Disappointment Knows No End

[Olivier's xmas twist]

I think I'll love the memories, but I can't back the players any more because I don't trust any of them as far as I could throw them. I can't name one that I genuinely feel is an Arsenal man. Jack's loud, but let's see what happens when his crunch moment comes. Hope he proves me wrong. Don't really care that much if he proves me right. He's just a kid. I'm and adult. I don't need to run around worshipping him just because he wears a certain colour shirt. All I need to do is expect a return for the huge amounts he extracts from myself and all the other fans and (am I being crazy here) a thank you in the form of loyalty within reason. Not undying loyalty, not blood on the pitch. But if he's offered a silly amount of money to stay at the club that helped him bring his talent to the world, and by silly I mean half of what City offer which is still very, very silly - if he decides to place zero value on everything bar the money then he will deserve to be condemned. It would be right to condemn him. Just like it is 100% correct to condemn van Purse. I don't care if their careers are short, that's why they get paid 100x the normal wage every week. We work 50 years, they get paid 1,000 years equivalent and can then have a second career. Same cant be said of the pros that went before, who did know the meaning of loyalty (comparatively). So that bullshit is a red herring. They use a huge bonus aspect of their profession and pretend it can be an excuse for their behaviour. It's not.

I'm picking on Jack because his move will be as bad as van Purse's, because he's off to Utd too. We are incubating him, that's all. How can you get behind any of that and support it? The only way I can think of is if you just say, fuck it, and enjoy the football. One tiny flaw in that plan, our football is not enjoyable. It used to be. But not now. It's boring. Technical, clever, boring shit. Would be more interesting watching an engine in an Audi. Great engineering, clever, boring. And it doesn't break down every time. There's something horrible and sinister about our football. Robotic, alien to the original intention and with inferior parts so it can't achieve the despicable purpose for which it is designed.

Maybe have players like Ibramhimovic is good, better the devil you know then the angel you don't. With someone like him you know he will leave so it will not be a dissapointment. Thats the thing with world class players these days they are not loyal so when they leave it does not hurt.

With us we have breeded young players and sold them whilst thinking because they owe a debt to us they must stat and be loyal when players have not been loyal for about 20 years or evn longer now lets stop prentending they are cause as gooners we make asses of ourselves prentding they do.

[Power n Glory]

I'm not buying that story about RVP being greedy. This club just showed their ass and the way Arsene bullshits people and then calls for patience and faith the next...RVP was probably being fed that garbage for years on end. He'd have been a whore to accept the contract on offer from Arsenal knowing full well that we had no intention of going for silverware and strenthening in the summer. Why the heck would you stay 'loyal' to this theiving corporation?

[Niall_Quinn]

I'm not buying that story about RVP being greedy. This club just showed their ass and the way Arsene bullshits people and then calls for patience and faith the next...RVP was probably being fed that garbage for years on end. He'd have been a whore to accept the contract on offer from Arsenal knowing full well that we had no intention of going for silverware and strenthening in the summer. Why the heck would you stay 'loyal' to this theiving corporation?

Yes, it's a fair point. Virtue has to exist somewhere before you can pin anything to it. There's zero virtue in the game so it's not surprising players behave as they do. But the ambition thing annoys me. Real ambition is to spite the fuckers like Kroenke and succeed anyway and I really think that if a few players who have since left had rolled their sleeves up and dug in we maybe could have moved on. That said, wouldn't surprise me if Gazidis threatened them with what would happen to their families if they didn't leave. Who knows? Maggots negotiating with maggots over piles of shit, bound to be a stinky outcome no matter. Certainly van Purse gets no credit for abandoning ship. We can understand why he did it, but surely we don't applaud it?

[Olivier's xmas twist]

Yes, it's a fair point. Virtue has to exist somewhere before you can pin anything to it. There's zero virtue in the game so it's not surprising players behave as they do. But the ambition thing annoys me. Real ambition is to spite the fuckers like Kroenke and succeed anyway and I really think that if a few players who have since left had rolled their sleeves up and dug in we maybe could have moved on. That said, wouldn't surprise me if Gazidis threatened them with what would happen to their families if they didn't leave. Who knows? Maggots negotiating with maggots over piles of shit, bound to be a stinky outcome no matter. Certainly van Purse gets no credit for abandoning ship. We can understand why he did it, but surely we don't applaud it?

Certainly van Purse gets no credit for abandoning ship. We can understand why he did it, but surely we don't applaud it?

