Invincibles vs Current Squad MNF Video

[Power n Glory]

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See this is the problem. You keep reverting back to it being dirty. That's your misconception you can't get past. But it also proves my point. People didn't hate Vieira, Edu, Lehmann, Parlour, Bergkamp and his flying elbows and Lauren out of pure jealousy. They were hated like rivals fans now dislike the pricks in the Chelsea, City and (old) Utd teams. Fans will scream out how unfair it is they get away with certain things, exactly the same type of cynical approach we used to employ alongside the better side of our game.

Gamesmanship (we'll call it that now as it might help you) is made up of far more than just sticking your boot in. Playing that card doesn't turn you into Stoke, that is just pure desperation. It comes down to mentality, one of knowing when to do the smaller, uglier things in a game that allows everything else to flourish. I can't think of a team, or a champion in any sport who doesn't understand how important that element is to their game. And no, one player is not going to change the direction of the club. That will only happen when the manager leaves and we can get rid of the deadwood in this squad. It is going to take far more than just one player to change the route we've fallen upon for so long.

And how does that help if you can't score a goal? Or you can't break down a stubborn defence? It doesn't. We're missing more than just a few cynical players and most on here would fancy our title chances a lot more if we had a world class striker on board that could score 30 goals over one or two cynical players. You could swap Kos and Merts for Terry and Kompany and I'd still say we'd struggle on attack and scoring goals.

[Kano]

And how does that help if you can't score a goal? Or you can't break down a stubborn defence? It doesn't. We're missing more than just a few cynical players and most on here would fancy our title chances a lot more if we had a world class striker on board that could score 30 goals over one or two cynical players. You could swap Kos and Merts for Terry and Kompany and I'd still say we'd struggle on attack and scoring goals.

You can be one of the most infuriating people to debate with PnG. Read my first post. The point where I said we need some physicality and proper width from players that understand that position. The repeated point I’ve made about the manager leaving and taking his frustrating footballing style with him? Read the posts PnG, read them. Don’t just find a point and open up a reply based solely on a couple of sentences. I’d understand if you were replying to multiple posters but it’s just me for crying out loud. Nowhere have I said that cynicism is going to win us a title by itself. It will help significantly because it will make us more competitive but that won’t rectify the tactical issues. I’ll repeat: We need a new manager, 3-5 new players and an entirely new mentality at the club.

[Letters]

I'm not sure how sensible it is to compare us to The Invincibles. I remember at the time thinking "this is as good as it gets" and realising that almost certainly I'd never see an Arsenal side that good again.
The other thing that happened of course is the billionaires sicking their beaks in, inflating the market and hoovering up a lot of the best talent. And other sides getting wise to our training method and scouting in other countries, we're not fitter than other teams any more and we're not able to cherry pick foreign talent before it's on other team's radar any more.

[BOBN]

Tippy tappy players are cheap. Clubs churn out small, pass merchants like Fabregas by the boatload these days. Its easy. Teaching technical players to play *a two touch passing game is all mental, theory, its all about limiting their ambition on the ball and getting them to find pockets of space. You can do it in the classroom. The transfer market accepts this. If we sold Wilshere and Cazorla tomorrow big deal, just go to Eastern Europe and find two Modric types for £12m each.

Also if you overload your team with these types of players people will say you play good football no matter what happens, even if you dont. The ego of Wenger loves this fact, plus the cheapness and interchangability (helpful when you know you cant hold on to players).

Technical players with genuine athletic ability/physical gifts or flair. These are rare, any mug in an academy cant produce these with clipboard. In fact academies/Europe cant produce flair players which is why Barca had to import their strikeforce. The market doesn't take any risks with these. Looking like the new Ronaldinho, Suarez, Messi? That'll be £50m please.

Any guy that looks like hes an athlete with technical ability? Rare. *The market doesn't hang around waiting to see if they will live up to the potential. Walcott at 16? £12m. Pogba? £80m. Martial? £36m. Sterling? £50m Barkley £50m.

Why look for the new Vieira when you can just get Fabregas who has equal technical ability, they can pretty much both run a game right? Wrong. A Fabregas can only run a game on a good day, when protected, in Autumn, when the other team doesnt have the antidote. Fergie put in his book how to stop new Arsenal, "I used to think we had to kick them up in the air because they had better players but then realised you just had to stay compact, stand off, intercept passes, hit on the break". There is no antidote for Yaya Toure, apart from denying him a birthday cake.

tl,dr: Wenger thought he could wing it with tippy tappy players because they are cheap and interchangeable.

[Niall_Quinn]

I'm not sure how sensible it is to compare us to The Invincibles. I remember at the time thinking "this is as good as it gets" and realising that almost certainly I'd never see an Arsenal side that good again.
The other thing that happened of course is the billionaires sicking their beaks in, inflating the market and hoovering up a lot of the best talent. And other sides getting wise to our training method and scouting in other countries, we're not fitter than other teams any more and we're not able to cherry pick foreign talent before it's on other team's radar any more.

Very sensible. That's the standard we set ourselves. We are way below it because the manager has been fucking up for 10 years. It's not entirely his fault. He was handed the task of keeping the team at least semi-successful while a bunch of old farts engineered a 10,000% return on their investment. The whole purpose of the club got bent towards that goal rather than the goal on the pitch.

The money thing is a smokescreen. That's not what prevents us picking up the top talent. Wenger introduced the English cave managers to scouting methods that went beyond staring into backyards with binoculars. Now everyone is doing it. Vieira and Henry were players their respective clubs didn't want to keep. Wenger also introduced a whole new set of rules for being a professional footballer and players at Arsenal thrived when they hadn't been able to make the breakthrough elsewhere. Again, everyone is now doing it.

Wenger used to be a bloody genius. He's not now. He's a stubborn old goat. Probably made cynical by the outrageous bastards who looted the club and handed it over to the miserly yank.

[Letters]

Everyone is way below it...

[Niall_Quinn]

Absolutely right we need a couple of bastards in the team. Vidal, Vidal, fucking, fucking Vidal - how the fuck did we pass that one up? Scandal.

Bastards don't need to go around punching out the opposition. They just need to make the opposition believe they'll get a smack in the mouth if they step out of line. Vieira had games one in the tunnel, that's why it was such a big deal when he used to meet the one guy who would stand up to him - Roy Keane.

Bastards can ensure Alexis doesn't get kicked every 2 mins, as is currently the case. The likes of Vieira and Keown made it their personal business to hold grudges and hand out payback. Teams were afraid of us. We could beat them in a fist fight and we could beat them at technical football. It was a beautiful balance. Now we are the most unbalanced team in the league.

Coquelin is developing into a bastard. Which is why we should have bought cover for him because no way is he going to remain suspension free this season.

[Letters]

You said "one"

[Niall_Quinn]

Everyone is way below it...

Why do you always look everywhere bar home? Who cares what everyone else is doing? Provided we are the very best we can be we'll take on all-comers, won't we?

Same manager. Part of being a legendary manager is staying at the top when the environment changes around you. Ferguson managed it. His final title win was miraculous, he literally shovelled a pile of shite to the finish line, despite the Russian oligarchs. The excuses people make for Wenger don't stack up. He made his decisions and they were the wrong decisions. He did the opposite of Ferguson, he took something good and turned it to shit.

[Niall_Quinn]

You said "one"

How immature