Quote Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn View Post
What, 3 years at a supposedly big club, a free hand, allegedly decent players already in place, and more money than the yanks ever gave Wenger or Dick?

Yeah, I forgot about the attractive (euphemism for competent if you ask me) football. Definitely add that to the list. It's something I've given up hoping for tbh. Certainly Arteta isn't capable of providing it, that much is painfully obvious.

Do you know, I'm having second thoughts about Wenger. Yes, he was fucked beyond all recognition by the time he was booted. But, for all his flaws, he had a lot of respect for the game as it should be played and that actually cost him against the horrible, cynical, cowardly bastards that call themselves coaches these days. Yes, Wenger was a man out of his time, but his time was better and the abject shite that managers like Arteta serve up today. They might beat Wenger in the league table but they'll never beat him in terms of providing what we all used to understand as football. Entertainment. Passion. Tribe. Our players used to fight in the tunnel, not kneel on the pitch and mince around in pink. Everything was blood red. Deadly as sharks we were, and just as vicious. Not this dead, gutted fish flopping around with fireworks exploding behind it and pampered fucks demanding a 10% share in the club just to turn up.

It was sad that Wenger eventually accepted 4th place as a trophy. That was his downfall. But it's criminal for the club and any fans dumb enough to buy into it to repeat that bullshit and then sell it as success.

Anyway, I don't watch it. So ignore me.

Whilst you do seem to live in the world of what should, or at least what you think should. The rest of us have to live in the world of what is instead of saying “I’m not playing today” and digging through the couch cushions for the bottle of Chivas Regal you think is hidden there.

Progress is a completely relative term. And whether or not we should be challenging for the title given the money Arteta has spent is a topic worthy of debate, the fact is we are where we are. I don’t think Arteta is the guy to take us forward, he has no personal skills, no charisma and the worst thing of all he’s governed by hubris. Tactically he is id say very astute but when you a) are about as likeable as Andy Murray and b) either you are clearly bringing in the wrong players or you have no influence over the transfer process and Edu is bringing in the wrong players which begs the question of why you’d call yourself a manager….this undercuts any tactical understanding.
But the nuts and bolts of it is, to challenge for the title we would have to go berserk in the transfer market…you’d be looking at minimum of 500 million spend to make us competitive.
Whether Arteta should be sacked for not incrementally making a team that is competitive in the time he’s had is an argument I guess, and whilst I think we should have done a lot better….I think it’s important to be realistic. Manchester City and Liverpool are not only the two best sides in England, they are the two best sides in club football currently (arguably with Bayern Munich a close third)
When these two sides are routinely winning well over 90 points, it becomes almost impossible to keep up with them.
Liverpool, whilst their fans are in total delusional mode about how much their club spend on transfers (they seem convinced they’ve done it without financial doping) aren’t quite as severe as City with it and with an ageing midfield they could be vulnerable to falling out of the top two but this would pre suppose Tottenham are in a position to take advantage.
City the only hope you have is that they have an off season once every five years (like they did when Liverpool won in 2020) because otherwise they are untouchable.
I think if we sign a central midfielder and a winger we could finish third, despite Arteta and his Aspergers….to win the league in the next few years we’d have to have a) a player of Salah like quality up front b) a player of van dijk quality at the back and c) City to have a ropey season. If all of these unlikely happenings occur….I still don’t think we could win the title whilst Arteta is coach and that might be another reason to sack him.
But ultimately Top 4 is a more realistic barometer of what to expect from him this season