This, did not blame him for going but there was no need for his Billy big Bollox stuff.

Why don't all these players who leave come out and slate AW how comes not 1 if i can remember has.

[Power n Glory]

Yes, it's a fair point. Virtue has to exist somewhere before you can pin anything to it. There's zero virtue in the game so it's not surprising players behave as they do. But the ambition thing annoys me. Real ambition is to spite the fuckers like Kroenke and succeed anyway and I really think that if a few players who have since left had rolled their sleeves up and dug in we maybe could have moved on. That said, wouldn't surprise me if Gazidis threatened them with what would happen to their families if they didn't leave. Who knows? Maggots negotiating with maggots over piles of shit, bound to be a stinky outcome no matter. Certainly van Purse gets no credit for abandoning ship. We can understand why he did it, but surely we don't applaud it?

I really can't blame him for jumping ship because he sat and spoke with Wenger and Gazidis and they fed him the same garbage he heard the last time he had contract talks. He was talking about sporting ambition then, signed on again and saw us sell Clichy, Cesc and Nasri in one window after getting dumped out of the Carling Cup to Birmingham. From our long term stratgey to the tactics on the pitch...it stinks and why continue on after 8 years in vain and knowing that Wenger will happily lie to your face, begging you to take the pay cut, be loyal and accept that we can't win trophies when he himself is one the higest paid managers in the league, has already won silverware with Arsenal, has his legacy cemenated with the Emirates Stadium and can still manage for another 15 years if he wanted to! It's easy for Wenger to preach compromise when you're in his position.

The real piss take on RVP's part is actually joining Man Utd. But after the stupid comments I heard from fans about the situation, the sheep mentality and plain blindness to what was really happening...sending abusive tweets, wishing him harm and his family harm....I'd have done the same. Football fans are stupid and hypocrits. Before the summer saga we said the club lacked ambition and when RVP said the same people were baffled as if he was talking rubbish and started pointing to Giroud and Poldoski as if they weren't his replacements, failing to connect the dots as usual. Fuck em all in that case. Loyal to you people....never!

[She Wore A Yellow Ribbon]

Stan Kroenke runs this club and calls all the shots. There's not even a minuscule possibility this isn't the case. Men like Kroenke don't spend £500mill to then hand control to football managers, that's just not the way business works. Nobody who is smart enough to have built wealth would then be dumb enough to risk it in such a cavalier manner. Kroenke is absolutely ruthless when it comes to money. You can see this from the way he muscled in and is now dismantling the team even more efficiently than the dirty turncoats who went before him. He's arrogant, arrogant enough to prevent a 30% shareholder having any say in how the club is run. But.

That doesn't mean Wenger isn't 100% happy with the direction Kroenke is taking. Seems he is. It appears their motives are different but their interests coincide. Wenger appears to be on some sort of mental breakdown crusade that's underpinned with all the best intentions but operating in the heart of a fantasy land. Winning in the honourable way (as he sees it), in a game without honour packed with people of zero character. Wenger's absolute conviction is just as damaging and arrogant as Kroenke's mechanical desire to rape the club. Wenger doesn't need the money, he needs to be proved right, to prevail. This is how he can love the club and destroy it at the same time. Kroenke shows no sign of lusting for anything beyond money. He is a vampire that exists to suck blood and can only exist by sucking blood. A creature right out of a horror movie, thriving in a world perfectly suited to his methods. Everything has been corrupted so it is inevitable his type rises to supremacy. Survival of the weakest, the most destructive and most foul. The fact Wenger's Disneyland agenda delivers money by the bucketload is a match made in (anti)-heaven. The football is long gone. Personal agendas are what we have left now. It's doubtful they even consider the needs of the fans. They probably believe the fans are too dumb to comprehend the "big picture", as they see it. The real delusions lie with the owners and the manager. They think their selfish ends can justify the means.

