The fact that the ideas that how a season has gone should be judged at the end and that you don't win a title in November is thought worthy of debate and needs justifying or explaining says a lot about this place :lol:
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The fact that the ideas that how a season has gone should be judged at the end and that you don't win a title in November is thought worthy of debate and needs justifying or explaining says a lot about this place :lol:
:good:Quote:
Originally Posted by Coney
Pretty much.
No it doesn't. It would do at any normal club, but not this club. You continuously try to write-off a decade long shit show so you can reset the loop and get your tongue out and start licking Wenger's crack all over again. It's pretty fucking embarrassing but you aren't the only one by any stretch. In fact there are just enough of you left t keep this charlatan in a job. For some reason that nobody can explain.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
On one hand i have not at any point had any expectation of this season being any different thus why i find the histrionics so bizarre, it seems that people seem to become so angry because they've convinced themselves that it's going to be different.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
The way i look at it, I haven't seen any evidence in how we play that we can handle the pressure of expectation or that we have the guile to put teams like Spurs or Mourinho managed sides to bed.
You can take the game individually or you can take the game as an ominous portent of what's to come, if we lose to United and to PSG which I happen to suspect we will than the atmosphere becomes mutinous again, and if the familiar collapse happens again in February/March (that often coincides with the Champions League knock-out phases) than i think what we saw in March and April will happen again only i suspect more intensely.
I think whatever the club's hierarchy say, I don't think they will want this kind of situation dragging on constantly as it looks bad and I do believe that Wenger is managing for his Arsenal future - and that top 4 won't be good enough....only a sustained title challenge and improvement in the Champions League will especially as he has spent a lot in the summer.
Perhaps. Or perhaps there will still be enough acolytes that can be rallied to reset the loop. I don't think the board or the manager are the main problems now, although obviously they are highly significant problems. Their aims will be to finish in that top 4 spot again, bank as much as they can possibly bank and continue to focus on the main goal of expanding marketing opportunities across the globe. And without a doubt the board sees Wenger as the best man for that job because he has delivered season after season without fail. I can even understand their point of view. They are in it for the money, the couldn't give a fuck about the football beyond keeping the team inflated just enough to bob around that all important top 4 spot and the marketing vehicle it drives. Why would they want to introduce uncertainty into that situation? And Wenger is on the most comfortable ride in world sport. No expectations of sporting achievement whatsoever, float along on past glories, take the money and somehow still be considered a major player in the game.Quote:
Originally Posted by Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie
I blame the decreasing but yet significant body of (I don't even know what to call them) "fans" who seem to be in this more to preserve the status quo than use their energies to drive the team to the sporting achievement that is supposedly the whole point of Arsenal Football Club. How intolerable is it that we are the only top(?) club that for a decade hasn't been able to even compete to the last day in a major competition? Even Liverpool have surpassed us in this respect. And yet this manager strolls on making his same old stupid excuses season after season. These are the same fans who assured us last season that the draw against Liverpool was a good result. Well anyone who has followed this club for any amount of time knew well that was a fucking catastrophic result and a harbinger of the same old inevitable doom. Now we have the draw against our traditional rivals on our own ground and on the back of a shit performance cast by this same lot as yet another good result. Acceptable they say. Yes, I suppose it is. Just like this tragic mediocrity has been acceptable to so many for so long. I don't know why these fans are in it any longer. If you aren't in sport to compete to the very best of your ability using everything you have at your disposal whether you come first, second or last then get the fuck out of sport. Sport is not for you. And definitely don't be causing a drag on the genuine sports fans who appreciate what the purpose of the sport is all about, don't be fucking getting in the faces of people who stand up and say, Wait a moment, this shit can't stand for one moment longer! For those weirdos who couldn't give a shit about sport and are just here seemingly to worship Arsene Wenger, then fine, take up the seat of a real fan if you must but at least shut the fuck up with your stupid arse opinions because if you don't even understand what sport is then what could you possibly have to say that would be remotely interesting to a sport's fan?
Anyway, we've seen enough now to understand how this all pans out. I guess we just sit back and wait for the run of results that will happen in the new year and hope there are a few god performances in there that can be watched with enthusiasm. Because that's the very best of offer from Wenger, he has other priorities.
