Or maybe football changes and he couldn’t adaptQuote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
When he first came here he was revolutionary, now he’s as dated as
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Or maybe football changes and he couldn’t adaptQuote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
When he first came here he was revolutionary, now he’s as dated as
That's like a change in the Highway Code compelling you to drive your car off a cliff.Quote:
Originally Posted by Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie
I don't confuse the two, I'm just saying that if people are claiming they "knew" we wouldn't are awarding themselves more credit than they deserve and conveniently forgetting all the things they "knew" which didn't happen.Quote:
Originally Posted by Delusions of Grandeur
All I'll say isQuote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
Thank god George Graham was here before him
Like what? The season isn't over?Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
Letters, you don't even watch the football anymore. That is how bad things are right now. How much worse does it have to get?
That is pretty much exactly how I see it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie
The problem isn't that Wenger has changed, the problem is he hasn't while all around him has.
Credit? Deserve? What?Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
Forget that. I'm pretty sure the gist of this is people don't buy into the excuses you are making for the bloke, regardless of when they first twigged he was a loser.
You just happen to be the last person on here that supports the bloke. I know you'll say you don't and you want him gone and all that. Maybe that's even true this season. But still, so many of your postings have that "but" clause that essentially makes an excuse for every outcome. All too predictable outcomes that can be mapped back over at least a decade and can now be projected into the future with depressing accuracy.
The fanbase has been through many stages of denial, acceptance, grief, anger,.. This is the last stage of the process, where every fan finally accepts the inevitable and the fanbase becomes unified in one goal. Not winning titles, obviously, not winning cups, because it makes no difference, not even winning matches, because we can even predict those too. But getting Kroenke, Wenger and the other leeches out of this place.
That's when it's going to change. When the fanbase has a unified and unbreakable front. And for that to happen, the last lame excuses have to be purged. There's not a single legitimate excuse to be made for any of them. Every excuse has been exposed. Every lie revealed by the passage of time.
All that is left is us, and them.
No more excuses now.
Not really. It’s the difference between a club threatening to be the dominant force in English football and being bang average which is what we are currently.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
Bang Average is totally unacceptable but it’s not cliff edge.
We're in an infinitely better position financially and to compete than we would have been if we were still at Highbury. In that sense we've certainly succeeded in our aims with the stadium - you can't call yourself a big club and not have a modern up-to-date big stadium - why do you think the likes of Spurs & Chelsea are desperate to do their own moves right now? Zim was right about shit regarding that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vieira
What's holding us back is the manager and by extension the current board's lack of ruthless ambition. I was one that was initially prepared to give Wenger a chance when the money rolled in but clearly he hasn't been cut out to handle the rigours of winning the league for a while now, especially in the ultra competitive environment we're currently in. If Zim had specifically moaned about that, then he would have been right - but then again, as alluded to above, it's hardly a bold prediction.
He can't admit we were right because that would undermine all the people that have been banned over the years and all the personal duels he got himself into, which would mean he's ultimately lost. He's trying to save face.Quote:
Originally Posted by Delusions of Grandeur
Isn't that what Wenger thinks himself? He's right, isn't he? With all his musings on football and how the game has changed, and how the big clubs are dopers and how the players are disloyal and so on? Everyone else is wrong.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
But if he hasn't changed, then why is his record signing striker on the bench for the big game? What happened to the attacking philosophy that bagged titles and the plaudits of every football lover?
The evidence screams of him changing in the most horrible and inexplicable manner. Bringing in pixies to do men's work. Tippy tappy instead of the blistering counter attack. Complaining about being roughed up when we used to be the ones doing the roughing up. He's changed in so many ways. And for the worse. And it looks like he did it deliberately.
6-0 6-0 6-0Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
Close the thread. It's done.
Not really. At this current time we don’t have a single person who uses this board who thinks the club can progress whilst Wenger is manager. That’s the prevailing view amongst the majority of the fans, arguments about when Wenger became useless are largely redundant we all came to our own conclusions differently and who was right or wrong about how things would pan out apart from winning internet debates is largely immaterial.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
Unfortunately I think focusing on Kroenke is totally futile. He’s going nowhere. Him or his idiot son will be at the very least the majority shareholder of this club many, many years from now, KSE almost never sells its assets.
