THE WENGER THREAD

[Arse 'n' Nose]

Dont worry help is at hand:

A hunt for a development partner to deliver 662 student beds across two schemes close to Arsenal Football Club's Emirates stadium, N7, has been launched after planning permission was granted this week.

The CZWG-designed projects have an estimated combined development value of around £100m. They are a 450-bed, 25-storey tower at 45 Hornsey Road, owned by Ashburton, Arsenal's property arm, and a 212-bed, 12-storey building at 295 Holloway Road, owned by Chartgold and Stadium Capital Holdings.

An unexpected cash windfall to help fund desperately needed squad aquisitions

or

Another handy little deposit into the PHW & cronies armagnac & cigar account

VOTE NOW...

[skizz_b]

1000 posts later, has anyone's opinion changed?

[highburyJD]

our opinions are probably surprisingly similar
CONS: Wenger is tactically poor and bad at influencing the game - always has been
PROS: he's good at finding players and improving them

I think his positives can still outweigh his negatives.
Anyone totally denying his positives is allowing irritation to over-ride reality.
Wenger is so bad tactically that if it wasn't for his ability to manage players we'd be relegation fodder.

[I Hate Hleb]

1000 posts later, has anyone's opinion changed?

Now that's a radical proposition: Someone changing their mind based on the arguments!! If life was that simple we'd all live in a better world in which I was King!!

[highburyJD]

Hleb's right
(except I would be king)



stop distracting me from work

[SteveO 35]

I'd like to ask a very simple question to anyone still in defence mode with Wenger.

Do you think we are a better team now than in 2008 ?

Personally I think we're miles behind that side. Yes, the side that he said were only 1%-2% away and that actually put up a decent title fight until late into the season.

If the answer to that question is yes, then I'd like to know how you reach that judgement. Personally I think the answer is overwhelmingly 'no' and on that basis what has he been doing for the past 4 years? Without a shadow of doubt the club is in a much better financial position than it was back then too with vast swathes of debt repaid.

My basic argument in favour of any manager is 'have they progressed the club they have worked at'. O'Neill did it repeatedly wherever he worked, and Moyes continues to do it at Everton. We are not doing it.

[highburyJD]

we don't look as good as we were then - at the moment we dont have a single player as good as WorldClass Fabregas
the 'replacement' for him is Wilshere (Tets, Jack & Santi sounds dreamy)
He'll have to hit the ground running if we want to get near the form of Arsenal '08 awesome till March
narrative is that team fell to bits when Eduardo got injured (end of Feb)
its worth remembering March is when RVP returned,
his only impact seemed to be to make Greedybarndoor stop running.

to win things, come winter you need your backups to perform, to fight for you
Wreh did it for us in '98 you don't have to be the greatest player, just have heart and some luck

we can still win something this year, we won nothing in '08

[AFC(BSM)Jones]

How on earth did we go from being invincible to the pile of crap that we currently have on the pitch, some of whom are not fit to wear the Arsenal badge?
Wenger has been found out. His man managerial abilities have to be called into question. He lacks the tactical prowess, and is more bothered about philosophy than results.
At the start of the summer we were promised signings, yet who have we signed? Another half-rate striker from the French league, and two youth players.
Wenger needs to buy quality, but is too scared to invest and and in doing so admit that his half baked vanity project has not worked.
Unless we get a new manager and move Wenger upstairs/out, things will never improve.

"But he's won things before" - yes, but that was building on George Grahams defence, which he's still not come close to replacing.

[highburyJD]

"But he's won things before" - yes, but that was building on George Grahams defence, which he's still not come close to replacing.

I can see the argument of your post, but this last quoted bit is wrong
The Invincibles team was a 100% Wenger defence. The GG players were to some extent squad rotation options in '02.

[northbank123]

Anybody who can't see that Wenger's early success was facilitated by Graham's defence is frankly blind. That said, the defence certainly by 2004 didn't have Graham's stamp on it whatsoever, and while Wenger obviously benefited from being able to ease players like Cole into the team alongside great defenders in the heady days of 2002-04 we had a solid defence and Wenger deserves credit for that. Lehmann, Lauren, Campbell, Toure and Cole were all dependable and were assembled for relatively little expenditure.

