Match Reaction vs Stoke (away).

[fakeyank]

What I still can't get my head around is that last season, and we're only talking 6 months ago, we won the FA Cup and finished with a pretty respectable number of points. It was a good base to build on and Wenger actually seemed to remember his PIN last summer and be signing some proper quality. And yet...
I would suggest that anyone who 'saw this coming' has 20:20 hindsight, the thread about how we'd do this season was pretty upbeat.

Fortunately everyone else is so awful too this year we've still got a pretty good chance of finishing in the top 4. Or maybe not so fortunately, as finishing outside the top 4 is the only way Wenger will ever get sacked.

I saw this coming. I think Zimm, I and a few others saw this coming in 2009. The FA Cup was great but Pompey and Wigan won it too... what was not fixed with that cup win was the fact that we are a fundamentally average football team. .It wasnt going to change or is not going to change under Wenger. Every year we thank our lucky stars that others teams are shit... for a club that charges the highest football prices in the Europe, thats a shame.

The only way Wenger is getting the boot is going to be the ugly way.. it shouldnt have happened like this but I dont care about him anymore, nor about his legacy. His 8 million quid a year pay packet will soothe the arse burn... he can piss off from the club!

[fakeyank]

Nice of you to sit on your sofa and tell fans that have paid £150+ to travel up to a shithole like stoke only to watch us lose that they aren't real fans.

They can voice their displeasure whatever way they want. Realest gooners around.

[Grebbo]

I saw this coming. I think Zimm, I and a few others saw this coming in 2009.

lol such visionaries!! The world and his wife saw this coming in 2009. Our team has gradually got worse and the competition has quickly got better. Much better.

The argument is whether our decline, and the competitions rapid rise, has more to do with Wenger being a fucktard or the difference in player spending between us and the competition.

I'm a little bit surprised that the fans are seemingly getting angrier and angrier. We've just won the FA Cup and are now seemingly buying a world class player in each summer window. We've reached an inflection point and can now buy a world class player every window instead of selling one. Ozil turning to shit hasn't helped matters though.

Wenger has never been a tactical genius and he definitely needs to revamp the defence. Per is dog shit now and we've needed a DM for donkeys years. But I genuinely believe our form is more because of our injuries than Wenger's incompetence.

[Power n Glory]

We have injury problems because he's incompetent. He's sold defenders during a World Cup year and hasn't bought any experienced ones in. He doesn't make best use of his subs and runs the first team into the ground until we're forced to make a change because of injuries. We'll bring in new tech to show players fatigue levels and he'll just ignore the warning signs. How many times as he said a players in the red but he keeps playing them? Ramsey, Wilshere, Ozil, Giroud and now Sanchez. He keeps playing them until they finally reach breaking point. He never learns!

[Letters]

I saw this coming. I think Zimm, I and a few others saw this coming in 2009.

Bullshit, frankly.

Doom-mongering every single season and saying how we're going to drop out of the top 4 and how rubbish we are doesn't make you Nostradamas when 5 years later we are actually pretty rubbish.

Well, actually, it does make you Nostradamas as he was full of shit too and people who believe in what he wrote just selectively fit world events around vague things he spouted after the fact.

If I sit while someone keeps rolling a die and I keep saying "it'll be a 1" then if, at the 5th attempt, it is actually a 1 I don't get to say "Ha! See? Told you!"

[Power n Glory]

Bullshit, frankly.

Doom-mongering every single season and saying how we're going to drop out of the top 4 and how rubbish we are doesn't make you Nostradamas when 5 years later we are actually pretty rubbish.

Well, actually, it does make you Nostradamas as he was full of shit too and people who believe in what he wrote just selectively fit world events around vague things he spouted after the fact.

If I sit while someone keeps rolling a die and I keep saying "it'll be a 1" then if, at the 5th attempt, it is actually a 1 I don't get to say "Ha! See? Told you!"

We had this discussion last year and I told you it would be even more difficult to win the league. It's not bullshit. It was an in depth discussion. When I said last season was the time to really push for the title, you were talking as if we had more of chance the following season after buying more players. Flawed thinking as said back then because there are no guarantees we'll go from strength to strength. We should have done more last year to build on the momentum and go for the title.

When you keep talking about money bag clubs, did you really think they'd stand still this year? Jose was bound to really go for the jugular in his second year. Man Utd were bound to spend a fortune and City are City. But this was all said last year but you bat it away and then come back with the 'who could foresee' talk.

The January window should have been enough indication. That should have set alarm bells running. We played our only striker and midfield into the ground to then purchase an injured player that couldn't help us when in need. The FA Cup win should have even set some sort of alarm bell off because we went two goals down against Hull! It was close to going to penalties. We won in the end but that season showed that we still have wobbles and can buckle under pressure. Just look at the City, Liverpool and Chelsea drummings.

As usual, you don't notice the massive turd right in the middle of the living room floor until it's stepped on.

[Özim]

That Ty guy gets behind his team, he gets behind his team, he gets behind his team, he gets behind his team, he gets behind his team, he gets behind his team, he gets behind his team.

[Özim]

This has been coming for a long time, we haven't been progressing, it's been the same old same old every single season, we have a manager who neglects the basic concepts of management.

I don't agree with the abuse but I think it's high time we heard Wenger out chants as he's been taking the p*ss out of the fans for years and really doesn't give a damn what they think or what anyone else thinks.

We've been absolutely awful this season and yet after 3 games it was all going quiet again as if everything was good, people need to look at the big picture and realise we're going nowhere and haven't been for years and won't until Wenger leaves.

People like that Ty guy who basically signify blind faith really need a reality check, they are like mini Wengers with an excuse for everything that goes wrong, it's embarassing.

You can't make excuses for what's going on, it's down to poor management, lack of tactics, lack of planning and inability or refusal to deal with problem areas and accepting 4th place as if it's some sort of major prize for the club.

What was it, worst start for over 30 years this season, that says a lot considering some of the awful teams we've had in that time.

IMO the manager should be incredibly embarrased by his attitude and his neglect of the team.

[Letters]

We had this discussion last year and I told you it would be even more difficult to win the league. It's not bullshit. It was an in depth discussion.

Yes, I remember that discussion. I don't think I was talking as if we had more chance this season but anyway, that's not quite the same as what I'm talking about now. I'm not talking about whether we can win the league this year, that was always going to be difficult but that's not even the issue right now, the issue is can we stay in the top 4 (Answer: probably, but only because most of the other rivals for the top 4 are pretty hopeless too)

But whether we do or not, the point is this year we seem to have taken a major step backwards. We've had 4 or 5 years of being fairly static in terms of our performance. I think a final points total is a pretty good measure and year on year we've actually improved, marginally. And last year we won the FA Cup, finally getting that monkey off our back. We seemed to be making good signings in the summer and yet...we're hopeless. I don't believe anyone who says they foresaw us being this bad this year. The mood in the season prediction thread was pretty upbeat.

http://www.goonersweb.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=3016

And I notice that none of the people now saying "see? told you so!" posted in that thread.

[Letters]

This has been coming for a long time, we haven't been progressing.

I'd agree with the fact that we haven't been progressing, but we haven't been regressing either. We've been stagnating.
But I hoped, as I think many of us did, that the FA Cup could be a springboard to better things. The new financial deals are in place which gives us a new muscle in the transfer window - the Ozil and Sanchez signings are evidence of that. And yet...

I'm struggling to believe that anyone saw this coming - by 'this' I mean us being quite this hopeless.