The focus has to be how to work around Kroenke and we all agree that starts with Wenger going.
Yep he pretty much did. So my original point stands :coffee:Quote:
Originally Posted by The Emirates Gallactico
How much of a gap do you want before it becomes a cliff? Look at the direction we're heading in comparison to our supposed rivals. And some of those rivals aren't very good.Quote:
Originally Posted by Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie
Unfortunately all the madness over the past 10 years is now part of his legacy too. Infact his tenure is now probably laced with more seasons of frustration and disharmony than satisfaction.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
I don’t want any gap. But the club is stagnated in mediocrity. We are in danger of causing our fan base to commit suicide out of sheer boredom. But going off a cliff is Leeds United stuff.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
We are in danger of being Bang Average and being no more than a top six club for the foreseeable future and that’s incredibly depressing and needs rectifying. But it’s very easily explained by retaining the services of a manager who used to be cutting edge but is now as sharp as a blancmange
Again the only thing the fan base needs to be united behind is Wenger out, everything else is largely trying to rehash old debates
It'll get there :coffee:Quote:
Originally Posted by Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie
As usual most will realise when it's too late :coffee:
Then when it does they'll be showing their frustration but we'll tell you we told you so :coffee:
Then they'll say it was a lucky guess to save face:coffee:
We used to be a top 2 club. We heard all the assurances about being a top 4 club. Now we are to be a top 6 club? And the same people will remain at the helm? Let's see what happens in the summer when our marquee players walk out in a statement that confirms to the whole world we are no longer a top club. If immediate action is taken and the necessary funds are put in place to allow a sane individual to resuscitate the squad, I'll be a little more convinced that the trend can be halted.Quote:
Originally Posted by Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie
If it gets to Leeds United standard, it will take a very long time to get there.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vieira
The reason i think it’s unlikely is that we have an owner who doesn’t give a shit about us showing ambition. But for us to be a viable asset. A Leeds United situation just isn’t conducive to that.
If for instance we were in the same boat as Everton now, Kroenke would probably sack Wenger himself to protect his investment
I don't know how he's gotten away with benching Lacazette. Inexplicable. Bizarre. Incompetent. Showing all the hallmarks of a man who has totally lost the plot. He can't even make a basic team selection any more. He's a dead weight the team have to pull behind them in every match. He's doing tangible harm to the club and its reputation. Fucking hell, what does it take to get the boot around here? I can't decide if it's criminal or comical. Maybe both.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marc Overmars
The guy bitches about every single thing about the club. Heck he was bitching during the Invincibles about Gilberto ........ sorry if I refuse to give him any accolades for being ultimately right about Wenger. :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Vieira
I think it'll get similar to the Hicks and Gillete situation at Liverpool, not in terms of administration as we're a cash cow, but in terms of mess, conflict and disillusionment. Our soul is being ripped before our eyes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie
My feeling is this
We are currently the 6th best club in the country. And that’s totally unacceptable for a club that’s amongst the richest in the world.
The issue over Sanchez and Ozil is irrelevant. With those players and how they are playing with them we are no better than 6th, and when we lose them we will be no worse than 6th. The issue is the money wasted by keeping them for the last year of their contracts which has been a pointless exercise.
I think we are in a tier where we’d have to go some way to be lower than 6th. But we are rock bottom of our tier, having Wenger is like trying to catch up with the other five in a swimming contest with a brick tied to our feet. We will sink to the bottom but our rock bottom is 6th.
And the problem is short of deliberate sabotage it’s pretty much impossible for us to finish lower than that. And that’s why Kroenke won’t get rid, too lazy and the upheaval of change is not what he wants to involve himself in.
Therefore appealing to a powerless board and a doesn’t give a shit owner is futile, the target has to be Wenger. I hated the idea of hounding him out but his dick move in getting a new contract proves he doesn’t deserve any better.
And to an extent, I sympathise with him. The TV money, the saturation coverage, the billionaires, the hyper-inflation of player salaries and transfer fees.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
If he thinks these are all wrong in the game then I agree with him. I think you do too, don't you? Most people are jaded by the way the game has gone.
BUT...that's how football is these days and if he's unwilling or unable to adapt to that and compete then we need to find someone who is.
