The Football Thread - Season 2011/2012

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cambsno said:
Well back in the day were many fans calling for Wenger when he came in? Or were Man U fans calling for Fergie back in the 80s? A manager doesn't need to be out of a job or a big name to be a target! I would love to see The Special One and that could happen, although Spurs will be after him too!

My problem with Wenger is that he refuses to admit that his way of doing things is wrong, and he is still saying the sky is pink and not blue!

IF he said that he is happy for us to be a top 8 club, and that we would always look to raise more cash than we spend fair enough. But he is deluded to think we can still go for trophies with the squad we have. He thinks his transfer strategy is sound. He ballsed up big time - he should of planned on Nasri and Cesc going and not resorted to panic buying on deadline day.

Managers will always get things wrong - the trick is to make a mistake and learn from it. Wenger is making the same mistakes all the time, maybe its ego, but he thinks he can do no wrong yet the club is in a state. Who do we have that the other big clubs would want? RVP obviously, Ox, Wilshire certainly,maybe Vermaelen and keeper but thats it. Players like Gervinho, Rosicky, Djorou,Park would not even get into the likes of Newcastle!!!

We have been declining over the years, he is doing the same thing so we will continue to decline. If you are happy with that, fine, but I want to see our manager getting some basics right first. I see no evidence to suggest we can be an established top 4 club like we were so would it harm to change?
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But Wenger and Fergie are pretty rare finds, whilst they've escalated clubs to huge success hundreds of managers have been and gone with nothing remarkable to speak of. It's not realistic to expect us to just pluck some nobody off the street and have them return us to the success of 8ish years ago. If we use that tactic we might go through 5 or 10 managers before we get anybody approaching the skill that a top flight club requires to succeed.

If you look at our squad and consider the extent of the injuries we've suffered - almost solely to our defensive line which can only compound the devastation they've caused - and compare it with other teams in the league we're actually far weaker than an awful lot of them yet we're holding the 4th spot despite having no where near the 4th strongest team. Compare us with Chelsea's team which is massively under achieving for the talent they have, and Liverpool who similarly are under performing with greater players than we have and his achievement looks a little less terrible. That's not a complete defence of him though, since he's allowed the team to deteriorate from a league topping side to one that is only good enough for mid-table obscurity but he's only partly culpable for the lack of spending as it's the club and owners money he'd be spending and they can instruct or prevent that from happening.

My point is I can only think of one guy that could manage our club who has any sort of record for us to expect a reasonable performance from and that's Mourinho and he isn't exactly freely available although there has been speculation over his future. Anyone else would be a monumental risk and how do you judge their performance? It's not like we can spend £100m in the transfer window with a new manager and suddenly expect to win, that sort of overhaul takes time and there will be bumps and failings along the way. All this calling for Wenger's sacking just seems very ill-conceived and short sighted. I'm not saying he's perfect, the best manager for us, or that he isn't responsible, at least in part, for our decline over recent years, it's just that I don't see any feasible alternative that doesn't represent an unprecedented risk that couldn't leave us drastically worse off than we already are.
 
Typical Wenger, instead of taking responsibility is playing in the blame game on BBC site - 3 difficult away games in a week, difficult pitches, and points out that the first goal was a deflection - obviously he missed the total incompetence in defence for that one in terms of the free kick and not bothering when the kick came in!

The injuries suffered are unlucky, but the fact is Vermaelen, Sagna aside the rest are rubbish, or in Gibbs case always injured! Although Koscielny has shown improvement this season. With the exception of Luiz, any def at the top 6 or 7 clubs would easily get into our side. Why the hell did we not go for Cahill?
 
Some fans can be so fickle. You have had a manager who has brought great success over the years and been there for a very long time. You can't have success every season. You need to take the lows with the highs.
 
Yeah well said Joe, you Liverpool and Arsenal fans should stick together.
 
joescrivens said:
Some fans can be so fickle. You have had a manager who has brought great success over the years and been there for a very long time. You can't have success every season. You need to take the lows with the highs.
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Its been nearly 10 years of medicore fluff from arsenal. You speak as if we have only had one or two seasons of this. Its perfectly fine for people to call for avb and dalglish head after less then a season but when its wenger after nearly 10 years . Where fickle?
 
joescrivens said:
Some fans can be so fickle. You have had a manager who has brought great success over the years and been there for a very long time. You can't have success every season. You need to take the lows with the highs.
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It's not the lack of success. It's Wengers attitude and mindset. Had he bought the cahills, matas, and other players we needed and did our best to win but failed then I am happy with that. But to see the same schoolboy defensive mistakes every week is too much. Same with his excuses each week rather than realize that half this squad are pants. He is blind to the obvious and that is the reason why he needs to go. He is totally deluded.
 
How do you know he isn't trying to sign better players....maybe the better players don't want to join Arsenal because of the pay structure...something that may well be out of the managers hands. Bring back Bruce Rioch eh?
 
jonneymendoza said:
Its been nearly 10 years of medicore fluff from arsenal. You speak as if we have only had one or two seasons of this. Its perfectly fine for people to call for avb and dalglish head after less then a season but when its wenger after nearly 10 years . Where fickle?
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no i dont think it is ok to call for avb and daglish head.

Thats my point
 
tiler65 said:
How do you know he isn't trying to sign better players....maybe the better players don't want to join Arsenal because of the pay structure...something that may well be out of the managers hands. Bring back Bruce Rioch eh?
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Arsenals pay structure is not that bad. Cahill, certainly ain't on no 200k per week at Chelsea. We could have easily offered around 80k
 
jonneymendoza said:
Arsenals pay structure is not that bad. Cahill, certainly ain't on no 200k per week at Chelsea. We could have easily offered around 80k
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Nonsense.

