THE WENGER THREAD

[armchair]

We've done "extraordinarily well".....

[Ed Hunter The Gooner]

We've done "extraordinarily well".....

Even if we were a liiiittlee biiiit jaadeed...

[SPUDMASHER]

Let's get off the plane thing and back to the topic.

Spuddy - I get and agree in the most part but "punching above our weight" I would have to question. In respect of funds, and who we're competing against (for top 4) can we really say that?

Financially without doubt.
We operate solely within revenues generated by our business. Citeh, Chavs, Manure, Liverpool have all received massive injections of cash from outside their own revenues. Even today they circumvent these rules by their parent company sponsoring them for ridiculous amounts of money. Our stadium is probably the best club owned football stadium within the UK and yet the sponsorship for it, even after deals have been re-negotiated, are a mere fraction of that for Eastlands.

Given what we are up against I think we do extraordinarily well. Especially when you see the cash that Tottenham have spunked away from their benefactor.

I'm prepared to criticise our manager and the club, I have no quarms about doing so, but I do think that we should all start to get a little perspective.

But even had Tottenham had a consistently significantly lower wage bill than us for the time when they were trying to get fourth. And we had the 3rd or 4th highest for almost all of the post Highbury time.

I think if financials are the argument then we did what was expected - If we can't compete for the title with City, Chelsea, Man Utd (and we didn't, not in a real way), then it hard to expect Everton, etc to overhaul us for third/fourth. I think that's perspective.

We are self-sustainable but I'm not sure I'm really proud of that anymore, knowing that it's the fans paying off the mortgage for someone else eventually to sell off the house, while ignoring much need renovation for years.

I agree with that 100%. It was something I was initially proud of but now I would rather the club took some of our oligarchs money. We'll never compete on real terms with those other clubs otherwise.

[SPUDMASHER]

Im not getting my hopes up though, TBH we have heard it all too often.

Can I add though

One Mr Spuddy Theres only one Mr Spuddy

That's also what Mrs Spuddy says just before climax (mine, not hers.......she doesn't have them unless she's been a good girl)

[Ed Hunter The Gooner]

Im not getting my hopes up though, TBH we have heard it all too often.

Can I add though

One Mr Spuddy Theres only one Mr Spuddy

That's also what Mrs Spuddy says just before climax (mine, not hers.......she doesn't have them unless she's been a good girl)

What a beast of a man

[OneBardGooner]

Tell em about the Butter Spuddy - tell em about the Butter!

[SPUDMASHER]

Tell em about the Butter Spuddy - tell em about the Butter!

The butter is resrved for "Special Date Nights"

[clockender1]

Here is a question for all the Wenger out brigade - who would you bring in that would do a better job? And be realistic, Pep Guardiola is not going to swap Bayern Munich for us.

well lets see - anyone who has tactically out thought wenger in the last 3 years perhaps ? - martinez, rodgers (twice - swansea AND liverpool), micheal appleton (blackburn), Phil Parkinson (bradford), Jens Keller (schalke), chris hughton(norwich), david moyes (united - unbeaten against Arsenal last year), Juergen Klopp (dortmund), Mark Hughes (stoke), rafa benitez (napoli), Paul Lambert (villa), laudrup (swansea), Ernesto Valverde ( olympiacos - twice).

i'm sure there's more.

and moyes excepted, not one single one of those opposition has our financial resources, 100million in the bank, and the talented squad we have.

so the difference ? - the tactics and preparation of the managers.

ours, is not good enough.

[SPUDMASHER]

Here is a question for all the Wenger out brigade - who would you bring in that would do a better job? And be realistic, Pep Guardiola is not going to swap Bayern Munich for us.

well lets see - anyone who has tactically out thought wenger in the last 3 years perhaps ? - martinez, rodgers (twice - swansea AND liverpool), micheal appleton (blackburn), Phil Parkinson (bradford), Jens Keller (schalke), chris hughton(norwich), david moyes (united - unbeaten against Arsenal last year), Juergen Klopp (dortmund), Mark Hughes (stoke), rafa benitez (napoli), Paul Lambert (villa), laudrup (swansea), Ernesto Valverde ( olympiacos - twice).

i'm sure there's more.

and moyes excepted, not one single one of those opposition has our financial resources, 100million in the bank, and the talented squad we have.

so the difference ? - the tactics and preparation of the managers.

ours, is not good enough.

So in other words, a list of games lost? Not what you would call a strong argument is it?


You forgot to mention that he also got the better of Martinez, Rogers etc. etc. etc.

I'm sure there's plenty more too and would probably lump Guardiola, Klopp and Benitez in there for good measure.

[Theoperator]

Oh please please not MArk Hughes, cant be far off Souness for awfulness, you cant really say you would prefer LAmbert or Hughton either would you .

Being serious why ever not add in all managers who have ever beaten us then

There are a few I would favour in the list, but putting Klopp in the same list as LAmbert Hughes and hughton destroys your case I would say.

[SPUDMASHER]

I can hear Gary Lineker pissing himself laughing on MOTD as he says "After the game I spoke to Arsenal Manager Phil Parkinson"

[clockender1]

So in other words, a list of games lost? Not what you would call a strong argument is it?

well it is when you consider the large number of games we lose each year to 'lower' opposition with less resources.

i mean, i left out the regular dicking we get from Chelsea, City and Bayern too on top of those.

I could of also added in the 120mins we couldn't beat Wigan too btw - uwe rosler.

my point is that a) wenger is incapable from learning from past mistakes and b) his tactical naivety and inflexibility makes us easy to beat even by "lesser" teams.

which for 8million a year is not good enough.

[Skooner]

So in other words, a list of games lost? Not what you would call a strong argument is it?

well it is when you consider the large number of games we lose each year to 'lower' opposition with less resources.

i mean, i left out the regular dicking we get from Chelsea, City and Bayern too on top of those.

I could of also added in the 120mins we couldn't beat Wigan too btw - uwe rosler.

my point is that a) wenger is incapable from learning from past mistakes and b) his tactical naivety and inflexibility makes us easy to beat even by "lesser" teams.

which for 8million a year is not good enough.

The last sentence is the key to the level of manager we can attract. Pep, Mourinho and maybe one or two others are not going to be tempted away as they are clubs in better positions than us and also get paid more. Pretty much everyone else is paid significantly less and is therefore at the very least likely to be tempted by such a huge salary and a pretty good transfer budget and wage bill to go with it. Simeone won the Spanish League and got to the CL final last year but I believe if we dangled all that in front of him he'd want to talk to us.

No new manager is guaranteed success if they join, but saying you don't know who we can get if we lose our current manager is not a reason to keep him in my opinion.

[SPUDMASHER]

But we don't lose "a large number of games" during the year.

Last year we lost to Villa, Stoke and Everton.
Everton are a decent side with a good manager. Admittedly shouldn't be losing there but it is hardly a disaster.
Stoke is widely recognised as a difficult place to go for all the so called big clubs. Admittedly our record there is not great and they appear to be our bogey team much like Bolton were a few years ago.
Villa was the first game of the season. We shouldn't lose to them and that is the one I'd be most disappointed about.

So that's three games lost apart from the top clubs.

Still not a strong argument is it?

It's a reality of life that sometimes you lose when you shouldn't. Did LVG become a shit manager midweek or did his team have an off night?

[clockender1]

But we don't lose "a large number of games" during the year.

Last year we lost to Villa, Stoke and Everton.

and Dortmund at home, Napoli away. and drew at home to Everton and an awful united side, and struggled to get past wigan and hull in the cup.

granted 2013/2014 was a small improvement on the disastrous 2012/2013 though.