Hmm. Agree about that, he does seem to have changed in those ways, I'm sure he has his reasons although some of them are inexplicable and the Lacazette thing does rather lend itself to the "he's lost it" school of thought.Quote:
But if he hasn't changed, then why is his record signing striker on the bench for the big game? What happened to the attacking philosophy that bagged titles and the plaudits of every football lover?
The evidence screams of him changing in the most horrible and inexplicable manner. Bringing in pixies to do men's work. Tippy tappy instead of the blistering counter attack. Complaining about being roughed up when we used to be the ones doing the roughing up. He's changed in so many ways. And for the worse. And it looks like he did it deliberately.
So...it seems he's changed in ways he shouldn't have and not changed in ways he should :(
Zim can be overly negative but I agreed with him on Gilberto. It wasn’t 100% Gilberto’s fault but the problems we’re seeing with our midfield today also lead back to that era. Playing Cesc and Gilberto in a 4-4-2 against teams that had 3 man midfields or even 5 was suicidal.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Emirates Gallactico
Wenger has always had a problem adjusting and figuring out a problem. It took way too long for him to figure out that if he wants to play Cesc and Gilberto together, he has to add another midfielder into the mix. Gilberto couldn’t carry the ball forward on his own and would be left isolated if Cesc went too far forward, but if Cesc was too far away from the final third, we create less chances…..
Wenger has the same problem on his hands right now. But even after spending money on numerous types of midfielders and changing formation, he’s still clueless. There came a point in GW where we started looking at Wenger more and not just blaming the players.
Pretty much agree with that although I wouldn't say we're rock bottom of the 6, with some of them I'd say it's pretty close and over a season there won't be much in it. We might finish above Liverpool, we might finish below but I don't think there will be a huge gap at the end of the season. I don't think we'll sink much lower, with our resources it's quite difficult to, for all our fumbling last year we were still only a couple of points off the top 4.Quote:
Originally Posted by Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie
Think the issue is there's been a gradual decline and it doesn't look like stopping. We can say what we want about Sanchez but he's a world class player that adds drive and stature to the team. Will we spend to sign an adequate replacement or will he promote a youngster? The dressing room morale will drop when he leaves and these bunch of weak minded fools hardly need an excuse to drop their form.Quote:
Originally Posted by Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie
I don't think it's inconceivable for us to finish below 6th, all it takes is for example, the Everton owner to appoint a decent manager, provide more funds and them to start playing, and that'll be another team to look out for. Or a team to do a Leicester and once again that's another team in the mix.
Just on my earlier point regarding the Hicks & Gillete situation, I think that could be avoided with a new manager. Someone to bring success on the pitch and bring a bit of pride back to the Arsenal. I do see Wenger as the primary problem currently, he picks the team, he trains them, he sets the tactics.
But the wider, bigger picture is Kroenke's track record with his other franchises. They have all dropped off and become mediocre, just drifting along while he raking in the money. Luckily there's no sign of that here...
You kept saying we wouldn't finish below spurs though and look what happened. I specifically remember a number of times you said 'everyone keeps saying we'll finish below them, but it hasn't happened yet'. Well in the end it did :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
Do you know, I don't buy the Wenger was once great and isn't anymore, that's not what's happened at all. Once upon a time he was hungry, inherited a team with a very disciplined mindset and was able to add attacking ingredients to it and cherry pick some of the best talents from a country he knew inside out for next to nothing.
Then the problems started. Whilst the mindeset was inherited by some of the players (hence the invincibles) he proceeded to dismantle all the important elements, our experienced top quality players were sold off for next to nothing very quickly, importantly all the leaders of the team, the youngsters had noone to learn from and pick up those winning habits from. He also decided to change the style of football to some mini Barcelona style and became obssessed with it, he decided to dispense of all the physical aspects of our game, thought he could build some all conquering team with kids he'd gone all round the world recruiting (whilst spending huge amounts) and then decided to get rid of all the aspects that made him successful in the first place.
Now it can't allbe reversed but do you know what, he could have analysed the situation (doesn't take a rocket scientist) and decided it's not working, lets go back and look at my winning sides and see what we can tweak. But no he's refused to change anything (that's not an inability to btw, that's just sheer pig-headedness and a need to prove everyone else wrong, even when the answer is staring him in the face) and has continued to make very odd decisions, whilst accepting money is more important than success and thrashings are part of the course.
