I believe coming 4th perpetually where we once used to lament coming 2nd is simply venerated mediocrity.Originally Posted by Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie
I believe coming 4th perpetually where we once used to lament coming 2nd is simply venerated mediocrity.
Yes. Which rather makes a nonsense of the rest of your post
My position isn't that hard to understand:
Wenger's time with us is clearly coming to an end but:
a) Things aren't nearly as bad as some people make out and he is not as bad a manager as some on here are making out. Last year we finished 4th (as always!) and we won the FA Cup. It was, overall, a pretty good season. This season we have been patchy at best so far but Chelsea aside no-one has really gone off like a train. We're only 4 points off City in 2nd and we have a run of very winnable games coming up after which things may look quite different. This was our first league defeat of the season and it was against a side who are looking like they might walk the lead this season (don't think they will, it's very early days, long way to go yet). As always, some people are over-reacting.
b) There is absolutely no point in replacing Wenger with someone who will do worse. How does that make any sense at all? Obviously there is no guarantee that someone else will come in and do better but some people act like any bumbling idiot ™ would come in and we'd be loads better. Wenger is a pretty safe pair of hands, we'll probably keep finishing 4th under him. We should be aiming higher but I see no benefit in replacing him with someone likely to do worse and there's no hurry to replace him, so long as we keep finishing in the top 4 we have a good platform for any future manager.
That was before we had 2 clubs buying their way in to the top 4. The top 2 will probably be City and Chelsea this year and with their resources it bloody well should be.
One of the best posts ever.. especially the part in bold. Wenger trumps whatever crap we are producing as the best in the world. He serves us canned tuna for 100$ and expects us to behave like he has given us caviar.
Arsene Wenger, the only football manager that got paid 8 million quid to do nothing but sit on his arse..
Does he? Care to elaborate?
But they didnt buy the title this season.. nor did they last season. We outspent both teams this season, so whats the excuse? Let's take expenses out of the equation for one second and see how horrible our football is... you cannot tell me that a team with Welbeck, Sanchez, Ozil, Wilshere, Ox, Cazorla should not be expected to have ONE shot on goal!
Answer this question... Do you think it is acceptable that after paying the highest ticket prices in world football, we should not at least expect to be entertained? Or even challenge the top teams? Sure, we wont win all the games but you and everyone knew that we would be lucky to get a draw out of this game. In what world is that acceptable?
Arsene Wenger, the only football manager that got paid 8 million quid to do nothing but sit on his arse..
Yes, he has said on multiple occasions how getting fourth place is like a trophy. He makes us feel like we should be glad we got 4th place. He talks about spirit and togetherness of the team as being exceptional (time and time again). If the recent squads spirit is exceptional, I'd like to see a broken spirited team. None of the players fight for each other.. on most days, we do not even turn up in the first half! IF that is not the managers job then I dont know what is.
Arsene Wenger, the only football manager that got paid 8 million quid to do nothing but sit on his arse..
Be honest, in light of what we've seen in the past, do you think we'll see a turn around and we'll push on to challenge for the title?
It's early days but we can no longer use that misdirection tactic and point to the flaws of our rivals whilst looking past our own. It really doesn't matter that our rivals have been inconsistent, we're on level points with Liverpool and the rest are above us.
Oh behave. You look at the money they've spent over a sustained period. City won the title last season after a sustained period of spending way beyond their means. You answer me this: would they have won the title without the billionaire owner spunking money around over the last few years? The answer to that is obvious so yes, yes they did buy the title. Were they a business who had to play by business rules they'd have gone bust. Were FFP to have any bite they'd be docked so many points they'd have no hope of winning the league. As it is they just had to pay a bribe/fine and on they go.
Teams like Chelsea are able to stockpile players to the point where they can not just build better squads than anyone could if they had to live within their means, they employ far more cynical tactics than just outbidding other teams. Chelsea buy up players and then loan them out to non-rivals to make it even harder to compete with them.
( http://www.theguardian.com/football/...-west-football )
City's owners have bought other clubs where they can stockpile players thus ensuring rivals don't get them.
It's not an 'excuse' to say it's very difficult to compete with clubs who can do this sort of thing. You seriously think another manager is going to waltz in and we'll be winning the league? You're kidding yourself.
I agree with the rest of your post. Our football isn't good at the moment and we should be playing more like we did against Galatasaray who might not be much good but they're probably no worse than a lot of the PL sides we'll face. That game showed we can do it, it's frustrating we don't do it more.
As for what Wenger says. He does spout a load of bollocks, granted, but he's never been one to publicly criticise his players and nor should he, IMO. Like it or not 4th place is important because of the way the CL works, it's not like a trophy obviously but see above about Wenger spouting bollocks and I don't see how you equate that with claiming he: 'trumps whatever crap we are producing best in the world'. 4th shouldn't be the limit of our ambitions but I've explained why I feel it's difficult to do better than 3rd. I think we should be closer, I think our football should be better, but we're hardly mid-table or worse and we did win the FA Cup less than 5 months ago.
I would have thought my previous statement rather answered your question, obviously stating that my dog can see that Wenger is NOT the person to push us forward is not Unequivocal enough for you.
My point is that everything has to be put in it's proper perspective, whilst it is frustrating seeing Wenger make the same mistakes over and over again. Personal frustration cannot be equated with Crisis, that's when managers get sacked.
I have stated previously that he should have been encouraged to go out on a high at the end of last season, but the fact remains he has a contract until 2017 and unless 4th place is in jeopardy there is no question of him being sacked....and there still isn't huge appetite from the fans to push him before he jumps even though that more or less all of them acknowledge that we almost certainly won't win the title back in that period of time.
Is it ideal?....no not really... but barring terminal cancer i feel i can wait three years.
Last edited by Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie; 07-10-2014 at 08:09 PM.
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