THE WENGER THREAD

[SteveO 35]

Winning the Beer Cup would mean fuck all to me, and that's the only cup Wenger has any chance of winning.

Him signing a new contract on the back of a Beer Cup truimph would be sickening.

Agreed the League Cup is not enough

Not half as sickening as signing a new contract on the back of winning the newly formed virtual trophy that he created at the AGM. If it wasn't for West Brom's keeper putting in a performance of Fabianski standard on the final day of last season we wouldn't have even won the virtual trophy......and yet if we scrape into it once more, that would somehow be enough to justify a new deal rather than actually winning something ?

[flash gunner]

Winning the Beer Cup would mean fuck all to me, and that's the only cup Wenger has any chance of winning.

Him signing a new contract on the back of a Beer Cup truimph would be sickening.

Agreed the League Cup is not enough

Not half as sickening as signing a new contract on the back of winning the newly formed virtual trophy that he created at the AGM. If it wasn't for West Brom's keeper putting in a performance of Fabianski standard on the final day of last season we wouldn't have even won the virtual trophy......and yet if we scrape into it once more, that would somehow be enough to justify a new deal rather than actually winning something ?

Agreed and 'Virtual Trophy'

[DB10GOONER]

so we can dismiss Wenger's contribution in the CL groups, we get out of the groups because they're easy

There's lots said about his flaws: he can't buy players, can't develop young players, pays way too much money to existing rubbish players, has no tactical skill or ability to change the course of the match through substitutes.

I'm genuinely interested to know what posters here think Wenger IS good at...

Personally, I think he USED TO BE good at spotting the diamond in the rough. The Henry’s, the Anelka’s, the Pires’s, The Freddies, the Vieira’s, the Petit’s - and to a certain extent having faith and taking a chance on players that had either not performed at other clubs or been wrongly and prematurely written off like Bergkamp and Overmars and Kanu. Whatever we think of these players overall, at some point they all made huge contributions to the club’s success. I also think he was good at motivating those players and making them believe in their ability (which now ironically is one of our main problems with shit like Denilson, Flappy, Benny etc etc believing they are world beaters!!).

Your question “what posters here think Wenger IS good at...” (and the way you qualify it beforehand) implies that you might think because Wenger was once right on a lot of things, he must always be right and we must now always have faith in him even after he has been proven wrong in most things since those days. Not having a pop at you but it smacks of blind faith, head in the sand type belief.

Wenger was the best manager in the world for brief periods between 1997-98 and 2001-2004, but that Arsene Wenger is long gone. He has not kept up with developments in the game, refusing to move with the times and bull-headedly insisting in believing blindly in his own (now flawed) philosophy.

amazing what you can infer from “what do posters here think Wenger IS good at...”
it's a question FFS, a direct question (that not one person has answered incidentally)
WTF do you get "Wenger was once right on a lot of things, he must always be right and we must now always have faith in him" pure fantasy. Nobody has posted that anywhere, ever. DB10 I think of you as the rational, reasonable face of the WOB - I don't know where this particular flight of fancy has come from...

Here are a couple of my actual opinions, I've posted them (too) many times
1: A massive chunk of our wage bill is wasted on no-marks - obvious calls are Squillaci, Denilson, Chamakh, Bendtner, Park etc
2: Wenger has never (or rarely) really been able to change a game with substitutions
Neither of those are controversial (are they even disputable?)

But here's something that is also indisputable - we've qualified for the CL basically since Wenger arrived.
Many many teams have failed to do that, some have spent millions and millions AND STILL FAILED TO DO THAT
We should, and do, expect more. That doesn't make it realistic or logical to dismiss what we have achieved.

My question is how do we achieve it? If Wenger is as terrible as is made out here how do we do it?
Year after year, qualify for CL groups, get out of them.
We see many bigger clubs fail to do it, super clubs in the UEFA or dropping out of CL at group stage.
Dismissing top 3/4 Prem and getting out of the groups is bizarre. A manager as bad as Wenger is painted simply could not do that.

Also saying its because opposition are rubbish is meaningless. We dont chose the opposition.
The Liverpool Alonso/Gerrard/Torres team might win the league most years
but they didn't.
Porto got an easy run through the CL after they robbed ManUre. So what they won it.

Christ. Here we go... Firstly, I don’t have the time to get into one of your “break the argument up into a hundred quotes” type posts so I’ll address the main points in one go.

