Which all rather begs the question if Wenger goes and the board doesn't will that not just make things worse still?
I don't think many managers in the world could have kept us in the top 4 the way Wenger has, spending so little.
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I don't think there are many managers in the world that we believe could have kept us in the top four. then again, no-one saw fergie tearing up the history books in the uk as he did; nobody saw wenger winning a thing coming from japan - so the people with the real insight into these things know far better than us sitting on the sidelines.
and the top four is great etc etc but what now? we all know what's going to happen, so that leaves 'financial' reasons as the most important thing to remain in the competition. only since the explosion of information on the internet has the money ever mattered to fans and it's hardly anything to get excited about it.
The beauty of the internet is that we get to see people impose their own realities on the factual landscape. The club insists that there is money for Wenger to spend and the published accounts back this up. Yet the Wenger apologists insist that actually there IS no money and poor old Wenger is forced by circumstances beyond his control to buy poor players like Giroud and Gervinho. Financial paucity made him keep a shambolic keeper like Almunia his 1st keeper for 3 seasons and lavish generous wages on his orphans like JD and Squid who would almost certainly shrivel up and die if released before time or made to live on wages commensurate to their lack of talent. Not to mention him squelching along on wages of 7.5m pa. There is money there always has been money. It has in the main been wasted or squandered. We have a 50% higher overall budget than the Spuds and all we can show for it is 1 measly point (2 seasons in a row). Yet the mantra from many is that Wenger is a miracle worker and no one else in world football could have pulled of his gargantuan feat of keeping us ahead of the spuds.
Bottom line is that City have themselves now a proven manager and Chelsea are led by a zealot who knows only how to grind out results. United are a conundrum but i really cant see Ferguson while still alive and sentient allowing ManU slip miserably out of the top 3. There will surely be an intervention if by Xmas things are going awry.
I am sure the results at the end of next season will put them way above our old duffer, who came miserably bottom of the mini league amongst the top 5 clubs. Our only hope IMO is that the spuds continue to choke and the Pool malaise endures. Doing the same thing over and over again will eventually see us come a cropper.
PS Fabregas and Van persie did not leave because we HAD to sell them. They left because they did not want to stick with the program and lap up the BS from Wenger that success was just around the corner. Players know what works because they interact with other players that have had success. Coming back to the Emirates to be told that Ramsey, Eboue, Walcott, JD, Giroud etc are key ingredients to a winning team is only going to raise the hackles and a smirk. The Winners want out and the losers will stay. Simple.
Spurs did not choke last season.
We Won 16, drew 4 and lost 3 after that home defeat against Swansea. Most of the play we saw was shite, but us finishing 4th had nothing at all to do with Spurs choking.
Consider that on your 'factual landscape' whatever the hell that is.
Tbf, they did somewhat choke last season - this after they beat us and went 7 points clear of us. Lots of Gooners, even on here, thought that was the end of our virtual trophy hopes.
They did choke to an extent, we have such a psychological advantage over them, they know they can be 7 points or 13 ahead and we still will beat them, it's the result of 18 years of finishing below us, however the main reason we beat the, is because of the superb run we put together. I think we took the most points of all the teams in the final ten games. 26 out of 30 I think. They didn't choke as much as we beat them through sheer will power to do it and winning the games