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I predicted the outcome precisely. Before the match. I predicted the season, precisely, before a ball was kicked. Because I'm a genius?Quote:
Originally Posted by selassie
No.
It's because I have eyes and a memory and a brain functional enough to recognise patterns. This doesn't require much intelligence, but it does require some.
What would you do if you were in charge? Or more to the point where do you expect us to be?Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
It's not even about recognising patterns this season either, i am disappointed how the season ended but i didn't expect us to even be in the top 6 at the start of the season, honestly thought we would finish halfway down the table again. It doesn't make our league position any better, but the reality of the situation is that we are not good enough, our squad is weak and we all knew that before a ball was kicked. It came to bite us in the bum at the business end of the season.
The club probably do see it as success, because they only care about the financials.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
I'd suggest the fans - most fans at least - see it as progress. This season has been a mixed bag. But we ended the season with more wins than anyone outside the top 2 who are miles above us or anyone else. We got a number of points which would have seen us top 4 in the last 2 seasons. It's not the final destination any fan wants to see but is it a step towards it? I'd say so. It's important to remember that just 2 seasons ago we ended up in 8th with 56 points. We won 14 games out of 38 in 2019/20. 14! We actually lost more games this season than then but we didn't draw many and managed to grind out a lot of wins. That's progress. Is it enough? Well, opinions will vary from person to person. For me it's enough to give Arteta one more season. Others may disagree and that's fine. But the only reasonable basis for comparison is last season and whether we've pushed on from that. My opinion about that has changed a lot this season but looking at the final outcome I think so. Yes, some of the old failings are still there. Yes, there's clearly work to be done. If Arteta doesn't do the right things in the summer and/or there isn't clear progress next season then fine, get rid. But this season we're disappointed we missed out on Top 4. Last season we weren't even in the conversation. It's a step in the right direction, not where we want to end up.
You also said you'd hope for a title challenge 2 seasons after a certain previous manager left.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
Your foresight is not as 20:20 as you like to give yourself credit for.
What's that got to do with anything? You mention that a lot, as if it's some great gotcha moment. I didn't predict a title challenge. I demanded it. As a club that claims to be among the elite and which fleeces its fans beyond the dreams of all other clubs, why shouldn't the return be commensurate with the cost? And now we see all the fans lamenting losing the 4th Place Trophy. Wenger, the man who had lost all touch with reality by the end, taught so many fans how to lose and how to lose well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
Next year you'll be here, making the same excuses as if this year never existed. There's another prediction for you, not that it requires 20/20 or any vision at all really.
I haven't mentioned it for ages, but I do sometimes remind you of it when you act like you have such amazing predictive powers. You don't.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
You thought it possible - there were other posts where you said we'd be mixing it with pretty much anyone but...I think it was City pretty much immediately.Quote:
I didn't predict a title challenge. I demanded it.
I must admit I didn't think we'd be quite so awful post Wenger, but a title challenge that quickly seemed unlikely to me. The gap was too big. It still is.
Because the footballing landscape has changed. We are now trying to compete with sides who have the infinite money cheat on.Quote:
As a club that claims to be among the elite and which fleeces its fans beyond the dreams of all other clubs, why shouldn't the return be commensurate with the cost?
Where have pretty much all the titles ended up since we last won it? Leicester are the only outlier who can be said to have won it.
Where were Chelsea before Abramovic took over? Where were City before their sugar daddy came on board?
One thing I don't understand is why these clubs aren't called out by the pundits. Why are they circle-jerking over City winning another title?
We all know how they've done it, why is it lauded as an achievement? I used to bang on about it being like buying a degree off the internet to the point where I was widely and quite rightly mocked for it. But the comparison stands up, it's pretty much exactly like that. There have always been haves and have nots of course but the playing field was never that uneven. Sky started to change that, it was exacerbated by the expansion of the CL and then Chelsea put it all on steroids when they started swooping in and buying players before other clubs could. Doubling what anyone else would pay and then sticking the player on the bench. Because they could.
The return should be higher, given how much money the club fleeces the fans for. But given where we were a couple of years back a bit of realism is needed.
Wenger certainly made too much of the Top 4 Trophy but like it or not the CL is football's top table and it is important to be sat at it, even if you are just making up the numbers
Excuses for what? Not being champions? I don't need to make an "excuse" for that, we have no chance of being champions next year.Quote:
Next year you'll be here, making the same excuses as if this year never existed.
There is no manager in the world who could make that happen, the gap between us and the top 2 is simply too big to bridge in one season - probably not even with the infinite money cheat, which we don't have. What I've been expecting is progress. I believe I've seen that over the last couple of years, if I see that continuing then I'll be reasonably content. If I see us stagnating or going backwards then I'll be hopping back on the Arteta Out bandwagon quicker than you can say "Wenger Out".
I am also falling out of love with this once great club. I should have been a bit happy with the result today, but it was like reading some other clubs result. This club is so far removed from the team I first watched in 1972. Yes, I am bloody old!Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
The tradition has completely gone and will never return, a bit like football in general.
A problem with most of the fans here on this forum and maybe in general is that they are like mothers defending their child. They will hear NO criticism. Dreaming and conjuring up excuses for why the child has performed poorly compared to its mates. This club is a professional sporting franchise. It should strive to be the absolute best in its field. Instead we coddled failures and rationalise it. Sure we can defend ourselves from other fans but when we cannot even be sincere amongst ourselves, all ambition is lost
We blame luck instead of bad planning. Circumstances instead of strategy. We blame the other kid for having unnatural attributes for our offspring coming up short.
This is exactly the autopsy we gave last season. Next season will be better....Yeah sure it will.
Arsenal ain't your kid. You are not its Mom.
Find the posts and show me. I said a club of this stature with such a history should ALWAYS be challenging - not winning by divine right, but fighting. We also had MUCH, MUCH better players back then. The players we have now are abject shit. They can't kick a ball straight, bar the two obvious exceptions.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
Three wins against nobody clubs and a decent showing in a game that's so important to the fans and it was the Top 3 Trophy on the line. Actual progress. Instead, 3 losses, an embarrassing humiliation and then a no-show against dogshit Newcastle. How many excuses does it take to explain such a remarkable collapse? Again. On the back of how many collapses over the decade?
When will it dawn on you?
Excuses, excuses, excuses. And not just about football.
Marketing and commercial scumbags know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Football has become a gravy train for all involved. The clubs, the players and the countless hangers=on. And above all, the appalling bodies that govern the sport. Surely there's no greedier and corrupt organisation on the planet than FIFA. We are looking forward to their shitty World Cup in Qatar of all places. 4,000 dead so 4,000 can milk more money than the billions watching earn combined. The whole thing has gone from the dream of a kid who gets to play for his local team to the most disgusting and undignified display of self indulgence imaginable. All propped up by fans who confuse the past with the present. Or fans who are into gambling. Or fans too young to know there was anything better.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chippy
1972? Leeds were something back then. That's who I used to watch out for before I was committed enough to back Arsenal, around 77, because I figured supporting a team 200 miles away was not what support was all about. So it was Arsenal, West Ham or Southend. Everyone supported West Ham where I grew up. So Arsenal it was, given Southend was no choice at all. The Brian Talbot made me cry in the cup final. When it was a real cup final. It's not just old codgers talking about Charlton's comb-over. It genuinely was a much better experience back then.