Quote Originally Posted by Letters (TPFKA WWTL@WHL) View Post
No, it hasn't. It was actually a very rapid decline from the invincibles of 2004 to 2006 when we just barely scraped top 4 on the last day. Then we improved again to the point where at least once we were genuine title contenders again. Since then we've declined again.

I do take the point that from where we were even by standing still we could have stayed top 4 for a bit but the turnover of players has been such that added to the pressure of other teams spending big to displace us I think Wenger has done well to keep us in the top 4 till now. He's done badly in other areas but it's not an achievement which should be dismissed IMO.
That’s a good point and that doesn’t reflect well on Wenger. Such a rapid decline when we had players like Cole, Sol, Lehman, Toure, Reyes, Pires, Cesc, Henry shouldn’t happen. Chelsea have swapped managers many times and had dressing room fallouts but have still managed to keep their top four status. Man U lost Tevez and Ronaldo and had injury problems with their defenders, but didn’t come close to dropping out of the top four.

That’s not right. We can talk about the era of Billionaire owners but at that point it was only Chelsea that had crazy money to spend. Our team was still better than the majority and we had more internationals in our squad than most. Keeping us in the top four with that squad is nothing to clap about.