A Good Read

[j0ke]

Wasn't quite sure where to fit this in any of the other threads so thought I'd post it seperately.

Even though last night's result wasn't surprising it still hurts, but some of the negativity isn't justified, especially with 5 first team players missing.

Yes, there are players who aren't Arsenal standard, I won't mention the names cos everone knows who they are. Anyway, I came across a nice article, you may not agree with all of it but it is still nice to read something of this nature with what has been happening lately

[quote="Barcelona didn't win anything for 6 years"]Between 1999 and 2005, they won zip, sod all, not a sausage, not a tin pot in sight.

They had a wonderful youth set-up, the fabled La Masia, producing some potentially great young kids.

Real Madrid, during those lean years for the club from Catalonia, were well under way with the Galacticos project.

Florentino Perez, the President of Real at the time, planned on spending whatever it took to prise away the best players on the planet, with one new Galactico landing in Madrid every summer.

The master plan was to buy titles at any cost.

Luis Figo, Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo the Original, and David Beckam were duly signed between 2000 and 2003.

The policy worked to some extent, they won a couple of league titles and even scraped a Champions League.

Barcelona, in contrast, and in the background, were planning for the longer term.

I’m sure during those years without any trophies many of their fans lost faith in the project… ring any bells?

The Arsenal world has seen to full effect the culmination in the Barca youth project in recent weeks.

Youngsters such as Xavi Hernandez, Andreas Iniesta, and Lionel Messi were coming through the ranks and beginning to make first team appearances, but some of the Barca faithful did not believe in them.

They wanted the Directors of the club to spend big money like Real were.

I think you all know where I am going with this one.

Chill out, stop reading the trash goon blogs that brainwash you into believing we need 2 goalies, 4 centre backs, 3 wingers and a budgie.

Patience is an extreme virtue when supporting The Arsenal, we knew that building the stadium would limit our spending for a few years, this is something that many now pretend was somehow hidden from them.

Yes the long-term ideology was that extra revenue from bigger gates would help finance big money transfers, but it’s not even been 4 years since we moved into our new home.

We are getting there though.

Huge reductions in the debt, constant Champions League participation, challenges for the League title, semi-finals galore… ok no silverware, yet, but we have not fallen by the wayside.

Just stop and think about what the club has achieved in such a small space of time.

We are now a genuine Super Club, with Super Club resources.

Wenger will never be a manager to go and spend 100M on 3 players in one summer… but I think the time is now here for him to go whack 25 large on one player if he knows he is right for the team.

Following the crushing 2nd leg defeat in Spain to Barcelona, Wenger made the following comments..

“We are at a stage where we develop the players. Today in midfield we had Walcott who is 21, Bendtner up front who is 22, Nasri, Diaby and Denilson are 23, 22.â€

[Kiwi Gooner]

Great read.

[g88ner]

The great thing about selling the future is that it never actually arrives, so you can continue to hide your current failings by banging the drum about the bright future that is just around the corner.... and as the future is unknown, it's difficult to argue too strongly without looking like a right pessimist

So, we wait. Year in, year out. We wait. And wait....

Maybe next year, eh

[GunnerDude]

Difference between us and Barcelona is in those 6 years 1999-2005 quality players have graced their team and also help raise the quality of the home grown talent.
Players like Luis Figo, Rivaldo, Philip Cocu, Kluivert, Saviola, Ronaldinho, Eto, Deco, Luis Enrique.
You get special players in every great team but even they learn from someone, who are player like Diaby, Denilson, Theo e.t.c learning from?

[flash gunner]

The great thing about selling the future is that it never actually arrives, so you can continue to hide your current failings by banging the drum about the bright future that is just around the corner.... and as the future is unknown, it's difficult to argue too strongly without looking like a right pessimist

So, we wait. Year in, year out. We wait. And wait....

Maybe next year, eh

Great post

[marcengels]

This piece clearly came from www.arsenal.com/prbullshitdept

Can we all be a bit more careful when crediting our sources.

[Champagne Charlie]

That article would also be more comparable if it didn't take Barca six managers in those same six years to get it right...

[Aaron Inglis]

To answer one question. Who do you think they are learning from ? The same person that Henry, PV, Anelka, Freddie, Cashley, Keown, Super Ray parlour did !

And this is only in my opinion, Barca have improved since Ronaldinho and all previous great players left. They don't rely on a certain individual ( I include Messi ). The only real example I can give is the first game at the Grove, could've been a walk-over even though messi was reasonably quiet.

Wenger's side is a good examle of this philosophy as we too place equal responsibilty on every player rather than dependency on any 'talisman'.

[digger]

To answer one question. Who do you think they are learning from ? The same person that Henry, PV, Anelka, Freddie, Cashley, Keown, Super Ray parlour did !

But when Anelka arrived, he had Wrighty to learn from. Vieira couldn't have had a more passionate leader than Adams. Henry's early days at Arsenal were alongside Bergkamp, Wiltord and Kanu. Freddie picked up where Overmars left off, etc, etc

Other than Cesc, and perhaps Arshavin and RVP, we don't have any really inspirational players for the others to learn from. Certainly no talismen in defence