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Understandable and - this is the key point - true. Certainly not admirable.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
It's not an excuse to say that we have failed to win the title because clubs like City have bought up many of the major trophies over the last 2 decades.
That does not mean there have been no failings, of course there have. And it doesn't excuse them.
You could say three, but in reality it was FIVE. Five opportunities to achieve the bare minimum. And they failed. Whatever spin you put on it, there were five fences to jump and they fell at every one. Fucking incredible but certainly not unbelievable, and definitely not unexpected. See my posts BEFORE each game. Too predictable.
There's the reality, minus all excuses, apologies an explanations.
In sport there are winners and losers, else it's not sport.
Anyone care to guess where Arsenal falls, apart from the lightest challenge?
Character is not built by accepting defeat. It is built by standing back up and turning that defeat into victory. There is no other way to progress. All progression requires failure or nothing can be measured. But of you fail every time, then you are not on the path of progression.
Incredible that someone will sit down to start writing epistles to explain why Arsenal cannot compete at the highest level. I mean really WTF!
I looked in the match threads. I saw one before Chelsea where you prophesied a freak win.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
And before Newcastle you said we'd probably get a draw.
You said before the Everton game that our result would depend on the Spurs result, which makes no sense given the games were played at the same time.
(For me we were always going to beat Everton because it was a pretty meaningless game, Norwich are properly awful and were never going to offer the likes of Son and Kane much resistance).
I didn't see anything from you before Man Utd or West Ham - must win games which we did win. Or Southampton and Brighton where we fell flat on our stupid faces. Once again I think you're giving yourselves a bit too much credit as a wise seer. But I only looked in the match threads so maybe I missed something.
They didn't fail every time. There were some must win games - I've highlighted some above - where we did win. We ground out results in games where the previous season we'd have drawn or lost. It's a tiny step forward. Maybe not as big a one as we'd have liked, but it's enough to give Arteta another season, for me. If you disagree then OK, that's where the debate lies. But before the season started you made no prediction about where we would end up, so I don't know by which metric you are assessing the end result.Quote:
All progression requires failure or nothing can be measured. But of you fail every time, then you are not on the path of progression.
I really should have made an excellent joke there about quantum entanglement there.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
Call myself a geek? :doh:
Undercoat and double paint job. Nice. Failure is progress.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
Unless you define a target then you can't assess whether you failed to hit it. There was a thread about season predictions.
You didn't make any other than a sarcastic comment about us making money (which, to be fair, you were correct about - how could anyone have possibly predicted that?).
I did make a prediction. I thought we'd finish 6th. My reasoning was:
The top 2 are miles above us, no chance of finishing above them this season.
I put Chelsea in the same category - I mean, they won the CL. They did finish above us but not by as much as I thought they would.
So that leaves one spot in the Top 4 and I didn't think we would get it ahead of Spurs or Utd. I was right and wrong respectively. Spurs did pretty much what I thought they would. Utd crashed and burned in a way I didn't expect.
But it's 8 points and 3 league positions better than we were last year. It's some progress. And there are signs we look more coherent as a team. It's enough, for me, for now. But it needs to continue.
How about you stick your neck out when we have the season predictions thread for next season, make some specific predictions. Then we'll see what a wise seer you actually are.
How do you define progress? If last season we finished 8th and this season we finished 5th just outside of the top 4 do you define that as progress? Yes I accept that any position outside of 1st is the best of the rest, a loser...but what do you actually expect? For Arsenal to challenge for the title with the current squad they have?Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
If I had the slightest confidence that "progress" would be built upon, followed up by steady improvement and working towards a defined goal that was not the coveted Top 4 Trophy, I could jump aboard the train to nowhere in the hope it would go somewhere. The tiny little bit all the apologists are missing is this team simply cannot compete at the higher level. And NOTHING this season has hinted at that changing next season, or the season after. I'm not saying we are the worst team in a genuinely terrible league filled with shit-kickers. We aren't. We'll likely hover around the also-ran bracket for the next decade or so, or until Kroenke gets bored. Maybe a 4th place here and there, with zero prospect of actually challenging for the trophy that is the whole point of qualification (no, we'll instead pretend qualification itself is the trophy). Maybe a stunning and brave 5th or 6th sprinkled in. Dare I say it? Maybe a 3rd? It all depends on the other teams. In a good year, where everyone else is especially shit, we could stumble into an exciting false dawn. In a bad year, where opponents have their shit together (even barely), well we just saw that as we lost out on our pathetic ambitions to a tragically woeful spuds mob.
If you;re telling me this great rise in the ranks is based on a plan coming together that sees us going from strength to strength, then I have a bridge for sale you might be interested in.
Fair enough, if you don't think we have made any progress this season then that's up to you. We have made progress this season, the performances on the whole have improved, we have won a lot more games, though we still lose far too many for a side who harbours ambitions of being a top team. We are still a work in progress. If i am honest I'm not sold on Arteta and am not totally confident he can build upon this season so we are not totally in disagreement...but we are in a better place than we were this time last season.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
I am going to judge us based on who we recruit this summer and then judge Arteta next season on a results only basis, this is what he should be judged on now, this is his team / squad now and it's taken him up until this season to weed out the garbage and rotten eggs. He just needs to recruit well this summer if he really wants to take this team up another level.
I am not telling you anything, I was merely asking you what you define as progress. I haven't at any point stated a great rise or anything of the sort...I agree with some of what you say, other bits I don't agree with.