Match reacton - Soton

[Marc Overmars]

Lets not forget the 0-0 win over Chelsea and all those shots we had against United. Positivity!

[Niall_Quinn]

Here we are celebrating 4th place in 2013.

[Letters]

Wenger said: "For me, there are five 'trophies' – the first is to win the Premier League, the second is to win the Champions League, the third is to qualify for the Champions League, the fourth is to win the FA Cup and the fifth is to win the League Cup.
"I say that because if you want to attract the best players, they do not ask 'did you win the League Cup?', they ask you 'do you play in the Champions League?'."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/foo...-a-trophy.html

[Letters]

http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/guard...01txrhx8clfoi4

[Niall_Quinn]

Wenger said: "For me, there are five 'trophies' – the first is to win the Premier League, the second is to win the Champions League, the third is to qualify for the Champions League, the fourth is to win the FA Cup and the fifth is to win the League Cup.
"I say that because if you want to attract the best players, they do not ask 'did you win the League Cup?', they ask you 'do you play in the Champions League?'."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/foo...-a-trophy.html

Thank you for pointing out how insignificant the FA Cup has become.

[Niall_Quinn]

Here's Wigan winning the FA Cup

[Letters]

Thank you for pointing out how insignificant the FA Cup has become.

And thank you for shirting the goalposts of this discussion which was about Wenger's priorities.

And here's Utd in 2016



Look how disappointed they are at such a tin pot trophy.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

I think even with a better manager we wouldn’t be competitive in the league this season. Dropping only two points from 16 games is unprecedented, as was the 30 league wins Chelsea accumulated last season.

We wouldn’t have lost 5 games already, 11 in 2017. We wouldn’t be starting a player against a side that wanted to join said side. We wouldn’t be so unprepared in games where two games in a row we concede in the opening ten minutes.

We wouldn’t look like a mid table side when we come up against the likes of city and Liverpool.

Who cares if Wenger is in it for the money or not, it’s an irrelevance....even if he was it wouldn’t explain the apalling tactical decisions or allowing the club’s two best players to leave for nothing. Plenty of managers in it for the cash who do more to earn such cash. Plus who does creating massive cash surplus benefit, the value of a club is not determined by the extraneous cash it has lying about because the value of that cash depreciates with time.

Wenger is scared of retiring because he’s done nothing with his life outside of football and paradoxically knows that he’s been dwarved by better managers a long time ago, but his pride and arrogance keeps him plugging away in futility.

[Niall_Quinn]

http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/guard...01txrhx8clfoi4

Looks like I was wrong and Wenger is right.

4th place IS a trophy after all.

Pep says so. Therefore, must be true.

Wenger vindicated. I hope he signs a new 10 year contract.

Of course Pep also does shit like win titles and CLs, and he'd be nowhere near as feted if all he ever did was finish 4th. But these are minor points.

Onwards and upwards to 4th place

[selassie]

UEFA created the top 4 qualifying spots. Wenger turned qualification into a trophy.

"The first trophy is to finish in the top four, and that's still possible. I believe finishing fourth is vital for us, so let's focus on that."

Of course, if you focus on winning the title then top 4 is a given, rather than a trophy in and of itself. Wenger couldn't be clearer about where his priorities lie. Okay, maybe he does have ambition beyond his own position. His ambition is to be second best, in fact 4th best will do. His ambition is to be a loser. Over the years he's trained the board, the players, the fans to accept and even glorify second best and second rate. That's why players like Sanogo can take to the pitch in our shirt. Second rate in terms of ambition for the club (except the finances where we are always world class), second rate in terms of the team, always short (literally these days), always "nearly" doing shit, always failing when it really matters. Even the FA Cup, sure, that's a trophy. Not THE trophy though. It's the also-rans consolation prize. The pinnacle for the second tier - at least when the genuine contenders don't hoover it up on their way to the main prize.

These are just the facts. We are world class when it comes to raking in the cash. Second rate at everything else. And Wenger is proud of it, he boasts about it. What a loser.

PREACH!!!