Wenger fears CL disaster

Arsenal boss admits missing out on the top four would be a failure

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Arsene Wenger has admitted he would regard it as a disaster if Arsenal failed to qualify for the UEFA Champions League next season.

The Gunners have suffered successive defeats at Fulhamhttp://static.lingospot.com/spot/image/spacer.gif and Swansea to derail their drive up the table, with the gap to Chelseahttp://static.lingospot.com/spot/image/spacer.gif at four points ahead of this weekend's fixtures which see Wenger's men host Manchester Unitedhttp://static.lingospot.com/spot/image/spacer.gif on Sunday.
Arsenalhttp://static.lingospot.com/spot/image/spacer.gif have played in Europe's elite competition for 14 consecutive seasons under Wenger, but earlier this week, chairman Peter Hill-Wood admitted the club had a contingency plan for the financial blow of failing to make the top four, stressing "so it's not a disaster" if they did not qualify.
In Wenger's eyes, however, the benchmark has been set.
"For me it would be [a disaster]", the Arsenal manager said. "Because I want to play with the best

Not good enough[/h]"We want to be in there, in the top four, and to play in the Champions League,http://static.lingospot.com/spot/image/spacer.gif and anything else would not be good enough."
Should Arsenal lose to United on Sunday, they could be cast further adrift of the top four, while leaders Manchester Cityhttp://static.lingospot.com/spot/image/spacer.gif and arch-rivals Tottenham, who clash at the Etihad Stadium, already seem well out of reach.
Wenger, though, continues to focus on the positives. "It could be a good one [weekend]", he said.
"In the press you are now educated to see everything in black. You reflect the fans' fear, but you create it as well."
While insisting he is not looking for excuses for Arsenal's recent poor displays, Wenger believes his side have been on the wrong end of some key decisions, such as when Swansea were awarded a penalty for what the Arsenal manager saw as a dive by Nathan Dyer in a match they would go on to lose 3-2 at Liberty Stadium.
Right decisions[/h]The Arsenal manager said: "We want the right decisions to be made.
"There are some people [in Swedenhttp://static.lingospot.com/spot/image/spacer.gif] who made a study of last season and we were second in the league considering the decisions of the referees and we finished fourth. It showed we were two points behind the leaders.

"There is no conspiracy, you can still win the game with a bad decision, but you want the right decisions to be made."
Wenger added: "If [Robert] Pires once dived against Portsmouth,http://static.lingospot.com/spot/image/spacer.gif okay, then for six months it was a story in the newspapers. Dyer dived on Sunday and nobody said a word.
"You cannot say it is exactly the same and it doesn't matter. If it doesn't matter when Dyer dives why does it matter when Pires dives?"

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http://www1.skysports.com/football/n...rs-CL-disaster

Squeaking into 4th would be a failure. :coffee:

In fact the last six years have been pretty much full of fail.

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Originally Posted by GB.

Squeaking into 4th would be a failure. :coffee:

In fact the last six years have been pretty much full of fail.

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Epic fails, to be precise.

That's fair enough from Arsene.

It's obvious we're not getting our fair share of decisions. And one reason for that is because players don't even bother appealing for penalties or free-kicks any more. We don't surround the referee and argue it for a a couple of minutes. We just take it. I remember in a recent league game, Ramsey was brought down for a stone-wall pen which wasn't given...he hardly appealed and just got on with it - as if he expected the ref not to give it. This is where we miss Cesc. He knew how to get the ref on our side. I've been saying it for a couple of seasons now.

It's good to hear Wenger say that missing out on the top 4 would be a disaster and not good enough.

His comments are fair enough but yet again they come with no actions being made to back them up.

Tired of him whining about everything under the sun when he's made more mistakes than anyone else has over the last few years.

He wants to play with best and yet he doesn't seem that bothered about competing with them. Who the f*ck cares about playing against the best team when they're pretty much going to knock you out every time.

I'd rather play with weaker teams and beat them to a trophy. Not really that fussed about 4th place as I've said before, it makes us money but we never use it anyway, moreover the CL is a bore I'm sick of making up the numbers.

I wouldn't see being outside the top 4 as a disaster, in fact if by some miracle Wenger got the sack it would be an success.

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Originally Posted by ItsMe

He wants to play with best and yet he doesn't seem that bothered about competing with them. Who the f*ck cares about playing against the best team when they're pretty much going to knock you out every time.

I'd rather play with weaker teams and beat them to a trophy. Not really that fussed about 4th place as I've said before, it makes us money but we never use it anyway, moreover the CL is a bore I'm sick of making up the numbers.

I wouldn't see being outside the top 4 as a disaster, in fact if by some miracle Wenger got the sack it would be an success.

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No way to know we can, id rather we were in the cl then the europa league which won't be enjoyable because we won't even take it serious neither will our players.

Wenger should stop whining and look at the real reasons for our predicament, namely the poor quality squad he has assembled. And while he may be saying not qualifying for the UCL would be a disaster now, at the end of the season he'll be saying, "Oh it doesn't matter, because we financially planned for such a contigency anyway etc".

Course it's a f***in failure.

Really begins to p!ss me off when Wenger starts going to the papers, trying to sell a sensational story- the gist of which any number of football fans could have worked out without having to pay 40p for a crappy tabloid.

We've lost to Fulham and Swansea in our last two EPL games from winning positions, and the best Wenger can do is sign an ageing Henry in panic. Just goes to show that this man has no nouse (is that the word?) in the transfer market any more when every club has a scouting system in place.

Really tired of Wenger now and this predictable Charlton Athletic-like season surrender that seems to occur earlier and earlier season by season.

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Originally Posted by Ernesto

Course it's a f***in failure.

