It's not a dig, just funny that he mentions a similar saying I was thinking of. There is no point in getting in responding to certain posters anymore if they can't contribute more than the standard smiley, insult and rather than tackle the point you've made, they go at you. It's a wise saying.
I'm not angry.Just sayin.
Anyway, what about post 54 - any thoughts on that?
Yeah, I know your not one of those guys. In most cases we can a good debate agreeing or disagreeing on whatever the issue is.
Regarding post 54, yeah, I agree with that and it's what frustrates me the most about our club. That's I'm tired of looking at what other clubs are doing because it's clear that we're really not pushing the boat out to chane things at our club. We're already seeing a repeat of last summer. I'm not even that pissed off about it. Jut fed up. I expect shit like this from our club now.
Oops, you appear to have lost the plot in your feuding with GB here. From what I read he was making good and sensible points, not attacking other posters, which ironically could not be said of your contribution. I can understand the sentiment that in attending any single given game I want to primarily see a good match and enjoy that day out for my money. Yes, we all want to win trophies as well, but as that cannot be guaranteed, if it is the only criteria by which you define your satisfaction in attending matches you are likely to be dissatisfied. This is not contradictory to wanting the club and manager to do more to improve our chances of competing more successfully for trophies.
Just as there may be there are also posters who go around constantly making this point and portraying themselves as the oppressed enlightened minority. It also works the other way round and some posters get rounded on and criticised if they say anything in defence of Wenger in some threads. It's all tit for tat and trying to claim moral high ground from it is probably laughable.
It's probably a sign that it is indeed GW that is stale.
OK so the consensus appears to be that Wenger has gone stale for the following reasons.
1. No silverware for 7 years.
As someone has observed, if we'd won a couple of league titles in the interim, we'd be blissfully happy with Wenger. But is our lack of silverware really because AW has gone stale - or is it really because he's been hampered by the stadium project while confronted by the almost unlimited resources of other clubs?
I'd agree that had we shown more committment to the FA/Carling Cups we might have something to show for it. But Wenger would say that his principal focus is finishing high enough up the league to get CL football. Do people really value cup silverware above Tues/Weds night football?
2. Failing to use his available resources wisely.
Again, I'd agree that we seem to pay too much money to under-performing players - while our inability to pay our best players more creates a continual talent drain. AW appears to place too much faith in certain players who don't reward it.
But on analysis is this going stale? My difficulty with this over-rewarding criticism is that noone - least of all Wenger - will pay more than they have to for players - either in transfer fees or in wages. The reason why Bendtner; Diaby; Denilson; Vela; Ramsey are paid what they are paid is that there was demand for them when they signed. You might even argue that because we've slipped from the top, we need to make it more attractive for players to join our club.
Wenger's talent has always been on the developmental side. Is it fair to criticise him for choosing to continue with this - especially at a time when its become simply impossible to compete using the alternative model?
And anyway - doesn't the manager's change in direction in the transfer market last Summer indicate a fresh approach rather than a stale one?
Putting the laughter back into manslaughter
Kind off, the problem is that we adopted this business model of buying in promising kids on non-poachable monies the idea then being they would win us stuff or we could sell them for silly monies like Fabregas, Anelka and so on.
This hasn't worked and we have now ended up with some utter pap being made big money and no-one is willing to buy them because ...they are on big wages. Well Jo whaddayouknow.
Not really wanting to defend Wenger but i would point out that at 17/18 its really hard to gauge who between Denilson and Song was going to be the better star is going to be. Likewise Ade and Bendtner.
Sadly we cant have it both ways. If it was me? I would give them all free transfers just to shift them off the wage bill.