Hard to pinpoint exactly where he completely disregarded defensive coaching and decided that tactical discipline was no longer important at Arsenal but we went from conceding 26 goals in 2004 to 36 in 2005 while Chelsea conceded 15. We haven't had a defence at any time since capable of challenging for the league, to be honest it comes down to the same old stubbornness of Wenger to replace genuine quality with cheap imitations. Clichy for Cole, Gallas for Campbell, Almunia for Lehmann, regardless of whether or not those players needed to be moved on for whatever reason we replaced them with shite.

I actually can't remember Ashley Cole playing for us whatsoever despite having a season ticket for his entire career with us. Guess I'm so used to seeing fucking shite defenders that I've forgotten what a genuinely world class one in an AFC shirt looks like.

[highburyJD]

Anybody who can't see that Wenger's early success was facilitated by Graham's defence is frankly blind.

which is why none of have heard anybody say that anywhere ever...
In Cole's shaky first season at Chelski Clichy was actually the better player
Gallas was very good in 2008 - when we blew up post Eduardo it was Greedybarndoor and RVP's failure to score any goals that hurt us not defensive lapses. We seemed to draw 1-1 or lose 1-0.

When Almunia came in for Lehman personally I was calling for a change
that was the start of the first shot goes in issue, that we have never overcome

[northbank123]

Didn't have a problem with giving Clichy and Almunia chances and I actually thought Gallas would be a great signing. The problem was that they all fell well short of expectation yet were first choice until 2010/2011.

[highburyJD]

Clichy and Gallas had both excellent and poor form
actually thought Gallas was at his worst was OK, was Clichy that had the big individual errors.

Almunia was the inexplicable one. Lehman played badly and deserved to be dropped
Then Almunia was bad and Lehman came in - fine these things happen
Yet somehow several seasons later we were relying on players, in arguably the key position on the pitch, who had demonstrated they were not good enough.

Almunia would be OK, then make huge throbs in big games (particularly v ManUre)
his best games were when we got battered - 1-0 at OT in the CL and 2-2 v Barca at home spring to mind
and we went out of both those ties so were ultimately useless

Manuel was apparently a nice lad, well-liked, good trainer etc etc - he demonstrated he wasn't good enough for us
and IMO was given far too many chances. One of Wenger's biggest fails.

[Clash]

Clichy and Gallas had both excellent and poor form

Almunia was the inexplicable one. Lehman played badly and deserved to be dropped
Then Almunia was bad and Lehman came in - fine these things happen
Yet somehow several seasons later we were relying on players, in arguably the key position on the pitch, who had demonstrated they were not good enough.

Almunia would be OK, then make huge throbs in big games (particularly v ManUre)
his best games were when we got battered - 1-0 at OT in the CL and 2-2 v Barca at home spring to mind
and we went out of both those ties so were ultimately useless

Manuel was apparently a nice lad, well-liked, good trainer etc etc - he demonstrated he wasn't good enough for us
and IMO was given far too many chances. One of Wenger's biggest fails.

Agree with most of that. It was clear early on that Almunia was 2nd rate. About the same time Shay Given was available for £5m I think. Criminal management!

[northbank123]

Gallas wasn't dreadful his whole time at Arsenal but he still played longer than he should have. That game where Villa spanked us 2-0 at the Emirates just after Christmas 2009 I think was fucking embarrassing with him and Silvestre centre back (unless I'm mistaken). Right pair of carthorses.

For me Clichy got progressively worse after that 4-4 draw with Spurs (as did Almunia), but I'm not sure I'd ever say his form was excellent. Repeatedly got skinned far too easily, regularly guilty of playing strikers onside by failing to hold a line and often positionally not to be seen. Add to that his poor crossing and complete lack of goals and assists and I have to question when his form was excellent?