THE MIND OF A WENGERITE

[Bring Back Pires]

1. When was the last time we beat the chavs ?

2. When was the last time we beat manure ?

3. When was the last time we beat victims fc ?

I agree with what you're saying, but just for the record, we did actually beat Liverpool home and away last season.

[mcdowell42]

1. When was the last time we beat the chavs ?

2. When was the last time we beat manure ?

3. When was the last time we beat victims fc ?

I agree with what you're saying, but just for the record, we did actually beat Liverpool home and away last season.

AND IN THE CARLING CUP LAST SEASON

[Arsenal Till I Die]

1. When was the last time we beat the chavs ?

2. When was the last time we beat manure ?

3. When was the last time we beat victims fc ?

1) 30/11/2008

2) 8/11/2008

3) 10/2/2010

[1989]

Victims aren't a top team anymore.

[Number 5]

We have a team that has beaten, Chelsea, Man Utd, Liverpool, Scum, Citeh.....and the rest.....THEY ARE CAPABLE.....today boiled down to the players not giving enough......today the only thing Wenger is to blame for is the fukin keeper

And the fuck he is.

What game did you watch Bren?

It is nothing short of scandalous that he allowed the same XI who left the pitch at the end of the first half to re enter it for the second.

Mystic fucking Meg could have predicted what was going to happen once that second half began and the same lazy arsed disinterested attitude continued.

[USMartin]

The difference at the very highest level is minute, and we have come close over the past 3 or 4 years to winning something. Now imagine how much closer we might have been to success if the 5 - 10% improvement that a bit of work and organisation with the defence could have made; let alone the impact of having a better keeper.

You seriously telling me that it wouldn't make a significant difference? After all, it's not as if this squad is devoid of talent, with plenty of quality players and more than a dozen full Internationals in it.

You make a very interesting point.

The problem to me is that the 5-10% improvement is not sufficient. Our defensive play as a team is much worse than that. We have one of the worst ratios between opponent shots attempted and opponents goals scored there is. Where give up nearly as many goals as we do chances. That is down to everyone involved in the defensive work doing an inadequate job from the holding midfielder or midfielders to the keeper in open play and in set piece situations. I think it’s more like a 20-25% improvement that is needed – you are bang-on about a new keeper being the first building block.

But after that and maybe one more really top-class central defender (besides Vermalaen) being added, it gets trickier. Sagna and Clichy are more offensive-minded than defensive-minded fullbacks, though they rarely score or create goals. Their purpose is to keep the ball in the opponents’s half. I think that is our team defensive strategy – to possess the football and keep our opponents out and ideally to score enough goals to make the defense less of a factor anyway(and again by defense I mean defense as a team, not simply the keeper and the back four).

The problem is as a team our defense is so inadequate that it has bitten us in the ass even against teams we dominated in terms of possession territory and even chances. Look at some of the goals we’ve conceded particularly to United and Chelsea the last 2-3 years. Just no defense at all at any point on the pitch – not in center of the park, not in the final third, not in in the box, not along the goal line).

I don’t think you can just change all this by more coaching and training and a new keeper alone. Either you start there and add a top quality holding mid-fielder or two even, and at least one more top central defender at either one or both of a more defensive sound left- or right-back. The only other option is doing something like George Graham did after Benfica really. I don’t think that would go over very well and I don’t think the manager would want to do that that or be able to frankly.

[Henry Norris 1913]

If wenger doesn't address our goalkeeping problem in the summer then its :sodomite:

fuck a dog time

[augie]

1. When was the last time we beat the chavs ?

2. When was the last time we beat manure ?

3. When was the last time we beat victims fc ?

1) 30/11/2008

2) 8/11/2008

3) 10/2/2010

I will concede the victims victories (often in a rant cant see wood for tree's ) but what we are saying is that we havent beaten 1 of the top 2 for over 2 seasons now ? I think that contradicts the initial post by bren that this team has beaten the chavs and manc's

[USMartin]

I could just as easily say ask how many players from recent Man United sides would have got into their Treble winning team or indeed any of the United squads from the mid-90's through to the early noughties. You would struggle to name anyone bar probably Ronaldo and Rooney. Yet they have still managed to win 3 titles, a couple of domestic cups and the European Cup in the past 4 years.


