THE WENGER THREAD

[Chippy]

Imo this thread is pretty pointless at this stage of the season, if I'm for or against what difference does it make? He's hardly going to be sacked mid season and surely even the most die hard WOBs can see that you don't sack your manager when you're top of the league half way through a season? This thread is like 24hr rolling news

Judge him in may

A few seconds of reflection and analysis should lead you to the conclusion that everything on this forum is pointless!

[northbank123]

Imo this thread is pretty pointless at this stage of the season, if I'm for or against what difference does it make? He's hardly going to be sacked mid season and surely even the most die hard WOBs can see that you don't sack your manager when you're top of the league half way through a season? This thread is like 24hr rolling news

Judge him in may

Well the thread is pretty pointless at any stage of any season seeing as he's never going to be sacked.

[kiwomya]

Top of the league, best defensive record, still in the CL, the most points in the calendar year... Seems AW is doing better than a lot of people care to admit...

Where's the trophies? Those stats are essentially worthless.

That doesn't even make sense! How are they worthless? The season hasn't finished so what trophies do you want? The World Club Cup?

[BFG4]

Wengers had a couple of bad seasons but, points per game he's comfortably the best Arsenal manager of all time.
We're currently top of the league because we have a great manager. He's made mistakes, but realistically, he provides us the best chance of winning trophies in the next two or three seasons. I honestly wouldn't swap him for any other manager in world football.

Eight years, no trophies, constantly selling our best players, creating the delusion of fourth place being an achievement, and this, in your opinion means that Wenger has had only a couple of bad seasons
Also, when it comes to it, Wenger will not buy the players we need to stay top at the end of the season, though if your happy with him, then good for you.

[MrT]

Top of the league, best defensive record, still in the CL, the most points in the calendar year... Seems AW is doing better than a lot of people care to admit...

Where's the trophies? Those stats are essentially worthless.

That doesn't even make sense! How are they worthless? The season hasn't finished so what trophies do you want? The World Club Cup?

They're worthless because they hold no weight until you win silverware, novel concept that isn't it?

AKBs parrot all these meaningless stats but the one they conveniently gloss over is the fact we haven't won fuck all in 8 years and counting.

[gavbacon]

Top of the league, best defensive record, still in the CL, the most points in the calendar year... Seems AW is doing better than a lot of people care to admit...

Where's the trophies? Those stats are essentially worthless.

Not to the stats boys - they create their own trophies while the rest of us have to wait for the real silver ones.

Surely the stats mean that we're not that far off. We don't have a right to win trophies, believe it or not!

[clockender1]

i'm not bothered about the not winning trophies - its the shite results every year i mind - Villa, Napoli, Bradford, Blackburn, Schalke, Norwich, Swansea, plus the constant long injury list, the lack of tactical changes, the lack of flexibility over subs, the insistence of playing strikers out wide "to learn to take people on" and all that bollocks.

and then look at the 30 million we wasted on wages for Djourou, Bendtner, Denilson, Senderos etc etc

I think we are overpaying to watch a decent team with a below average manager.

[gavbacon]

i'm not bothered about the not winning trophies - its the shite results every year i mind - Villa, Napoli, Bradford, Blackburn, Schalke, Norwich, Swansea, plus the constant long injury list, the lack of tactical changes, the lack of flexibility over subs, the insistence of playing strikers out wide "to learn to take people on" and all that bollocks.

and then look at the 30 million we wasted on wages for Djourou, Bendtner, Denilson, Senderos etc etc

I think we are overpaying to watch a decent team with a below average manager.

I actually agree with most of this, bar the not winning.trophies comment and AW being a.below.average manager.

EVERY manager makes bad signings... I just.hope we've turned a corner in that regard.

[OneBardGooner]

Imo this thread is pretty pointless at this stage of the season, if I'm for or against what difference does it make? He's hardly going to be sacked mid season and surely even the most die hard WOBs can see that you don't sack your manager when you're top of the league half way through a season? This thread is like 24hr rolling news

Judge him in may

A few seconds of reflection and analysis should lead you to the conclusion that everything on this forum is pointless!

Especially the Mods!

[clockender1]

i'm not bothered about the not winning trophies - its the shite results every year i mind - Villa, Napoli, Bradford, Blackburn, Schalke, Norwich, Swansea, plus the constant long injury list, the lack of tactical changes, the lack of flexibility over subs, the insistence of playing strikers out wide "to learn to take people on" and all that bollocks.

and then look at the 30 million we wasted on wages for Djourou, Bendtner, Denilson, Senderos etc etc

I think we are overpaying to watch a decent team with a below average manager.

I actually agree with most of this, bar the not winning.trophies comment and AW being a.below.average manager.

EVERY manager makes bad signings... I just.hope we've turned a corner in that regard.

gav - the reason i think he is below average is because he repeats the same mistakes every year and doesn't learn from them. In many occupations he would have been warned and fired by now, or promoted sideways.

to not recognise your own failings and deal with your previous mistakes, makes you a D student, or below average in my work place - as it would in many others.