Anyway, note the use of the word “implies”. I’m stating what “impression” your post gives. I’m not saying it is fact. But it is a fact that most AKB’s (for want of a better term) use the stock argument of “Well, look what Arsene did back in 1998, how can anyone doubt him”. If you read your post again with an unbiased eye you might see how it can give that impression.

Secondly I answered your question. He USED to be good at several things. He is NOW not good at anything tbh. He has no idea about tactics, he hasn’t turned up a true diamond in the rough in years, he rewards average and poor players with pay rises etc etc etc. He doesn’t seem to be able to man-manage or motivate players to an extent where our best players actually want to stay and play for him. The calibre of players that have asked and demanded to leave (and then left) in the last 3 years alone confirms that.

You ask how we get out of the group stages. Again, because we are average in Europe and many teams are below average in the group stages. THAT is the qualifying criteria. If the CL reverted back to champions only we wouldn’t even be in it, and if we were, we wouldn’t get past the first or second round. The opposition being rubbish is NOT meaningless. It’s the most meaningful thing about this argument. The facts speak for themselves; we beat the shit teams but we struggle to perform against the better teams. The quality of opposition is everything.

I’m NOT dismissing what Arsene has achieved, but I am qualifying it.

One can’t say Wenger is a great manager because (let’s say in the PL) we beat relegation fodder and then get hammered by the top teams. A top manager wins both kinds of games. Similarly, getting out of the CL group stages is the absolute minimum we should expect, not an indicator of unbridled success.

The Liverpool reference is a tad bizarre. There is not one pundit/fan/anybody in their right mind that would think that that Liverpool side would win ONE PL never mind several – they always only had 2 or 3 world class players, the rest were average or poor.

Porto winning the CL was a bizarre result, the kind football throws up once in a blue moon – like Brum beating us in a cup final. Most pundits etc have commented on that CL year as bizarre. It was the one year the big teams didn’t turn up en masse when it mattered, but also in fairness to Moron-hio, he did a GG in alot of games and used very negative tactics to grind out results.

[OneBardGooner]

Mr Arsenal interview on talkshyte:

http://www.talksport.co.uk/sports-news/ ... ing-184106

He tells it like it is.....

[Herd]

I Herd the next step in the Arsenalfication of The Bowl will be an installation of a Massive Picture of the Arsenal Board Throbbing Members, Squatting over Block 6 and shitting large amounts of Kaka onto the fans below who eagerly reach upwards like flowers to the Sun to receive the blessings from on High !

[flash gunner]

I Herd the next step in the Arsenalfication of The Bowl will be an installation of a Massive Picture of the Arsenal Board Throbbing Members, Squatting over Block 6 and shitting large amounts of Kaka onto the fans below who eagerly reach upwards like flowers to the Sun to receive the blessings from on High !

Sounds like a Banksy creation

[OneBardGooner]

Come the revolution we'll burn the feckers at the stake!.

[armchair]

Is this the kinda thing you're talking about.......................?

[Vinny1967]

personally I don't think Wenger will sign without us winning an (actual) trophy

I don't think he will stay either JD if he doesn't win the League.

[Top Londoner]

Is this the kinda thing you're talking about.......................?

APOCALYPSE? Say it ain't so bruvver.

[northbank123]

I still fundamentally can't believe that we are a team that hasn't got near winning any trophy except the Mickey Mouse Trophy (ONCE) in years yet in that time we've played the same formation and tactics EVERY SINGLE GAME. It's insanity.

[SteveO 35]

I still fundamentally can't believe that we are a team that hasn't got near winning any trophy except the Mickey Mouse Trophy (ONCE) in years yet in that time we've played the same formation and tactics EVERY SINGLE GAME. It's insanity.

Yes but sometimes we do make a change after 68 minutes rather than waiting till the clock strikes 70. Now that's the kind of genius one can only expect from the Coach of the Decade

[mcdowell42]

I still fundamentally can't believe that we are a team that hasn't got near winning any trophy except the Mickey Mouse Trophy (ONCE) in years yet in that time we've played the same formation and tactics EVERY SINGLE GAME. It's insanity.

Yes but sometimes we do make a change after 68 minutes rather than waiting till the clock strikes 70. Now that's the kind of genius one can only expect from the Coach of the Decade

66 MINS IN THE QPR GAME

[officepest]

Please resign.

[Top Londoner]

Okay, gotcha Quartz. Thanks.