Are the glory days over for good?

[Flavs]

surely if the players are inept and that's Wenger's fault then the fact Wenger is also inept is the boards fault?

[Letters]

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.

The squad which finished top 4 last year didn't contain any of the invincibles, did it? It was a new squad Wenger built from scratch on a relative shoestring and was only bettered by two sides who can throw money around like it's going out of fashion and by Utd who have also spent big although with their own money. It's ridiculous to dismiss that achievement.
But if he gets credit for that then he should also get flak for the fact that we didn't win the Carling Cup and didn't push harder for the league when we were in a pretty decent position.

It's ridiculous to give him NO credit, but it's equally ridiculous to say he's completely incompetent and any idiot could have kept us top 4 over the last few years.

EDIT: I messed up the end of that, what I meant to say was that it has to be recognised that he's made errors which he should probably have been sacked for, but it's ridiculous to give him no credit at all.

[IBK]

I said on a previous thread that I see both sides and the blame is more collective rather than individual.
Without a shadow of a doubt the blame for our pitch performances lie with Wenger but the fact he has been allowed to continue in the same vein is nothing but the highest case of negligence!
Due to Wengers almost immediate success the board has become blind, naive, you name it to what is going on.
As Wengers success, influence grew the boards interest in what was going on on the pitch diminished. So much so that when things started to go south they didnt know what to do then or thought they have no choice to follow the only guy who has brought success to the club mainly because he was saying that all they need to do is trust him a la the phrase 'Wenger knows'.

So what we have is a manager leading a board and a board being lead, a manager that thinks he knows more about football, success and the way to combine both than anyone in the club and a board who are still willing to listen.
We have a manager that fails to change his plan, that fails to see that other teams have him sussed, players like Carrol get license to run amok and CBs are told to pile forward every set piece, and not alwsys to score but to cause panic in our fragile defence because you can be sure we will shoot ourselves in the foot at some point. Midfields become congested and balls are played over our ridiculously high line of defence.

Do we change to combat that? Hell no! . . . .ahhhh wait a mo, yes we do! We play Theo wide instead of Arshavin
What we dont have is a manager willing to recognise failure or a board strong enough to tell him he is failing because do not tell me for all their lack of knowledge of the beautiful game that they do not see what id happening;

1) 6 years no trophy
2) constant collapses of league campaigns
3) little progress on orevious bests ie constant 4th finishes, knock out stages of of CL
4) average loss of 1 star player a season (that will change though but only because we wont have any star players)
5) and more

All of the above really supports FakeYank but for the BHs I support them vy adding we dont have a board that has the balls to slam their hand on the table and say 'enough' - they cant insist that we buy this guy or that because Wenger will just retort with his knowledge of the game but they would be wise to remind him and maybe themselves that ultimately the success of the club is what goes on on the pitch, sure they might be making a killong personally at the moment but that wont last forever especially with Cesc gone, there are no more cash cows RvP, Oxo maybe but when people start forgetting who we are as they are to a certain degree in Japan, no games for Miya, no Cesc = little interest, the board are going to have to look out.

I dont want to say sack Wenger but the board have got to state the obvious to him and that he is not getting it done, they need to be strong, no sports team allows for some much failure especially on the back of some much promise.

As I said before the two parties seem to be working to an agenda, which benefits no-one but themselves, but there is a risk, Wenger will completley destroy an increasingly tarnished legacy and the board will end up with nothing.
I honestly feel that before this happens Wenger needs to walk and take the majority of the boarf with him. . . . .

A good post lamentably ignored.

Of course its a collective responsibility. But in the same way as I think its a bit facile to blame the players for their lack of performance, I think its ignoring the root cause to blame AW rather than the board.

Of course, there is a failure at player level. Cesc showed what was possible from a player at the top of his game basically being self-motivated and having exceptional talent - and we are seeing (and have seen since his spirit was broken at Wembley) the extent to which he carried our team.

But the level of self-motivation/leadership required is not something that is easy to find - and AW has taken it for granted too much.

