Quote Originally Posted by Letters View Post
Where's your bar though? I mean, I was privileged to have a season ticket during the Wenger glory years. It was mostly amazing.
At the time I always knew in the back of my mind "It won't always be like this". There's no way any team can sustain that level forever, and of course the money men muscling in have completely changed the landscape.
A lot of the last 15 years have been pretty mediocre, and football in general has gone to shit. But right now I see us moving in the right direction. The only sensible thing to measure us against is last season.
If you compare every season to that Wenger side 2002-4 then prepare for a lifetime of disappointment, it will rarely if ever get that good again.
Doubt anyone believes we can ever emulate the Wenger years at their peak (although there were plenty of recurring flaws even back then, especially in terms of European performances). But no, Bergkamp, Vieira, Henry and Freddie is not the minimum requirement. We can set our sights more realistically than that. My problem is the fans' buy in to the bullshit that Wenger pushed as cover for his failing ability to compete as the game changed around him. Winners have a winning attitude, they don't settle for second best let alone fourth best even when the odds are against them. Losers make excuses. Maybe the odds of us toppling City and Liverpool are as low as when Leicester actually did it. But that's the aim. If 3rd or 4th comes as a consequence then so be it, a failure for sure but with the consolation of cash from the CL. Make it any more than that and you can kiss goodbye to the levels of commitment needed to drive that one final inch when it really matters. But we know this, even as recently as last season. When the chips are down you can be sure we'll fuck it up - just as I said in the thread last year when most were saving up for the CL special edition kit. It's not "I told you so", it's I told you so the last time, and the time before that, and again the time before that. Because it's not difficult to spot the pattern.

I bet if you asked any top sportsman what the most important element to their success is they'd answer "attitude". I don't even see gratitude with the bunch we have on the pitch right now, let alone the mentality that's going to stop them collapsing again this season.