Bendtners Drinking Buddy wrote:I have been critical of the club and team this season as have most, but what are you basing your sentiments of "we will bottle it" on.Blood_Gooner wrote:Can see our timid lot bottling this one....
Lucky if we come away with a draw. Really a pathetic setting when you support a supposed big club, but have to be so wary of them getting a much needed result against a pub team.
That clueless defeatist of a manager can't leave soon enough.
We are in very good form and now he has had the guts to drop the weak link in defence, our full backs are fit and we have compitition for places in midfield and upfront we are playing well - even Tuesday, whilst a win would have been ideal we aquitted ourselves against a very good team well.
It seems that some are going to be getting the knives out if we dont qualify for the CL, or if we do (least we should expect blah blah).
We need to be in the top four, being out of it will hold us back further from the top level team we all want - will a decent manager come to a Europa team? Will decent players? Will we ever compete at the top level again if we have to play Thursday-Sunday....already a proven hinderence for the teams in it, with extra games in Neverland? Will we enjoy never having a game on a Saturday?
The answers to all of the above are debateable, but what isnt, is that we shouldnt write off the short term thinking we will benefit in the long run. IF we make the top four it will be a reasonable acheivement - given all but two clubs would cut their bollcks off at the moment to get there proves that fact. Is it enough? No, but given who these season has panned out it will be something to be a little bit proud of, albeit nothing to shout from the rooftops over.
How we then go forward is a different matter, but right now, for the next few weeks we need to get behind the squad because we all actually want the same thing - an Arsenal team competing for trophies again. Finishing 5th will do nothing but prolong the wait - can we compete in the cups with 20-25 extra games?
To answer that question I will point you to victims FC cos being out of champs league didn't prevent them signing the buck toothed rabbit from Uruguay and he is miles better that any signing we have made in the last few seasons.
A far more relevant comparison though is with the scum from the swamp - has being in the Europa lge prevented them from progressing ? In recent seasons their purchases have been of a better quality than our's despite no champs league football. Despite what the red tops would have you believe last summer, the scum have secured themselves one of the best up and coming managers in European football so again I have to say that thurs nite football hasn't altered their standing in European football.
One of the debates I frequently have with lefty (when he is being nice
) is regards to how we are viewed by potential sponsors when our trophy less run continues and our top players continue to leave us - he argues that our standing in the game is such that we will always have big companies wanting to be associated with us so if that is true then shouldn't the same apply to top players ? While I understand what he is saying I still don't think that it is as straightforward as that - these things normally come down to money and I would suggest that we could still attract top players (not under wenger's regime of course) but we would probably have to pay more in wages than anyone else to get them which is something similar to our sponsorship deals where we could still attract big companies but our asking price would be lowered to get them on board.
