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Originally Posted by GB.
I follow US sports but not the financial side. . .and that GB is really scary! Thanks :good:
WTF were we doing when we let that twat through the door?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GB.
I follow US sports but not the financial side. . .and that GB is really scary! Thanks :good:
WTF were we doing when we let that twat through the door?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Japan Jingling All Over
stopping the other twat walking through the door :good:
Yep, there's a queue of twats lining up to rape the club. I really worry about the fans who want Usmanov in. Where's the limit? If Jimmy Saville was still breathing and wanted to put his cash into Arsenal, would that be okay? Saville was a sick bastard but his list of victims is tiny compared to Usmanov. And if we don't care about shit like that and it's only about the money then nobody should be complaining about Stan because that guy is 100% about the money to the exclusion of all else.Quote:
Originally Posted by ollie the optimist
Spot on mate.Quote:
Originally Posted by ollie the optimist
Does Stan actually Own his other clubs? Or is he just majority owner.Quote:
Originally Posted by GB.
Usmanov is innocent, the court said so :coffee:Quote:
Originally Posted by Noel_Quinn
I totally agree, Usmanov is nothing but a Putin apparatchik but more than just accusations of being a shady character, is his involvement in heinous crimes and vast human rights abuses. Of course the current face of club management is a joke....Ivan Gazidis should sling his hook at the earliest opportunity. Problem is Kroenke runs Arsenal like he has run every other sporting franchise at negligible cost to himself, and self-sustainability comes at the cost of the ambition for sporting achievement.....surely any business works on risk ventures......i.e investing money in the squad to gain trophies and with it reputation to market the club as successfully as the likes of man united, barcelona and real madrid abroad......you won't get asian fans wearing replica tshirts for a club with an empty trophy cabinet and you won't get big business sponsorships either.Quote:
Originally Posted by Noel_Quinn
we can thank dein for that after all. loves the club he does. cheers dave. mate.Quote:
Originally Posted by Japan Jingling All Over
probably nothing but weird he is talking in past tense.Quote:
Arsene Wenger has admitted his frustration at seeing Arsenal lose a succession of top players over the past two seasons.
The Gunners boss, speaking before Tuesday night's Capital One Cup defeat by League Two Bradford, was left to reflect on what might have been.
Wenger told Four Four Two magazine: "My regret is that we already had a great team two or three years ago which could compete on four fronts.
"We just missed out in the Champions League [last 16 tie] against Barcelona, when we could have scored in the last minute, and then we just missed out on the Premier League too.
"But you could feel the potential was there, and I thought, 'OK, let's do this together'. Then the team split up.
"Sometimes after five or six years' work, it is frustrating, you have to start all over again.
"We have lost recent players earlier in their careers - to lose Van Persie, Fabregas, Nasri and Song in just two years, it is a massive amount of potential, of course you worry."
The Arsenal manager has come in for heavy criticism following a seven-year trophy drought and he conceded that his reign has been far from perfect.
Wenger added: "I am not saying I never made mistakes. I was fortunate to work for this club for 16 years and I hope I respected the traditions of this club.
"I feel fortunate, but I think somewhere as well I tried at least to pay the club back with the trust they had in me."
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Arsenal fans are angry, and they're right to be angry. It's hard to be philosophical when you've just had your pants pulled down in front of everyone, dispatched from a very winnable competition by a fourth division side.
No matter how much Arsene Wenger tried to spin it, this wasn't the traditional tale of plucky upstarts snatching one on the break and camping out in their own six yard box. Bradford outfought their opponents, threatened at set-pieces, could easily have scored twice and didn't wilt until extra-time. Arsenal didn't even put a shot on target until the 69th minute. It was an inexcusably disgusting performance from all but a handful of their players and anger is the only rational response. But perspective is required too.
Arsenal are in the last 16 of the Champions League and they are only two points away from occupying a spot for next year's tournament. Not only have they qualified for the last 15 tournaments, but this is the 13th consecutive time that they've made it to the latter stages. That's where the money is, that's where the glamour is and that's why, as sick-up-in-your-mouth-and-curse-UEFA-straight-to-Hades annoying as it is, Wenger is right. Champions League qualification is just as important as accumulating secondary silverware. And I hate football for being that way.
"Gargh!" I hear you wail. "But a club like Arsenal deserves better than that!" Well, do they? In the first four seasons of the Premier League, the ones before Wenger, the Gunners hardly set the division alight.
In 1993, they finished 10th, 28 points behind champions Manchester United. They were 4th in 1994, but still 21 points off the pace. Back they dropped to 12th in 1995, a whopping 38 points behind Blackburn Rovers. In 1996, after heavy spending, they finished only 5th, 19 points behind Sir Alex Ferguson's double-winners. The truth is that George Graham's 1989 and 1991 titles were rare outbreaks of joy in two and a half decades of post-1971 under-achievement.
Arsenal have a fine history, they are one of England's most famous clubs, but they have no divine right to success. If some fans feel that they do, it's only because the bar was raised by Wenger.
The problem, of course, is that while the present is better than the past, there are growing concerns that it may also be better than the future. Arsenal are not a particularly good football team and they seem to be getting worse. They have good individuals, certainly, but for whatever reason, they are not clicking as a unit.
To put it another way, since the October international break, they have gone off the edge of a cliff like a runaway clown car. BOOM! Clowns everywhere. As someone who has witnessed most of those games from close range, I can tell you with the complete objectivity of a horrified neutral, that there is no obvious sign of improvement. Mentally, the players are as resilient as a glass crash helmet. They canšt retain possession, they can't create enough chances and they're so poor in the air that they couldn't defend a corner if they were playing Gandalf's 'Misty Mountain Tour XI'.
But Wenger can only be blamed to a certain extent. These are not kids. These are highly paid senior international footballers and they are disgracing their football team with their pitiful performances.
Wenger, without even going into things like the stadium, the academy, the coaching staff, the scouting network, has done enough to earn time that other managers would be denied. He is not bigger than Arsenal, but Arsenal are bigger because of him. Besides, what would be served by sacking him now?
Pep Guardiola, on the off chance that he doesn't want to hook up with his mates at Manchester City, obviously isn't planning on leaving New York yet and at this point in the season, other options are limited. If Arsenal fail to secure a Champions League place, that will be the time to discuss a dignified exit strategy.
For now, it would be wiser to trust his judgement one more time, and hope that he can somehow engineer a recovery. This is a crisis. Of confidence, if nothing else. But it's not worth sacking him over. Not yet.
this is an article from a journalist called iain macintosh. quite like his stuff myself, and i find this an interesting piece. he makes very good points, and i find myself leaning towards his argument of not sacking wenger yet but then i think back to last night, norwich etc and i cant take much more of that, and serious mistakes were made, and perhaps to serious a mistake.
there is one line that sticks out in the article though that sums up both us and wenger
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Wenger isnt bigger then Arsenal but Arsenal are bigger because of Wenger