I can count on one hand the number of players on £200k a week, you guys live in fantasy world. (I reckon Abu Hamza could too.)
 
tiler65 said:
How do you know he isn't trying to sign better players....maybe the better players don't want to join Arsenal because of the pay structure...something that may well be out of the managers hands. Bring back Bruce Rioch eh?
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There are plenty of affordable players, only a small few are outside of our band. Spurs I think operate an 80k cap but they manage to but. Most man u players are on less than 100k.
 
jonneymendoza said:
Its been nearly 10 years of medicore fluff from arsenal. You speak as if we have only had one or two seasons of this. Its perfectly fine for people to call for avb and dalglish head after less then a season but when its wenger after nearly 10 years . Where fickle?
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Nearly 10 years? In the past decade we've won the Premier League twice (one of which we did so unbeaten - an achievement only Arsenal can claim) and been runners up twice, the FA Cup 3 times and Community Shield twice.
tiler65 said:
How do you know he isn't trying to sign better players....maybe the better players don't want to join Arsenal because of the pay structure...something that may well be out of the managers hands. Bring back Bruce Rioch eh?
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Precisely, from the board's perspective I'm sure they see Arsenal as a fantastic business as it's consistently profitable; the difficulty is convincing them to part with a large chunk of their profits to reinvest in the players. This is highlighted by the following Wenger quote said in regard to signing Eden Hazard: "You should know that each season, it is imperative to show a profit of between fifteen and twenty million pounds. I would add that the purpose of a coach is to always buy at a price he sees fit".

Also, in a rare interview with Kroenke, the majority shareholder of Arsenal, he said this:
"Arsenal have a business model. But how do you compete with a team at the top of the league, Manchester City, that's fuelled by billions?

"We have done that in the States, too. We compete with people in our league in the States who have the same resources as anyone in the world. You can check it out. The NFL restricts spending, so it's a bit different. In the NBA, they sort of restrict spending but not really, so if you want to spend you can spend, you just have to pay a penalty for it. I think what you have to focus on... I understand it in the short-term...your business is to write articles... short-term... the long-term good of the club is not always in the short-term interest of the next thing you want to write about... I don't think you can... and I am proud of the fact that Arsenal has had this sustainable business model. I think you can have people, and we have had them in the States, where they will spend a lot and they will do it for a little while and they might have some success. And then the person everyone is relying on maybe gets tired of it or has a financial reversal, but what you are doing is that you are putting the focus on one person, one resource. Is that really in the interests of a long-term situation for a great club that many people identify with and rely on? I would much rather, and I would be much more proud, if all our leagues were developed with the idea that you are competing on the basis of intellect and work and effort instead of just simply, 'I am going to throw dollars against the wall.' That's one side of it. Another side of it is that, in the States, it doesn't always work. It does work sometimes, so I understand what you are getting at. If you look at Arsene, as a good example. He has been here 15 years and you look at what the club had as assets and revenues, it's fantastic the growth that has occurred within the club. It has been done very responsibility and they have the record for participating in the Champions League for the most consecutive years. For the long-term stability and an approach to excellence, I think that's unsurpassed, really. That's my view." (Emphasis my own)Full interview here.

And there's more in the same interview:

"Can you compete on player contracts?

"That is a loaded question."

Can Arsenal compete on the money?

"Here's the thing. Could you? Yeah. You could. Do you want to? Maybe you don't. See what I mean? What I told you earlier - sometimes you can overspend for the wrong assets and you end up shorter in the long run. Or you could say, and you might, 'Well, just buy him anyway. The whole has unlimited resources, go out there and spend anything, stockpile everyone and maybe you'll win. You buy to win.' But you might not. There's examples where you haven't. Now I think that you want to be sure that you want to spend the money and I think that's what our manager does. He makes that evaluation. That's his job. It wasn't because the money wasn't there. We have money. And it wasn't because, Ivan can tell you, anybody sitting here ever said, ' Don't spend it.' Now, if you spend it all and there is no more money, you guys come and say, 'Well, Stan, we're short now, you need to spend some more money.' Well then you could blame me, maybe, but I don't think you can blame me now, because I think it's a philosophy. I think this club is run a certain way and I think people are proud of the way it's run. And I think our fans are proud of the way it's run. Now, does that mean there are people who wouldn't like to see you spend more? I think there is a natural tension there. I think maybe they would want you just to make the biggest offer out there. A club could go into a bunch of debt again, spending debt - there was various proposals, we should do different things, I didn't think we should do them and it's turned out fairly well. The club has no debt now, because the cash resources exceed the amount of debt that's on the team."

Blame Arsene all you want but it's pretty clear big spending is not the intention of the owners and they have far more control on the financial operations of the club than Arsene will ever have.
 
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And just the other week Gazidis, Chief Executive of Arsenal, said this:

"Money is not everything in this game. I don't disagree that it's important. But we do things based on a value system.

"We're about creating star players, not about buying them.

"We can't afford to compete with oil money, and we can't afford to compete with super-wealthy individuals from Russia.

"But I think the more important thing about our model is that it's sustainable."

Again highlighting the minimum spending ethos isn't one to blame Arsenal for, it's a club philosophy...rightly or wrongly.
 
Just seen the third own goal brom brighton which was possibly the most comedic own goal I have seen in a while.
 
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