[kiwomya]

Top of the league, best defensive record, still in the CL, the most points in the calendar year... Seems AW is doing better than a lot of people care to admit...

Where's the trophies? Those stats are essentially worthless.

That doesn't even make sense! How are they worthless? The season hasn't finished so what trophies do you want? The World Club Cup?

They're worthless because they hold no weight until you win silverware, novel concept that isn't it?

AKBs parrot all these meaningless stats but the one they conveniently gloss over is the fact we haven't won fuck all in 8 years and counting.

Like I said in the post you quoted, the season hasn't finished. In order to win things the team clearly has to get better, which it has and the stats mentioned in the very first post apply.

Why do you seem so against any points making the team sound half decent?

[Steve_I]

i'm not bothered about the not winning trophies - its the shite results every year i mind - Villa, Napoli, Bradford, Blackburn, Schalke, Norwich, Swansea, plus the constant long injury list, the lack of tactical changes, the lack of flexibility over subs, the insistence of playing strikers out wide "to learn to take people on" and all that bollocks.

and then look at the 30 million we wasted on wages for Djourou, Bendtner, Denilson, Senderos etc etc

I think we are overpaying to watch a decent team with a below average manager.

I actually agree with most of this, bar the not winning.trophies comment and AW being a.below.average manager.

EVERY manager makes bad signings... I just.hope we've turned a corner in that regard.

gav - the reason i think he is below average is because he repeats the same mistakes every year and doesn't learn from them. In many occupations he would have been warned and fired by now, or promoted sideways.

to not recognise your own failings and deal with your previous mistakes, makes you a D student, or below average in my work place - as it would in many others.

But what is the 'average' for a premiership manager? Accepting that you feel the last 7+ years are 'not good enough' they are still, surely, well above the average for all of the managers over that period. Average would, I imagine, be mid table.

Saying not recognising your own failings is fair enough, but who ghas decided what these failings are? Is it not a subjective statement, made on your own interpretation of what his apparent/perceived 'failings' are?

[clockender1]

Why do you seem so against any points making the team sound half decent?

because we were watching the home loss and draw to a poor Chelsea side, the loss at OT to an even poorer ManU side, the capitualtion in naples, and the letting in of 6 against City too.

a half decent side does none of those things - a decent side wins all five games.

[MrT]

Top of the league, best defensive record, still in the CL, the most points in the calendar year... Seems AW is doing better than a lot of people care to admit...

Where's the trophies? Those stats are essentially worthless.

That doesn't even make sense! How are they worthless? The season hasn't finished so what trophies do you want? The World Club Cup?

They're worthless because they hold no weight until you win silverware, novel concept that isn't it?

AKBs parrot all these meaningless stats but the one they conveniently gloss over is the fact we haven't won fuck all in 8 years and counting.

Like I said in the post you quoted, the season hasn't finished. In order to win things the team clearly has to get better, which it has and the stats mentioned in the very first post apply.

Why do you seem so against any points making the team sound half decent?

I understand the season hasn't finished but my point was bringing up those stats count for nothing until we win something. It's just like finishing 2nd in the league but having the best defensive record, counts for fuck all.

I would sort of understand those stats if we had been consistently competing at a high level with the odd trophy here and there but we haven't on both fronts. I'm not against praising the teams efforts but to use those stats as some sort of vindication for Wenger when we are yet to win something for nearly 9 years is ridiculous.

[clockender1]

But what is the 'average' for a premiership manager? Accepting that you feel the last 7+ years are 'not good enough' they are still, surely, well above the average for all of the managers over that period. Average would, I imagine, be mid table.

Saying not recognising your own failings is fair enough, but who ghas decided what these failings are? Is it not a subjective statement, made on your own interpretation of what his apparent/perceived 'failings' are?

Hi Steve - its totally subjective i admit.

firstly, we pay the highest ticket price in football, we have the 4th highest paid manager in world football - don't you think we deserve better than average ?

secondly, consistently failing to beat the top clubs with our budget is not acceptable, nor is carrying 8-10 first team squad players injured with our resources, consistently failing to put the strongest team out when we need to - like to win our CL group, or in a cup game before the last 16 CL round, is a mistake we make every year.

consistently failing to prepare and practice set pieces, both for us and against us is not good enough, zonal marking is not good enough, playing central players out wide - cazorla, pod and walcott & playing wide players in the center - forehead etc is not good enough.

and its not like any of this is new - nor is the pre-planned subs on 70 minutes regardless of how the game is going, or the introduction of young players into games - if pod goes down sick tonight, we start Gnabry who has had one start. one....

therefore given that these mistakes have been happening for 3-4 years at least, and the budget and resources available to him, Wenger is doing a below average job imho.

I throughly believe that with this squad, and our budget and resources that Laudrup, McKay, Rodgers and even AVB could do better than what we are getting.