Match Reaction vs Swansea City (away).

[Letters]

Why do I post here?
Or are you asking why I support Arsenal?

I'm not asking either of those things really.
I post on here because it breaks up the working day and although it's not as good as it used to be there are still occasions where people post things which amuse me. Often you, actually.
And I'm an Arsenal fan because my dad is, simple as that.

You don't have to give the game up, I haven't entirely. But I follow it from a distance these days for a number of reasons. You don't have to leap around in celebration about a good win against a poor side either, but neither should it be an opportunity to have another moan.
Having finished 4th then 3rd then 2nd in the last 3 years and won two FA Cups it's a bit of a stretch to say that "just about everything is pissworthy". And nothing has happened to Wenger, if anything it's what hasn't happened to him. Football has moved on and he hasn't, or not enough. But I don't need to provide proof that he wants to win, everyone at that level wants to win. I don't think he has the ability to compete at the very top any more but it's not because he doesn't want to. You don't sign players like Ozil, Cech and Sanchez if you want to be average. The fact we failed to win the title with them, especially last season, is a failing but it's a lack of ability, not desire.

And as for the football we grew up with. How old are you? I grew up with George Graham's boring boring Arsenal. In 92/93 my dad very nearly gave up our season tickets it was so poor (it was my first year at Uni so I was spared most of it mercifully). We did win both domestic cups that year so there was a cherry on top of the turd of a season but 90% of it was horrible.

Who said you have to stop supporting the club? I support the club, that doesn't mean I have to go to games or even watch games really. I used to, now I don't. Partly ennui about Groundhog Day and the way football has gone generally but there are other factors. That doesn't strip me of the title of Arsenal supporter. At some point I may get more interested again. It's as simple as if I'm not enjoying something I stop doing it.

If you want to "stick around to call these cunts out for what they are." then I guess that makes sense and that does answer my original question

I'm not sure if I do run a fan forum, this place doesn't take much running these days. If I do run it then it's purely for historic reasons, I was on 606 then GW. In time the kid who started GW invited me to be a mod and then when he drifted away from it I ended being the owner by default. And this all happened when I was still a season ticket holder. I'm not sure going to games is a prerequisite for running the place anyway.

[Letters]

We were challenging the Spuds and Leicester for the title, none of our traditional rivals were ever in contention.

We well and truly screwed up last season...do I even need to go into the details?

No, you don't need to go into details. But that's not really what one horse race means. Just because we finished above everyone who we traditionally struggle to finish above, that doesn't mean the other horses aren't allowed to run at all.
But yes, Wenger should have been sacked for last season. He wasn't and while we keep finishing top 4 and people keep filling the stadium the board aren't going to change things.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

It's not even just that, given his response to the fans at the end of last season I suspect he thinks he's doing a good enough job. In fact I think the board feel he is doing a good enough job even after last season's debacle.

This is the problem...Wenger seems to set his own standards of what constitutes a successful season and they are not always consistent and certainly don't match up with a sizeable percentage of the fans ambitions/standards.

His response at the end of last season was typical of someone who is not used to criticism, blaming the fan atmosphere for the performances was an incredibly petulant response and an exercise in excuse making

[Power n Glory]

No, you don't need to go into details. But that's not really what one horse race means. Just because we finished above everyone who we traditionally struggle to finish above, that doesn't mean the other horses aren't allowed to run at all.
But yes, Wenger should have been sacked for last season. He wasn't and while we keep finishing top 4 and people keep filling the stadium the board aren't going to change things.

I actually think Wenger has bought himself enough credit with the Board to finish outside of the Top 4 for one season at least. It just depends on whether he feels he's capable of getting us back into the Top 4 spot after we drop out.

It has to be the fans losing total confidence in him to make him really consider his position and whether his time is up.

[Niall_Quinn]

I actually think Wenger has bought himself enough credit with the Board to finish outside of the Top 4 for one season at least. It just depends on whether he feels he's capable of getting us back into the Top 4 spot after we drop out.

It has to be the fans losing total confidence in him to make him really consider his position and whether his time is up.

I can think of 2 fans who have confidence him. One's a lunatic called Ty and the other a bookie who bets against him, because you have to be a lunatic or have an agenda to claim confidence in a guy who fails to maximise his resources so consistently and predictably. However, most fans still have respect for him and what he did in the past and that's what keeps his arse in that chair. If that respect was lost then he'd be out in a flash but I doubt that will happen at Arsenal and I'm not sure it should either. I like a moan about Wenger but if I'd have been up at that game where the arseholes waited and shouted into his face I'd have stabbed them. This gives the fans who want him out a difficult task. Even raising a very respectful and moderate banner gets you roundly condemned - not the Arsenal Way, etc, etc. Seems to me the Arsenal way is to spread 'em and try not to squeal.