Some people (Letters) make out like he's been left behind and just doesn't have the tools, it doesn't take tools it takes common sense, he hasn't been left behind he's refused to change and that is nonsensical, much of what is happening could be avoided and if a normal guy with common sense who was willing to make changes was in charge it probably would, sadly he's not like that at all, he prefers to be profitable and to try and prove people right, even if he never does, in his head he thinks he is.
They aren’t competitive no but there’s no relegation in American sportsQuote:
Originally Posted by Vieira
So clubs like that will know come what may they will still get the revenue from playing other bigger franchises
Relegation is not a factor Kroenke has ever had to consider. End of the day no competitive is not a red line for him, but anything that impacts upon what the club’s value is.
And it’s much easier to adversely effect that value when there’s actually consequences for being too shit
But it doesn’t matter anyway being 6th is not good enough for the fans even if it is for Kroenke. Someone like that is untouchable, he’s unaffected by the criticism because he’s maybe here two weeks every year.
Wenger is the target
Yes. After 10 years of people saying it, it finally happened. In a game where fortunes change and things fluctuate if you keep saying the same thing then eventually the chances are you will be correct.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vieira
But the same people were saying we would end up in mid-table years ago and that hasn't happened yet so don't pat yourself or them on the back too hard.
The same people said we were in terminal decline, I see it more of a stagnation. The last four seasons we have finished in 4th then 3rd then 2nd then 5th. I wouldn't say there is a clear trend there.
Will we end up in mid-table? It does seem we have become more of a "top 6" club than a "top 4" one. I doubt we will sink much lower for the reasons HCZ has outlined but we will see.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Özim
Like with everything else in life bit more complicated than that
Did Wenger have the benefit of being able to utilise the leadership of players like Adams and how that trickled down to the players he brought in? For sure.
But if you read Adams book, it was Wenger and his new methods that kept him in the game that much longer. Muscle exercises that could combat fatigue allow more durability and even added to defensive displays (being able to jump higher)
What’s changed in football terms, is that current managers are largely just politicians. They work on coaching methods, number crunching, tactical game plans etc that are decided on collectively by large and structured coaching teams. But they are the figurehead of those decisions, they are the voice at press conferences and the figure on the bench.
The same way politicians are mouthpieces for decisions worked out between them and civil servants and special advisors
Wenger is the one who thinks he can do it all on his own
Zim :bow:Quote:
Originally Posted by Özim
Fought and battled over the years in the gladitorial arena that is GW :bow: he managed to stand tall and strong and came out the ultimate winner :bow:
"What we do in life echoes in eternity"
MaxZIMus :bow:
I'm not sure that's true. Our points total since 2007/8 has been:Quote:
Originally Posted by Vieira
72,75,68,70,73,79,75,71,75
There's no clear trend there. It's been stagnation, not decline.
That is a bigger concern, admittedly. And this is why "Wenger Out" is not a silver bullet. Because if Kronke replaces him with someone who will just keep us bumbling along then that won't necessarily improve the situation.Quote:
But the wider, bigger picture is Kroenke's track record with his other franchises. They have all dropped off and become mediocre, just drifting along while he raking in the money. Luckily there's no sign of that here...
Kronke Out AND Wenger Out (And Letters Out, obvs)
Using stats to try and distort the picture:coffee:Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
Reality is very different :coffee:
Give wenger another 3-4 contracts and I'm sure he'll fulfil that too:coffee:Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
For the third time I’m saying this, with the exception of deciding who wins the internet these discussions as fascinating as they are (and I actually don’t mean that sarcastically oddly enough) are pointless.
At the end of the day changing our current trajectory isn’t dependent on who is right or wrong about how fucking deep we sink but the agreement that we don’t want to sink at all
Changing things isn’t dependent on consensus of when Wenger became a cunt, it’s just a consensus that he has to go.
Is it? Please elaborate. How do those statistics distort the true picture?Quote:
Originally Posted by Vieira
You're saying there's been no gradual decline. Only an absolute weapon would think that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters