xisstential wrote:I wonder why we care so much?? We cannot win it, we just cannot, we are nowhere near good enough. We have the same chance as WBA winning the PL. The only way, and I mean the ONLY way, anything will change at the club is through finances. Kroenke doesn't love Arsenal, he doesn't even love football. He doesn't give a flying fuck whether we win anything or not. Arsenal is a business and CL is the target set for Wenger. Deliver that year in and year out for the least amount of outlay and Wenger will be handsomely rewarded. The fans can go swing. So if Wenger gets punished & Kroenke gets pi$$ed then lets crash out of it. We not going to win it so the earlier we go out of it the better. And if we miss out on that Spursday night shit as well that will be an added bonus. Can you imagine us in that anyway, Wenger will treat it like he treats the Capital One Cup.
Exactly right mate and the reason why I don't give a shit about this competition and haven't done now for at least the past six or seven years. I was there for the final in 2006 and at that time it felt fantastic - we still had a collection of world class players, the club had taken the decision to move in order to "compete with Europe's elite" and although our manager had let the invincibles start to break up we retained Henry that Summer (and at the time Europe's finest) and had the likes of Cesc breaking through.
The subsequent departure of Europe's best left back for cry baby Gallas and a bag of conkers then paved the way for what have been the darkest days for me as an Arsenal fan (2007-2013) where we as good as told any club who fancied it that they could pick off our best talents for sweet FA. The manager then tried to turn us into the Spain of club football with players like Denilson, Bendtner, Wally, Eboue, Hleb and a whole series of other no marks......before the crowning glory of letting Diarra, Gilberto and Flamoney all leave together and replacing them with Ramsey and Coquelin who spent years trying to be anywhere near effective
However, the current owner is what has really done it for me. Nearly 10 years on from the stadium move we've seen the net debt in the balance sheet become negligible, we've heard how money is always available to the manager, we've heard about these wonderful new commercial deals that we've now benefitted from, we've heard about the realisation of large chunks of the club's property portfolio which has created millions in cash.......and what for? A club that still claims it can't find a single outfield player to improve the squad. A club that has still done nothing to help out with ticket prices that are amongst the most expensive in world football. An owner who turns up once a year, mumbles some shit at the AGM about their commitment to the club and its supporters......blah blah fucking blah.
So I've gone from the CL being a competition I once loved, where we were underdogs and revelled in it.....to one where we are supposedly (up until this year) one of the seeded teams with an ambition to supposedly compete with Europe's elite...but who can't beat any of them over 2 legs or even mighty Monaco. The club and in particular this absolute James Hunt of an owner have no such interest in competing with Europe's elite (apart from when it comes to setting ticket prices).....so why the fuck should we?
Personally I disagree with Augie. I hope we finish 3rd and have the dubious honour of wandering round Europe's outposts on a Thursday night. The competition is supposedly loss making right up until the final for any self respecting big club so perhaps Wiggy will sit up and take notice for once, whilst TO1AW will have to put up with tons of Sunday matches - good fucking job.
) and Giroud copped it in the face 