Another problem - as football sinks ever deeper into the deepest of sewers with criminals owning clubs and human rights abusers and child abusers and fraudsters at FIFA and pampered prick players who can't play for toffee or refuse to play at all, and the shitty pundits who make fake news on CNN look trustworthy and informative, and the grubby agents and the doping and the cheating refs and the whole damn English con game called the PL - in the face of all that, Wenger's a bloody saint. He's respected right across the game because he behaves in a manner the rest can't afford to behave in, and he's done it since day one. Can an owner turn around and say, you know that guy who makes us all the money and never brings a moment of trouble to this club? We need to sack him and bring Harry Redknapp in, you know the crooked little wheeler, dealer who will do what it takes to win and damn the consequences? They will never, ever do it.

So all that's left is terrible frustration. If Wenger could just take a few risks, not the grubby types of risk that characterise the modern "greats", like teaching your players how to dive and call it professionalism (yes Pep), but risks well within the remit of what we have seen from him before like the purposeful counterattacking football that made us the second favourite team for every non-Utd fan out there, if he could just bend a little. But he won't.

It's like being managed by Jesus. God sent him to save football from its sins but we're getting crucified in the process.

[Letters]

I actually think Wenger has bought himself enough credit with the Board to finish outside of the Top 4 for one season at least. It just depends on whether he feels he's capable of getting us back into the Top 4 spot after we drop out.

It has to be the fans losing total confidence in him to make him really consider his position and whether his time is up.

For a season, maybe. If we'd really slumped in to mid-table (as many on here endlessly predicted we would) then I think he'd have been long gone.
I'm not even sure he cares what the fans thing and, to an extent, I'm not sure he should. Fans are reactionary - look at the over-reactions you get on here after certain results.
IMO he'll only leave when either he thinks it's time to move on or if pushed by the board.

[LDG]

I can think of 2 fans who have confidence him. One's a lunatic called Ty and the other a bookie who bets against him, because you have to be a lunatic or have an agenda to claim confidence in a guy who fails to maximise his resources so consistently and predictably. However, most fans still have respect for him and what he did in the past and that's what keeps his arse in that chair. If that respect was lost then he'd be out in a flash but I doubt that will happen at Arsenal and I'm not sure it should either. I like a moan about Wenger but if I'd have been up at that game where the arseholes waited and shouted into his face I'd have stabbed them. This gives the fans who want him out a difficult task. Even raising a very respectful and moderate banner gets you roundly condemned - not the Arsenal Way, etc, etc. Seems to me the Arsenal way is to spread 'em and try not to squeal.

Another problem - as football sinks ever deeper into the deepest of sewers with criminals owning clubs and human rights abusers and child abusers and fraudsters at FIFA and pampered prick players who can't play for toffee or refuse to play at all, and the shitty pundits who make fake news on CNN look trustworthy and informative, and the grubby agents and the doping and the cheating refs and the whole damn English con game called the PL - in the face of all that, Wenger's a bloody saint. He's respected right across the game because he behaves in a manner the rest can't afford to behave in, and he's done it since day one. Can an owner turn around and say, you know that guy who makes us all the money and never brings a moment of trouble to this club? We need to sack him and bring Harry Redknapp in, you know the crooked little wheeler, dealer who will do what it takes to win and damn the consequences? They will never, ever do it.

So all that's left is terrible frustration. If Wenger could just take a few risks, not the grubby types of risk that characterise the modern "greats", like teaching your players how to dive and call it professionalism (yes Pep), but risks well within the remit of what we have seen from him before like the purposeful counterattacking football that made us the second favourite team for every non-Utd fan out there, if he could just bend a little. But he won't.

It's like being managed by Jesus. God sent him to save football from its sins but we're getting crucified in the process.

Brilliant

I wholeheartedly agree btw

[Niall_Quinn]

For a season, maybe. If we'd really slumped in to mid-table (as many on here endlessly predicted we would) then I think he'd have been long gone.
I'm not even sure he cares what the fans thing and, to an extent, I'm not sure he should. Fans are reactionary - look at the over-reactions you get on here after certain results.
IMO he'll only leave when either he thinks it's time to move on or if pushed by the board.

Yes, the overreaction is a bit much sometimes. It has only been 10 years of the same stuff, so the knee-jerking is ridiculous.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

It's like being managed by Jesus

You mean they are both delusional?

Well as long as Wenger isn't instructing his players to turn the other cheek, give no thought to the morrow and he isn't going round randomly cursing fig trees

[LDG]

You mean they are both delusional?

Well as long as Wenger isn't instructing his players to turn the other cheek, give no thought to the morrow and he isn't going round randomly cursing fig trees

That was funny when TA dropped him.