Match Reaction vs Stoke City (away)

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Yes but it's not for want of trying, 4th place isn't what they are interested in, they want trophies and Wenger doesn't deliver that so would have been shown the door IMO. If they challenge for the title and don't win it they will get more leeway or if they pick up a trophy or two again it will buy them time, but ultimately there will be a time when if they don't win they'll be shown the door, both those clubs have ambitions to be successful at the end of the day.

Prove it? That's right you can't, fact is not every club is lacking ambition like Arsenal, Arsenal fans have been brought up thinking 4th place is the holy grail and thus they think all other clubs think the same way. I'll say it again no other big club would have stuck with Wenger if all he'd done is got a CL place every season without competing properly for big trophies for over a decade.

You can say it as many times as you like, if a club was trying to finance a stadium move than constant 4th place finishes would be welcome.

When a club is looking to secure it's long term finances, it's going to mean very little to it to challenge for the title and finish a close second only to finish 6th or 7th the next season.

The difference now is the finances are secure and things still aren't getting better, and we have an arrogant trilobyte who thinks the club owes him a living. There is absolutely no reason to give him a contract extension now, but three years ago especially it would not have been unreasonable to say well you had to sell some of your best players in the past and you've still made top four, you can spend now and you have three seasons to take the club on (i didn't think it was a good idea as i thought he had too many deficiencies as a manager).

The damning inditement is that the club has had three years to plan for moving on from Wenger and it's made no attempt to give him less power or get a succession in place (and i agree this is part and parcel of a lack of ambition shown by Stan Kroenke as treating the club as an asset in his property portfolio)

With the exception of Gerard Houllier in 2004, have either liverpool or spurs sacked a manager for finishing in the top four?. And in fact haven't liverpool sacked managers more on the basis of failure to qualify for the competition?

If you were honestly expecting Wenger to be sacked prior to 2014, i would say it's just as well you don't run a large business yourself.