So, as much as the Board may well be - and are - accountable for the lack of funds available to spend over the past few years, all the other decisions with regards formation, tactics, substitutions and to an extent player personnel (the type and size of the players bought, as well as the actual teams picked), comes back to one man, and that's Wenger.

I think these two points are related really.

On your first point I’ve no desire to re-visit all of Man U’s history and success and even if I did as we did not have nearly the same opportunity to watch and review these things I couldn’t really address this, though I think again there are a fair few players after the two you list who could have been in those squads or even on the substitutes bench for them – VanDerSaar. Vidic, Ferdinand, even VanDivingcheatingcunt spring to mind straight away.

But I think your point is fairly valid. But it as true as it may be – the gap in quality between those teams at United then and the teams now is far narrower than the gap between out post post05 sides and the sides from 98-05. No contest there.

Bar, curiously enough, a period ahead of the sale of their sale to the Glazers (when they bought potential like Kleberson, Djemba-Djemba, David Bellion, and the one-tricjk pony who dove a lot, United have backed the manager in almost any move he’s wanted to make to strengthen his team., before and after that 1-2 years I refer to above. They have not let a budget or wage structure determine the make-up of their team, and only now and only because their owners used debt leverage to buy them has this spending become any sort of real problem for them.

Many people thought Chelsea had not simply bought the title in 05 but that they had purchased the right to keep it indefinitely. But United showed that if you have the ambition any team can be beaten – and again only the debt leverage has made this spending any sort of concern to United.

In other words I think your points are reasonable but seriously under-estimate how criitical money is in the equation of the team you put on the pitch, simply because money determines who you can actually choose from to put on the pitch. And not just transfer fees but wages as well. The latter could more important even. Soccernomics say that consistently the teams that win the major trophies tend to have the highest wage bills or to at least offer the best wages to the best players. Which is the opposite of what we do/. We significantly overpay underperformers or players who’ve yet to have a chance to perform at the top level while underpaying our very best players.

The result – a lot of overpaid undermotivated underperformers dragging down a number of underpaid undermotivated stars and potential stars.

Until this is adequately addressed I think this is the very best we can hope for – a team in perpetual transition where half the team is really really good and half the team is too far behind. My guess is we could have England’s top defense in three years but have a far poorer attack as we will not be able or willing to keep our best attacking players for the wages they will want and have earned at that point. I’m not saying we will have that good a defense but I can see it and then being undone because we can’t score more than 50 or 55 goals

[Jumpers For Goalposts]

For all the arguments about "Wenger should spend some money" - nobody can say with any certainty that spending millions on more experienced players would've put us level with or even ahead of Man Ure and the Chavs.

BUT - what everyone can see with absolute certainty is that the current squad show no signs whatsoever of getting anywhere near Man Ure and the Chavs so why the f**k does Arsene persist with all the dead-wood like Almunia / Diaby / Eboue?

The reason that most of us get pissed off is that we keep watching the same mistakes over and over and over again. On that score NO-ONE can defend Arsene and the mystery for me is that people try to defend him.

[augie]

Just out of curiousity how many players went out after the final whistle yesterday to show their appreciation to the fans ? Watched it briefly yesterday and I thought, but stand to be corrected, that every last one of them scuttled down the tunnel at breakneck speed What that tells me is that when we win eboue is quick to come out and take the acclaim of the fools who have made him a cult hero ( ) but when we lose he ducks out to avoid any responsibility

[Arsenal Till I Die]

Eboue is just a *word censored* anyway.

Thats all I really got on that one.....

[Bring Back Pires]

REALIST's BRAIN:



ROSETINTER's BRAIN:

[Jumpers For Goalposts]

Just out of curiousity how many players went out after the final whistle yesterday to show their appreciation to the fans ? Watched it briefly yesterday and I thought, but stand to be corrected, that every last one of them scuttled down the tunnel at breakneck speed What that tells me is that when we win eboue is quick to come out and take the acclaim of the fools who have made him a cult hero ( ) but when we lose he ducks out to avoid any responsibility

No-one Augie - not one of the lazy f**kers!! No applause, no waves - nothing!!

Most of them couldn't get off the pitch quick enough. As I've said before I had a cracking seat yesterday right behind the main TV cameras and most of them looked as if their minds had already moved onto "ooh which club are we all heading for tonight".

[marcengels]

- re BBP