To an extent, all footballers have motivation - it is needed simply to have made it to a team playing in the top league. But that x-factor that drives the team to succeed is a rare animal. We tend to see the 'fighting spirit' as quite an English trait - and maybe AW's selection of so many foreigners who don't have the tribal background of home growns is a factor in our lack of it. There is no escaping the fact that AW since 2004 has gone for technique over character - and that is down to his choice of player. My own theory is that the manager requires absolute subservience to his way of playing football - and that is why he eschews the likes of Scott Parker; Chris Samba etc even when they are within his reach. But he has sacrificed passion, heart and fight in doing so.

Secondly, if these qualities are missing from his team, it is for the manager to instill these in his players - and from where I am sitting, AW has utterly failed to do this. How? - By allowing players to underperform again and again yet keep their places. By his constant and increasingly bizzare excuses for failure. By his tolerance of the kind of stupidity we have seen from Diaby; Gervinho and (until recently) Eboue. By a managerial approach that sees him say nothing at half time until the last 5 minutes because he doesn't think there is enough to say for 15. By his lack of tochline instruction during games...the list goes on.

And this doesn't even begin to touch on the managerial failures that other people have mentioned - players out of position; the lamentable failure to admit his mistakes and get in a proper defensive coach; refusal to take into account the other team's set ups and amend his own accordingly; lack of training for set pieces etc.

But in the same way as responsibility for players' performances lies with the manager, responsibility for the manager rests with the owners and the board. It is they who have allowed Wenger to attain this God like status - it would appear for financial rather than footballing reasons. It is they who have self-evidently run scared of questioning the manager's methods; it is they who have refused to invest in the playing side of the team - when over the past few years modest investment could have turned top four into champions; it is they who have failed to secuure key contract renewals; it is they who by their neglect and negligence in giving the manager carte blanche over every aspect of the footballing side, and failing to question the manager's misguided faith in his best players' loyalty have ultimately overseen the running down of our team to a stage where we may well have dropped semi permanently out of the CL places and be seeing a real decline of the business of the club. A business that they are supposed to be such responsible custodians of.

[Power n Glory]

surely if the players are inept and that's Wenger's fault then the fact Wenger is also inept is the boards fault?

Yes, that’s true, but most fans have been really slow to catch on to the fact that Wenger is inept. It’s only been this season where there seems to be a general view on here that he isn’t up to task.

But it’s a different story for the Board. They have always been the scapegoats and I find that people are quick to blame them before they look at the manager. Over the years and especially over the past few months, people have started to see the type of influence and relationship Wenger has with them. But rather than look at the flaws of Wenger, people would rather just skip ahead and point the finger at the Board for allowing him to stay on for so long. But no doubt, if they had fired him two or three seasons ago, a lot of people would have given them stick for that and said they had made the wrong decision.

[Flavs]

Of course its a collective responsibility. But in the same way as I think its a bit facile to blame the players for their lack of performance, I think its ignoring the root cause to blame AW rather than the board.

Of course, there is a failure at player level. Cesc showed what was possible from a player at the top of his game basically being self-motivated and having exceptional talent - and we are seeing (and have seen since his spirit was broken at Wembley) the extent to which he carried our team.

But the level of self-motivation/leadership required is not something that is easy to find - and AW has taken it for granted too much.

To an extent, all footballers have motivation - it is needed simply to have made it to a team playing in the top league. But that x-factor that drives the team to succeed is a rare animal. We tend to see the 'fighting spirit' as quite an English trait - and maybe AW's selection of so many foreigners who don't have the tribal background of home growns is a factor in our lack of it. There is no escaping the fact that AW since 2004 has gone for technique over character - and that is down to his choice of player. My own theory is that the manager requires absolute subservience to his way of playing football - and that is why he eschews the likes of Scott Parker; Chris Samba etc even when they are within his reach. But he has sacrificed passion, heart and fight in doing so.

Secondly, if these qualities are missing from his team, it is for the manager to instill these in his players - and from where I am sitting, AW has utterly failed to do this. How? - By allowing players to underperform again and again yet keep their places. By his constant and increasingly bizzare excuses for failure. By his tolerance of the kind of stupidity we have seen from Diaby; Gervinho and (until recently) Eboue. By a managerial approach that sees him say nothing at half time until the last 5 minutes because he doesn't think there is enough to say for 15. By his lack of tochline instruction during games...the list goes on.