At home games there is always going to be a sizeable number of prawn sandwich brigade fans, and are contemptuous of other fans for making their disdain known because it's disturbing them watching Grey's Anatomy on their tablet.
The away fans are a different kettle of poissons and before we spent money on Perez and Mustafi it was pretty uniformed mutinous.
I think the extent of this "Wenger Worship" you refer to is exaggerated by social media and media in general, they are in full voice at the moment because they somehow feel vindicated.
I've been to plenty of games where there has been booing because we've been suspect in possession for 10-20 minutes and there is certainly no rebuking of that.
Fans aren't the problem. If everyone starts thinking along that line then we are in serious trouble as a club.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
I've said the exact same things to you about understanding why Board have kept Wenger on. Not wanting to introduce uncertainty at time when we've moved stadiums and negotiating new sponsorship deals. Wenger is their golden goose for sure. I said this about 4/5 years ago when you a lot less critical of Wenger and focused fully on Gazidis and Stan. I also remember saying Wenger will have to be hounded out by the fans to walk away, which is an unfortunate scenario. But you were in total disagreement with me. Why? Probably because their was still some hope that Wenger wasn't a total sell out and in cahoots with what you hate most at the club.
But you've reached your snapping point and I'm sure fans like Letters will reach that point soon enough. But we're in serious trouble if the fans keep turning on each other. I can see it happening with some of the Arsenal Fan TV people and even Rob seems to see where things are leading with the divide. We can't make the problem bigger than what it really is. Fans aren't the problem. As I said, after years of us debating, you eventually drew your own conclusions and saw Wenger as the problem. I think all fans care about winning but most of these Wenger supporters still hang on to hope believing Wenger can pull something off. That's all it is. I hope we can pull something off this season but I'm not looking too much into this results. I've stopped thinking a win against a rival or big team is some sort of indication that we're title contenders. So win, lose or draw one game, I'm trying to get out of the habit of putting so much weight on one result. So I guess i'm holding out until the end of the season. Or at least trying to.
And there you go with the straw man again...Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
Kinda understanding why you want Trump to win now, that's his MO too.
If you think we can't win the league because of Sunday's result then you're stupid and as Coney says, I can't help you.
If you think we can't win it because, Wenger. Well OK, that's a fairly reasonable point of view but in that case why bother watching? You seem to be in the final stages of ZD (who seems to have now died from it :rose:) so why not switch off and put us out of your misery, go follow something else till Wenger leaves. Personally, I think we have a squad that can win it but I'm not sure we have the mentality. Right now though we're in the mix and at this stage of the season that's all that matters and this result, while disappointing, was not a disaster. We were playing a team who, whether we like it or not, are a good side this year. They've not lost a league game yet. If you and others want to wet your pants because we drew then fine, have fun with that. Failing to over-react isn't licking any part of Wenger.
It's not so much panic but more a case of applying logic to seeing the same patterns repeated season after season. I can't claim to know for certain if we are going to win the league or not but I can base my prediction off past performances.Quote:
Originally Posted by Coney
It is also very debateable to whether this team IS in fact any better than the team of last season or previous teams, it's different, but claiming it is better off the back of a good run albeit against teams we have been EXPECTED to beat is extremely debateable.
Sunday was typical, we had a chance to go top and we didn't, it was classic Arsenal...a little bit of pressure and out come the handbrakes! We all knew we wouldn't win on Sunday, we all know that a Mourinho lead Man United will beat us after the international break, it's all very predictable and boring.
I don't know a Maureen led Utd will beat us at all. Nor did I think that before kick off Sunday. I knew it would be tough because of th type of team Spuds are now. He's past his peak and massively underperforming with that team, doing even worse than Van Fraud. The same was being said about Chelsea before we spanked them. It's very easy to look back in hindsight and say 'yes but they were rubbish or not the same team as now'. The point being, even when they were underperforming the thinking was we would struggle against them because we always do. It's the same reasoning being applied to the Utd game.
All I'm doing is taking it game by game and enjoying the good stuff. If we fail? So what. It's just football and back again we start next season. If people want to ignore patterns or hope for the best or have a different opinion, again, so what? Nothing apart from hope on a short term basis is lost. Those that go to games have a bigger decision to make because of their literal investment.