THE WENGER THREAD

[northbank123]

The injuries excuse is such an easy one to throw about. As I've said before, our lack of really stand-out players and poor strength in depth mean that many people consider us to have 8+ key players, as opposed to 2-4 for other teams. The spine of our team has had very few injuries - you can bet that if Ramsey and Ozil had been fit but any of Szczesny, Koscielny, Mertesacker or Giroud had had a few injuries you would bemoan our terrible injury luck. Even looking beyond Wenger's clumsy hand in these, it"s his responsibility to ensure that the squad doesn't fall apart with a few injuries.

[armchair]

Another one to add to the "Wenger supporters big book of excuses".............

Steve Bould is responsible for the crushing defeats while Wenger seems to have no accountabilty whatsoever except for.......oh yea, the remarkable achievement of the top four trophy for a really long, long time....

Dont you think the quote button is an underused tool on here?

[armchair]

Wonder whose fault the 8-2 was? Or the 4-4? Or the embarrassing capitulations against so called lesser teams before Bouldy which cost us and turned many fans against himlong before this season. That must have been Pat Rices problem.
Cant have been Wenger obviously.

[Gunner Rob]

Come the Stamford Bridge fixture, he does a 180 and from the start plays a heavy pressing style that has barely been seen all season and we go 2-0 down before we've even realised the game's underway. The following goals weren't so much a result of tactical genius as they were ruthlessly exploiting the fact that our remaining squad was physically knackered, down to 10 men and missing crucial strength in midfield.

Mourinho did this because he saw how we set up at Anfield and just repeated the trick against us.
He didnt play like this in other games because he knew that NO OTHER premier league side would be so naive.

Why was our remaining squad so physically knackered?
the really top teams make sure that they always are able to play their top teams in the top matches.

This is the opposite for Arsenal - Wenger makes sure we win the easy games by playing the strongest teams for them - look at the line up v Coventry City for example and then compare with the team we had out in the semi final. We were VERY LUCKY that we only had to play a championship team at this stage.

The big matches are irrelevant for Wenger as long as we win the games that keep him in a job.
you can look back at the week we played Udinese in the CL qualifier and then sacrificed the game at Old Trafford as evidence for this.

We finished 4th place last season and we will finish 4th this season, but we also led the league for 4 months this season. So if we finish in 4th place then how can that be called progress? I call it regression.

Wenger is now 64, he will not change and has already admitted that we won't buy much this summer. So how can you be confident of further progress next season? You are a welcome addition to the forum in that you make some bold arguments and dont just agree with what the majority say on here but those arguments just dont stack up I'm afraid.

[rodders999]

Don't worry about tactics
'cause every little thing is going to be alright

Don't worry about 6 nil
'cause every little thing is going to be alright

Don't worry about the 3%
'cause every little thing is going to be alright

Don't worry about special cirumstances
'cause every little thing is going to be alright

Don't worry about accidents
'cause every little thing is going to be alright

Stick your head up your arse
'cause every little thing is going to be alright


Repeat ad nauseam

[Gunner Rob]

It's not like we can't or don't play defensively - we can and have. What happened in the three matches we're talking about was more like a complete loss of cohesion when badly surprised early on. That's not tactics - that's psychology. The 2-1 FA Cup result against LFC shows that we can learn from mistakes, and do a decent bit of countering ourselves. We're not the only top-4 team this season to have been caught out by an unnecessarily high defensive line either!

It would have been disappointing if Manchester City away had been a 1 off, but then we repeated the mistakes at Anfield. And then these same mistakes were repeated a month later v Chelsea.

so dont come on here saying that Wenger learns from his mistakes because he doesnt.

[TeeCee]

Why are poeple even giving the WUM any responses?

[armchair]

It's not like we can't or don't play defensively - we can and have. What happened in the three matches we're talking about was more like a complete loss of cohesion when badly surprised early on. That's not tactics - that's psychology. The 2-1 FA Cup result against LFC shows that we can learn from mistakes, and do a decent bit of countering ourselves. We're not the only top-4 team this season to have been caught out by an unnecessarily high defensive line either!

It would have been disappointing if Manchester City away had been a 1 off, but then we repeated the mistakes at Anfield. And then these same mistakes were repeated a month later v Chelsea.

so dont come on here saying that Wenger learns from his mistakes because he doesnt.

I posted this before but Wenger supporters like to look at each of Wengers, shall we say - mistakes/flaws/failings/seasons/transfer windows in isolation and try to explain them away or offer excuses and special circumstances each time. Individually. Completely disregarding the fact that its been going on for years. Like its strange and unavoidable. Then they say ridiculous things like Wenger will learn from his mistakes.

Yea lets judge him in May, or after the next window yet again. Problem is he'll have his big fat bumper contract by then and be complaining about dizzying prices in world cup year while our rivals strengthen.