And this doesn't even begin to touch on the managerial failures that other people have mentioned - players out of position; the lamentable failure to admit his mistakes and get in a proper defensive coach; refusal to take into account the other team's set ups and amend his own accordingly; lack of training for set pieces etc.

But in the same way as responsibility for players' performances lies with the manager, responsibility for the manager rests with the owners and the board. It is they who have allowed Wenger to attain this God like status - it would appear for financial rather than footballing reasons. It is they who have self-evidently run scared of questioning the manager's methods; it is they who have refused to invest in the playing side of the team - when over the past few years modest investment could have turned top four into champions; it is they who have failed to secuure key contract renewals; it is they who by their neglect and negligence in giving the manager carte blanche over every aspect of the footballing side, and failing to question the manager's misguided faith in his best players' loyalty have ultimately overseen the running down of our team to a stage where we may well have dropped semi permanently out of the CL places and be seeing a real decline of the business of the club. A business that they are supposed to be such responsible custodians of.

you fucking rock dude

The board wont sack Wenger as long as we are making money simple as that, the reason being is that they are money men not football men. And the more that get replaced by these Kroenke flunkees the worse it will get.

Balance sheet>team sheet

[IBK]

The squad which finished top 4 last year didn't contain any of the invincibles, did it? It was a new squad Wenger built from scratch on a relative shoestring and was only bettered by two sides who can throw money around like it's going out of fashion and by Utd who have also spent big although with their own money. It's ridiculous to dismiss that achievement.
But if he gets credit for that then he should also get flak for the fact that we didn't win the Carling Cup and didn't push harder for the league when we were in a pretty decent position.

It's ridiculous to give him NO credit, but it's equally ridiculous to say he's completely incompetent and any idiot could have kept us top 4 over the last few years.

EDIT: I messed up the end of that, what I meant to say was that it has to be recognised that he's made errors which he should probably have been sacked for, but it's ridiculous to give him no credit at all.

I agree to an extent - but by the same token, which teams outside the top four matched the quality of our players last season? If you argue that in some seasons since 2005 the manager attained CL football by over-performing with the squad available to him, you could argue also that last season and in 2008/9 the manager had a side well capable of winning the league, but failed.

[Power n Glory]

The squad which finished top 4 last year didn't contain any of the invincibles, did it? It was a new squad Wenger built from scratch on a relative shoestring and was only bettered by two sides who can throw money around like it's going out of fashion and by Utd who have also spent big although with their own money. It's ridiculous to dismiss that achievement.
But if he gets credit for that then he should also get flak for the fact that we didn't win the Carling Cup and didn't push harder for the league when we were in a pretty decent position.

It's ridiculous to give him NO credit, but it's equally ridiculous to say he's completely incompetent and any idiot could have kept us top 4 over the last few years.

EDIT: I messed up the end of that, what I meant to say was that it has to be recognised that he's made errors which he should probably have been sacked for, but it's ridiculous to give him no credit at all.

How many squads can really throw money around?

[Flavs]

How many squads can really throw money around?

Man Utd
Chelsea
Manchester City
Liverpool
Spurs

And that's just in the EPL

[IBK]

How many squads can really throw money around?

3. And we are now falling behind clubs that are essentially as limited or more limited than we are finance wise.

[Letters]

How many squads can really throw money around?

The three who finished above us can.
Liverpool and Spurs have thrown quite a bit around too to try and displace us in the top 4 and failed.
This season top 4 is looking a long way away (although a few good wins and it all gets close again, it's only October) but till now Wenger's done well to keep us top 4 and badly not to have won a trophy or 3 given how close we've got on a few occasions. His achievement of keeping us top 4 should not be overlooked but his failure to land trophies should not be dismissed either.
As always on here, people fail to see a middle ground between "Wenger is the greatest genius in human history" and "Wenger is a bumbling incompetent who couldn't manage his way out of a paper bag".