Originally Posted by
Niall_Quinn
That's absolutely right. Top 4 is a by-product of ambition, not the ambition itself. In competing to be first (AND ONLY FIRST) you can run into teams that are better on the day or better over a season, that's a fact of life. So you might end up second best, or even third. But you were always striving to win.
Arsenal has sold a bag of expensive shit to the fans that makes it admirable to hang around the big table and see if enough scraps can be accumulated to make a meal. That "coveted" 4th place that, somehow, on the back of being 20 or 30 points adrift of the eventual winners, 13 losses later, 40 fewer goals scored, an embarrassing goal difference, makes it progress to limp in 5th having puked in terror at every challenge. It's actually a shameful season piled on a rotten mound of prior average to shameful seasons going back a decade.
I don't think it's all down to Arteta either. When Wenger left we needed somebody to come in and install the basics, particularly with the defence. Arteta has achieved that much at least, but again some fans see this as an achievement rather than repair work and the absolute minimum that should be expected. He's also working with significantly inferior players as the standard of the game in general drops inversely proportional to the obscene cash fire-hosed at kids who are financially successful beyond their wildest dreams before they've achieved anything at all. It must be hard going trying to manage such excess and keep bloated egos hungry for a fight.
Is that what Klopp possesses? The ability to motivate his troops to leave their caviar littered harems and fight for a sporting concept? Is that what Arteta lacks? That Newcastle game was unbelievable. After ten years, to still be walking onto a pitch and lying down like that. Is there a single sign anywhere at the club to suggest it won't happen again and again when the chips are down? I don't think so. There might be a plan and the plan might be winding through its foundation stages. But does that plan involve leaders and fighting spirit and the "impossible" goals Wenger would set when he still had the heart for it?
We've gone from "go the entire season unbeaten" (from which obvious by-products materialise) to "Top 4 Trophy". That's quite the cultural shift. Sure, we know WHY we need to be in the CL - cash. Which is all that competition is about these days (when it used to be about champions facing champions). But what's that got to do with the nature of sport itself and fighting for each and every victory that, cumulatively, results in success? CL is just a business thing, for the owners, for the balance sheet, for the wild player wages and so the fans can spend even more. It's a marketing thing. The real business though is the 38 game season that gets you there, where the goal is a sporting one - the title, first place. Get that right and the marketing takes care of itself.