[mcdowell42]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/ ... an-3516985

[Leyton Gooner]

"Gazidis stressed that since February the club did well only in the FA Cup and he is extremely disappointed with how the league campaign has turned out for us.

"He underlined that we have yet to seek the reasons for this failure"

Hmm, baffling isn't it, what could the problem be?

[armchair]

"Gazidis stressed that since February the club did well only in the FA Cup and he is extremely disappointed with how the league campaign has turned out for us.

"He underlined that we have yet to seek the reasons for this failure"

Hmm, baffling isn't it, what could the problem be?

At least theres a recognition in that quote that there has been "failure". Which is more than Wenger and his supporters will admit.

[Gunner Rob]

"Gazidis stressed that since February the club did well only in the FA Cup and he is extremely disappointed with how the league campaign has turned out for us.

"He underlined that we have yet to seek the reasons for this failure"

Hmm, baffling isn't it, what could the problem be?

I know, lets pay Wenger £8 million per year and find out

[Bradywasking]

"Gazidis stressed that since February the club did well only in the FA Cup and he is extremely disappointed with how the league campaign has turned out for us.

"He underlined that we have yet to seek the reasons for this failure"

Hmm, baffling isn't it, what could the problem be?

We can tell you Ivan..it's about being competitive and competing , it's about preparation, it's about regarding Champions League qualification as necessity and not achievement. Get your manager to look at other teams Ivan, especially when we are due to play them. Or get another manager that will do this.

[augie]

Why are poeple even giving the WUM any responses?

Baffling isnt it ? Most of these lads are on here long enough to recognise a wum too

[QuartzGooner]

Any manager worth their salt will allow for four or five key players being out at once.

In the same position and role? Give me a break! I'll make the point again :

"...take any two of Sturridge, Suarez, Henderson or Gerrard out of the LFC starting XI for a couple of months and they'd have been buggered. Same with Chelsea and Hazard, Eto'o and Lampard."

Do you think those teams could play remotely as well around losing those players for several months?

He is head of medical because he is the head man of the squad.

No, he's manager of the 1st Men's team. That does give him responsibilities in other areas, but he does have to delegate some things!

He can have the best medical team in the world, but he overplays players into injury, over and again.
Cesc, Van Persie, Wilshere, Ramsey - all have looked tired to the casual observer but Wenger has persisted in playing them into the red zone.

RVP's likely to be out the rest of the season with his current crocking, and last I checked, Man U weren't outsourcing their medical setup to the Emirates. Ramsey's injury was possibly down to being overplayed, which AW took responsibility for, but I was under the impression Wilshere broke his foot in the international friendly against Denmark.
Plus how many years has it been since Cesc wore an Arsenal strip in anger? This is old news...

10 years ago.
Based on a defence that knew what to do through it's accumulated experience of training and playing with George Graham's defence.

Parlour and Keown were the only defenders in that year's squad who had been there during the Graham years. A quick check tells me Keown only made 10 league appearances that year. Graham hadn't managed the club for the best part of a decade by that season. Now don't get me wrong - I grew up during the Graham years and remember a lot of it fondly, but it seems to be forgotten that he was fired mid-season for taking bungs and left in disgrace. I'm also old and ugly enough to remember the Wrexham debacle.

Your's is not.
Because no one has ever won anything playing the way you suggest.
On the contrary, we lost heavily to our rival challengers for the title.

Hold up - our theories were about the motivation for not providing pre-match dossiers - not about the relative merits of doing it versus not doing it!

In our great years under Wenger 2002 - 2004, we had improvisation up front, but we had solid defence and well organised central midfield because the players took control of thinks in spite of what their coaching was.

That only holds true if your theory is correct, which it may not be (and neither may mine). And again, Graham was sacked in February 1994. I doubt very much that Aw would have made no changes to the defensive play in that time.

He will be able to cast an eye over the games, and meet families and agents of players who are in the World Cup.

Awesome - something on which we agree! Didn't take that long...

wikipedia as a reliable source...come on must try harder, your giving yourself away now

The source for that paragraph is listed as : Conn, David (2005). The Beautiful Game?: Searching for the Soul of Football. London: Random House. ISBN 1-4464-2042-6.

1.) My point is that we should have a squad that can cope with inevitable injuries, but we do not.
That is Wenger's fault, so are some of the injuries.


2.) You are mistaken as to what a manager does.
He is in charge of players' fitness and health, and uses a medical team for this.
If they do not perform, it is his job to fire and hire them.

3.) All the players I mentioned were overplayed by Wenger or brought back too soon from injury.
Wilshere's recent foot injury is not what I was referring to.

4.) Wenger's defence trained with their direct replacements. This allowed accumulated knowledge to be passed on.
Wenger ha done little to add to this, plenty to detract from it.

5.) As for dossiers, my criticisms are relevant because players leave Arsenal feeling they have not been prepared by Wenger. They do not have faith in him.

You have faith in a manager that has not won the league in 10 years.
I do not.