but to the level we are penny pinching? i cant accept that. i completely get the idea that stan wants to maximise his investment and arsenal was the perfect investment for him, but this idea that stan calls every shot all the way from his base in columbia is a rather simplistic view of the model. we know stan's in it for money and he wants to maximise profit, but we also know that these american entrepreneurs know very little about english soccer. if you're suggesting that stan came in and he's calling all the shots then id say that's far fetched as he's entering a new country and league he knows little about. that would jeopardise his investment more than putting money in for a transfer spree. and this is where gazidis, dennis law, hill-wood & wenger come in. these are people that stan trusts so he gives them authority to make decisions on his behalf, which ultimately reverts to my earlier point- i refuse to believe the board would not sanction transfer dealings for our longest and most successful manager ever. stan has invested £500m into a club in a league he knows little about, so for him to come in and overrule a manager who has been here for 15+ years and delivered countless trophies, seems far off the mark and unrealistic. wenger has taken it to a different level. not replacing alex song gets more ludicrous by the hour. do you really think stan told gazidis and co to stand firm against wenger if arsene wanted to sign players? i highly doubt that as i think wenger would be off. he's said it himself. but it seems to be the view of some of our fans. there's this sense of denial when it comes to wengers in the transfer market since we moved to the emirates- this idea that wenger was so successful previously that he can't be at fault for our shambolic teams, so it must be some outside influence (e.g. the board) that are calling all the shots because our beloved wenger is too intelligent to see the major deficiencies in our squad. well what you'll often find is that success does that to you, it breeds stubborness. he's already torn our wage structure into pieces and taken us through a failed youth project. the man put together a team that went a whole season unbeaten and it appears it has made him so entrenched in his own ideologies that anyone who puts forth a view is automatically branded a sceptic. he thinks he can be successful again with the same values he had 10 years ago. unfortunately that's not the case and he's been left behind. the best managers adapt and he hasn't, that's the simple truth. almost like a man stepping foot outside a prison cell for the first time in 20 years, he finds himself out of touch with modern reality. he does not deserve another chance to put together another team. for some of us thats unacceptable.

[Power n Glory]

but to the level we are penny pinching? i cant accept that. i completely get the idea that stan wants to maximise his investment and arsenal was the perfect investment for him, but this idea that stan calls every shot all the way from his base in columbia is a rather simplistic view of the model. we know stan's in it for money and he wants to maximise profit, but we also know that these american entrepreneurs know very little about english soccer. if you're suggesting that stan came in and he's calling all the shots then id say that's far fetched as he's entering a new country and league he knows little about. that would jeopardise his investment more than putting money in for a transfer spree. and this is where gazidis, dennis law, hill-wood & wenger come in. these are people that stan trusts so he gives them authority to make decisions on his behalf, which ultimately reverts to my earlier point- i refuse to believe the board would not sanction transfer dealings for our longest and most successful manager ever. stan has invested £500m into a club in a league he knows little about, so for him to come in and overrule a manager who has been here for 15+ years and delivered countless trophies, seems far off the mark and unrealistic. wenger has taken it to a different level. not replacing alex song gets more ludicrous by the hour. do you really think stan told gazidis and co to stand firm against wenger if arsene wanted to sign players? i highly doubt that as i think wenger would be off. he's said it himself. but it seems to be the view of some of our fans. there's this sense of denial when it comes to wengers in the transfer market since we moved to the emirates- this idea that wenger was so successful previously that he can't be at fault for our shambolic teams, so it must be some outside influence (e.g. the board) that are calling all the shots because our beloved wenger is too intelligent to see the major deficiencies in our squad. well what you'll often find is that success does that to you, it breeds stubborness. he's already torn our wage structure into pieces and taken us through a failed youth project. the man put together a team that went a whole season unbeaten and it appears it has made him so entrenched in his own ideologies that anyone who puts forth a view is automatically branded a sceptic. he thinks he can be successful again with the same values he had 10 years ago. unfortunately that's not the case and he's been left behind. the best managers adapt and he hasn't, that's the simple truth. almost like a man stepping foot outside a prison cell for the first time in 20 years, he finds himself out of touch with modern reality. he does not deserve another chance to put together another team. for some of us thats unacceptable.

A great post and that's my view on the Board and Wenger. It goes back to that statement Wenger made about offering a player massive wages when he's reached his peak and on the decline. Wenger loves his stats and looks into all that stuff. Stats on endurance and when it's likely a player will start to tire, stats on how many times a player will shoot on their weaker foot, decide to cross, or go for the short pass...I remember ages ago, a player spoke about why he decided to join Arsenal, (I think it was Theo) and he spoke about how impressed he was with Wenger because he knew so much about him before joining Arsenal. The scouts gather loads of information about a player and it all goes back to Wenger. You'll hear players say they're impressed when they get a personal phone call or visit from Wenger to tie up a deal. There is no way Kronke, a man whose still learning about football, could tell Wenger who and who not to sign. Stan is on board because he loves Wenger's philosophy and compares him to Billy Beane. People should really watch Moneyball. Stan would be an absolute fool to try and dictate to Wenger. He knows he can't and I agree with you. He's trusting Wenger and co to make the decisions because they are the experts.