Really begins to p!ss me off when Wenger starts going to the papers, trying to sell a sensational story- the gist of which any number of football fans could have worked out without having to pay 40p for a crappy tabloid.

We've lost to Fulham and Swansea in our last two EPL games from winning positions, and the best Wenger can do is sign an ageing Henry in panic. Just goes to show that this man has no nouse (is that the word?) in the transfer market any more when every club has a scouting system in place.

Really tired of Wenger now and this predictable Charlton Athletic-like season surrender that seems to occur earlier and earlier season by season.

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He never went to the paper.

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Originally Posted by Charlie the Gooner

No way to know we can, id rather we were in the cl then the europa league which won't be enjoyable because we won't even take it serious neither will our players.

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I reckon we'd get to the final of the Europa league and then bottle it, but at least it would be more unpredictable than the CL, in that we know we're going to get beaten as soon as we meet a decent side.

Haha Wenger says this but you know he will do nothing to improve our situation! FFS.

Ernesto, the papers go to him. When theyre not making shit up.

I know, but I dunno, reading this sorta crap from Wenger just makes me so ANGRY! :censored:

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Originally Posted by Ernesto

I know, but I dunno, reading this sorta crap from Wenger just makes me so ANGRY! :censored:

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Understandably so.

why would he bring that sweden study up? how ridiculous. there has always been an element of human error in sports. im sure if you go back in history that same case can be made for MANY teams. comments like this make me dislike wenger (the present day wenger) more and more.

as for the CL comments, hes right...it will be a disaster. it will solidify how he has slipped from being one of the best to a a man who cant get the job done anymore. if this ends up being the case, he needs to walk. he will highlihgt injuries, poor officiating, man city, the fixture list in the end but wont blame himself or the squad. its all very tiring, where is the accountability in this club? nobody is held accountable, from the board to wenger to the players. its a poisonous setup we have going here.

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Originally Posted by Mr. Lahey

why would he bring that sweden study up? how ridiculous. there has always been an element of human error in sports. im sure if you go back in history that same case can be made for MANY teams.

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He brings up the Sweden study up to show that we have been very unlucky with refereeing decisions, and that we would've been higher up the table if the correct decisions were made. We would also be higher up the table if Wenger had made more right calls and stopped persisting with poor-performing players. But I don't agree with this childish notion that because somebody has made mistakes they can't talk about other mistakes that have been made. There had been a human error in sports because technology to correct errors hadn't existed. Now, sports like cricket, rugby and tennis have moved on and football hasn't.

Football is a basket case.

The study from Sweden is perfectly valid and it's right to point out how incompetent, cowardly and in some cases corrupt the refs are. If these awful referring decisions "evened themselves out™" over the course of the season then the study from Sweden would tally with the final league placings. But they don't. In a billion dollar industry this isn't good enough. If drug tests or crash tests were carried out using the same slipshod and random methods applied in football officiating then everyone would be dead. Trouble with journalists is they are thick, incompetent and in some cases corrupt themselves. No wonder they see eye to eye with the world's worst referees. However, FIFA, UEFA, the FA and all the other crusty, prehistoric middle men are only interested in money coming in, so nothing will change unless their money is somehow jeopardised. So Wenger needs to move on from this and accept we need to be doing it even better than certain other teams just to reach parity.

The other point here is his rapid disagreement with PHW. Whether anything should be read into it or not I don't know. But people wanted Wenger to come out and sing a different tune, he's doing it here in a way that won't lead to open conflict. The guy with all the money says it's okay to fail, the guy in charge of the team says not. Who's the bigger problem then? PHW gives so much away by constantly placing everything in the context of money. He does actually remember we have a football team, doesn't he?

As for Wenger, if he really thinks it would be a disaster to finish outside the top 4 I guess he must be buying a striker after all. Because without somebody to help RvP put the ball in the net realism would suggest top 10 is the goal and forget about the top 4. But I wonder. If PHW is already suggesting there is a financial plan to deal with failure to qualify for the CL, does it mean the board has already allocated funds that could have gone into the transfer pot to instead paying a premium on mediocrity? What a scandal if that's the case. Wenger out, of course.

Thing is even when he understands he has made a mistake he is never in a rush to put it right.

i understand the point of the study and its validity in a greater context. however Wenger for me, is deflecting the performance of the team rather than making a point about officiating in football in general. if there was a history of this effecting arsenal the most year after year i would agree with his comments. im sure there were a few years where it could have been different for many teams. funny enough he brings up that Pires dive, wasnt that during the unbeaten run? if that was called properly than we may not have accomplished that. but he has a track record of making excuses and this is the same stuff that he comes out with all the time.

i do recognize that we have had some difficult decisions that have gone against us. The 4-4 against Newcastle sticks out the most. however he needs to concentrate more on what he can control rather than the things he cannot.

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i do recognize that we have had some difficult decisions that have gone against us. The 4-4 against Newcastle sticks out the most. however he needs to concentrate more on what he can control rather than the things he cannot.

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To a degree. But nothing will change with these refs if everyone keeps quiet about them. What would be better is if a winner talked about the problem. It will always seem like an excuse when the losing team talks about it, it would be "nice" to see more winning managers slate these poxy refs. But a lot of them don't. When they get even the most scandalous decisions in their favour they say the ref has a good game, or it is difficult for the ref, or (in Wenger's case) they didn't see it. Refs should be slaughtered by everyone until they either start getting it right or the useless authorities bow to sanity and introduce technology. If fans can wait 15 minutes for Rory Delap then 30 seconds while a blind bastard checks what actually happened isn't going to be a problem.

But there's also the gambling syndicates to think about.