Quote Originally Posted by Chippy View Post
I am actually with NQ here.

We have certainly accepted second best here. In my mind, we are currently the best of a bad or average bunch.

I am never confident when this team take to the field because you never know who is going to turn up.

Are you confident with this lot for the Spuds game? I'm not.

Was I confident when Vieria, Bergkamp and Henry were out there? Hell yes!!
Its a fair point that you are not confident. Not so much that we have accepted second best - at least in the context of where the club finds itself.

We would all love it if we had maintained the level of the Invincibles, but the new stadium project; oligarch and petrodollar money, and the development of football and glut of money into the EPL changed the goalposts forever. Maybe under later years Wenger players and supporters alike became conditioned to top 4 being a trophy but our malaise since we fell out of top European competition happened, and we need to be realistic about where we are now. This is different to accepting second best. It is simply accepting that to get out of the mess we were in we had to completely establish a new platform, and Arteta finally sems to have got us somewhere near the solid foundation we need to push on.

I feel a bit sorry for you and NQ that you are unable to enjoy the journey we are on - and the genuine return of a good feeling to our club after so long - because you are lamenting past glories. Football is cyclical. Always has been. And we are at least on the upswing at present. We all want better, but realistic Gooners know that this can't happen overnight.

As for the best of a bad or average bunch. I get that compared to Liverpool and Citeh - who are pretty much at the levels the Invincibles were at - everyone else looks average. But when you see the level of players and coaches throughout the EPL (don't forget that EPL teams have been all over the later stages of the CL and the Europa League this season) it is pretty clear that the real story is that below these 2 generational teams the competition is super high, and winning games is tough. Not buying the 'shit player' analysis at all.