would like it to collapse and all the so-called players (who can't play for fuck compared to the likes of Henry and Bergkamp) be kicked out on the streets to starve and decompose. That's the very least I'd like to see for this pretend sport. As for the owners. Send them to me and I'll make sure they suffer. Then I'll sleep like a baby.
Football used to belong to us. It was ours. It was the shitty, lower class bullshit we could call our own. Even that was too much for the cunts, so they took it too. NOT ONE THING WILL BE LEFT FOR YOU.
You will own NOTHING, and be HAPPY.
And say we somehow became so evil we could realistically compete. And we cheated our way to the top, like the chavs or the gypos or (to a lesser degree but let's not pretend) the scousers? Yay! We are the most evil club in the land. Let's have an open top parade. Let's tease spuds who are wannabe evil fucks but they just aren't evil enough. We are more evil than them. Suck it up, less evil losers! We are the most evil of all! Yay! The very definition of winning.Quote:
Originally Posted by I am invisible
Liverpool showed you can compete with City and Chelsea in an isolated season. Does football really take up much of my time, not really. i dont go to games anymore. if its on tv i will watch it but i dont necessarily watch or pay attention to the full 90 minutes.Quote:
Originally Posted by I am invisible
i think it has got to the stage where you enjoy an isolated game like beating chelsea spurs instead of a real expectation to finish top 4.
it's that kind of thing that keeps most football fans going - we're privileged to even think about being in the top 6 tbhQuote:
Originally Posted by Bumble
personally my expectations are so low i just want Xhaka to get binned and i'd be happy...
I agree that this is a logical end point of what we are seeing in the EPL. If every club is owned by a billionaire there will be a certain levelling up. I think the problem is that even the billionaires will not be equal. If you are a Petro State buying good PR then any business case goes out of the window, and spending is essentially limitless. But our owner is a billionaire who is more interested in asset building than success, so some billionaires will not be prepared to match those prepared to spend the most. The result? If you are state owned or Abramovich then you will be top tier, because you don't care about the bottom line at all, and everyone else will be an also ran. Similar in a way to where we are now. The question in the long term is whether non top tier clubs will retain support - because part of being a supporter is the dream of success. With a growing divide, the league becomes totally uncompetetive and I can see a long slow death for the game as we know it now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
Funny how in the most capitalist country on earth the draft top sport tries to ensure that competition is kept alive, but in the EPL we are now beyond this. I see two long term results of this kind of unrestricted investment - (1) the top tier sides break off into a new incarnation of the ESL which at least preserves the illusion of competition (even though its a closed shop), or (2) we enter into a kind of WWF situation where football is regarded as pure entertainmet rather than true sporting endeavor.
This is a very pertinent point. I have been saying for some time now that as Gooners we need to re-set our measure of what being a supporter means. If we can get into a mindset of enjoying individual games/wins, and the development of our team without this having to mean winning the league, then I think we will all be happier. it's not as though there is much alternative, is there? And this may in turn change our attitude towards our current manager/project.Quote:
Originally Posted by I am invisible
I doubt the competition will be on the pitch in the future. TV hype and hyperbole can cover that, the way they do now as they explain how average to boring games are barnstormers and how players who can barely kick a ball are wifeworld beaters.Quote:
Originally Posted by IBK
No, the competition will be in marketing departments and targeted at TV audiences and global (non-domestic) "fan" bases. Gambling, merchandise sales, world tours and other gimmicks designed to bring the brand to the newly cherished audiences. I suspect the domestic fans will be entirely priced out as more corporate and hospitality facilities replace actual seats in the stadiums. Or maybe they'll bring back standing and cram the plebs into a corner section with strict instructions to chuck them out of anyone uses bad language.
Nothing in the modern game gives any hope of any outcome that would restore the game to the original purpose. If anything, tribalism, genuine competition and winners and losers are all seen as undesirable these days. Even Wenger is out there pushing for a World Cup every 15 minutes. Why? Because it's the pinnacle of hype, the prize goose. And for people with money (and nothing else) on their minds, more (for them) is always better and enough is never enough.
Mind you, the fans aren't blameless. They cheered all this on. Well, most of them.
It does kind of feel like we're already dead, doesn't it? Like those scenes in movies where someone gets shot, but they stagger on for a few moments before it registers. Feels like ur choices are either to find a sovereign wealth fund of our own to buy us titles, but in the process drive another nail in the coffin of the game we grew up following; or we make our peace with being irrelevant and never expecting to seriously challenge.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
It's always possible - it's just going to become harder and harder, and less and less likely. With Chelsea and City there the rest of us are realistically competing for 2 spots at the top most years. When Newcastle get established it will be 1 spot. And if United ever decide to do more than just be a marketing exercise then that will be 0 spots.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bumble
What Liverpool have done is great, but it's largely because they haven't put a foot wrong in the transfer market in the last 3-5 years - will they be able to keep doing that forever? They're gonna have a rebuild coming up soon, and they're going to have to do it without Michael Edwards.
I'm also wondering how easy / hard it will be trying to recruit from abroad and get visas for players going forward? Any time the rest of us start to get anywhere will one of those super-rich clubs just Bayern Munich us and rip the heart out of the competition?
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Originally Posted by Bumble
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Originally Posted by Mac76
:good:Quote:
Originally Posted by IBK
I know everyone's thoroughly sick of the word by now, but my prediction is football will become more and more about following 'the process' for the rest of us. New success will be defined by who can best engage their fans and 'bring them along for the ride', so to speak. Who can explain their vision and then document it the best. Who has the most likeable personalities. Who has the best supporting network of bloggers, podcasters and content creators.
I reckon it will appeal to the next generation of fans anyway - most kids these days seem to follow players over clubs, and are more interested in social content than actual games.
Wenger :bow:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQg8JUMk9AM
I think this film will be brilliant. Enough time has passed that pretty much all arsenal fans can truly appreciate how good the early 2000’s were. Doubtful we will ever see the likes again.
The clip of Fergie in the trailer saying that the unbeaten season will never be topped. I think thats probably true.
It seems that both Saliba and Guendouzi are making big impressions whilst on loan.
Arteta better make sure he brings them back! Remember Gnabry :doh:
https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/foo...g-b962368.html
Think Saliba is going to happen think Arteta has already said he's in his plan for next season (if he's still manager) Guendouzi if he improves his attitude we would a fools not to have him back.
Guendouzi is gone. The Gnabry situation isn't comparable.