[jelgoon]

Well i agree with you but how many on this board do. The general consensus on here is that the board are stopping Wenger from buying players and that his only crime is refusing to challenge those instructions and carrying on in his job whilst making the board millions. I disagree with that view - I genuinely feel that Wenger believes somehow that this squad will win something major. He has never bought really big - mainly because he likes to be praised for developing relatively cheap players into top top players like he did for the first five years of his reign.

What surprises me is that every window is the same and some always say"he'll bring others in". He never does unless it's a panic buy.

Winger has gone, he went 4 seasons ago and should have been sacked end of. We ll know why he wasn't and indeed won't. Club is a shambles, a boys club that cares not for the fans that have made it. I'll always support the club but never the greedy ****s that run it.

[Xhaka Can’t]

This is what I don't get....Stan was brought in by David Dein orinially and we know Dein thinks we need outside investment to compete. Stan must have been all for that when he first hooked up with Dein. Since being invited in to the Board, he's become the opposite of what Dein intended. So what has happend? He's also supposed to be a massive fan of Wenger's philsophy now and it seems as if he's been indoctrinated with the Wenger bullshit since joining the Board. Any American's on here have a clue at what's happend with his other clubs like the Denver Nuggets, Rams, and Rapids?

I'm a hockey nut and his team play in the same division as the team I follow. The Colorado Avalanche (NHL) were at the turn of the Century were one of the highest spenders in the League's pre-cap era. This resulted in them being one of the League's premier clubs winning the Stanley Cup in the mid 90s and in 2001. Keonke bought them in 2000 so you could argue that the 2nd and final win had little to do with his influence. Between the last win and the lock out where an entire League season was lost they continued to have high league placings and progressed well into the latter rounds of the play-offs which is no mean feat.

However after the lockout (the league locked the players out because no collective bargaining agreement could be reached) where the whole 2004/5 season was cancelled, the team have stunk and now have one of the lowest payrolls in the League. The current CBA which expires this month contains an agreed Salary Cap and a Salary floor. The Avs are spending very near the floor and have gone from a premier team in the League in 2004 to steady decline and are now League fodder.

There certainly are parallels here on the level of investment in players between the Avs and Arsenal from 2004 to now and this has resulted in a sharp decline in the quality of both teams.

[She Wore A Yellow Ribbon]

A great post and that's my view on the Board and Wenger. It goes back to that statement Wenger made about offering a player massive wages when he's reached his peak and on the decline. Wenger loves his stats and looks into all that stuff. Stats on endurance and when it's likely a player will start to tire, stats on how many times a player will shoot on their weaker foot, decide to cross, or go for the short pass...I remember ages ago, a player spoke about why he decided to join Arsenal, (I think it was Theo) and he spoke about how impressed he was with Wenger because he knew so much about him before joining Arsenal. The scouts gather loads of information about a player and it all goes back to Wenger. You'll hear players say they're impressed when they get a personal phone call or visit from Wenger to tie up a deal. There is no way Kronke, a man whose still learning about football, could tell Wenger who and who not to sign. Stan is on board because he loves Wenger's philosophy and compares him to Billy Beane. People should really watch Moneyball. Stan would be an absolute fool to try and dictate to Wenger. He knows he can't and I agree with you. He's trusting Wenger and co to make the decisions because they are the experts.

it gets tiresome. this ignorant belief in wenger as if he's faultless when it comes to signings is foolish. he single handedly destroyed our wage structure and put forth the idea to go for a youth project which he exhausted before even he realised was completely flawed for trophies. that alone shows the level of stubborness he persists at. the facts, quotes and evidence points towards wenger in another shambolic summer of events but it's not enough for some people- it must be the board. it must be stan who sits 4000 miles away in his rocking chair calling all the shots. it must be gazidis providing resistance to a man who has been here for 15 years. and for that i thank him, believe me; he was a great manager and had great success but with great success comes great responsibility. managers continue innovating, they change their ways to find untapped avenue's when the level of competition steps up. the fact of the matter is wenger hasn't been doing that but he is still given chance after chance by our board - who may i add are no angels themselves but take less blame for an embarrassing summer - and is allowed to build another team whilst we sit here and pay the highest ticket prices in the country. the club has gone stale; our passing, movement, tactics have all become predictable. a new manager may not bring instant success but it gives us hope. we are in a good financial situation and if wenger does not want to spend the money then a new manager should be given a chance to spend. enough is enough.