CAN YOU STILL DEFEND WENGER????

[augie]

Whether or not their opinions or valid or not it is their honest opinions and should not allow themselves to be spoken down to just bacause someone else disagrees with them
FFS one member even took offence at being told to go support his local team after he starting the whole thing by telling fans to fcuk off and support citeeh or the chavs - you really couldnt make it up

So if someone tells me to go support Southampton am I supposed to not allow myself to be spoken down to, or take offence I'm not sure
The problem with me is it's black and white. We aint signed any players so if you think this is a mistake you are well within your rights to share that oppinion. But I can't belive that people want AW out if we don't win the league. So every year 1 manager stays and the manager of Chavs, Manure, City, Pool, Spuds, Villa etc etc should get the sack. They all spend more than us so their fans should expect to win it. ONLY ONE TEAM CAN WIN IT. So I can't get depressed about not winning it every year. I went to my first Arsenal game in 1985 and since then I think I have been lucky to see us win a few trophies. If we all had the same attitude as some on here I would be a masive depresant cos of all the years we didn't win anything. I did admit yesterday that telling people to fuck off and support City was wrong of me. But if all people are interested in is winning then they are glory hunters and maybe this aint the right team for them.

Southampton Gooner my total frustration at our club is not about whether we win or not - I can accept not winning trophies but what I cannot ever accept is the apparent surrender by the club. It appears to many fans that winning is no longer a viable target for the board and as such are happy just to finish 4th I will always be willing to support the club and team through perceived failure as long as I felt that everything possible was being done by all those concerned to bring success to our club. Clearly this isnt the case in so so many aspects but the main 2 areas being the total lack of investment in the team and squad by the board and the unwillingness of the manager to spend any money at his disposal

You have every right to get pissed if somebody was telling you to fcuk off and support the saints (although I do think it was a comment made in jest though) but the point I was making was that it was a a bit rich for you to get pissed at the comment after suggesting something similar to other members. I do believe that one of the most annoying things said on here for any member is when the support for the club is being questioned and being told to fcuk off to some other club. Anyway you have since admitted you were wrong in your earlier comments and apologised to those offended so that issue is now put to bed.

To get back to your whole "winning" arguement I want to finish up by saying this - I started supporting The Arsenal in the mid 70's and from that time until wenger joined we were always hated for our "style of football" and our boring tactics. However during that time we had some wonderful periods of success (mainly under GG) and we absolutely loved it. I would say that because everybody else hated us it made the winning all the sweeter and we did not care whether the glory came from lovely flowing football or from route one football with a sprinkling of lucky goals mixed in cos we were the top dogs and that was all that mattered There are many older than me on this forum and they will also tell you that we were always known as boring Arsenal but the winning made all that irrelevant to Gooners everywhere and I believe to this day most of the older fans will admit that they would rather see a winning Arsenal team than a potless Arsenal team year after year. Nowadays all we seem to be winning is stadium awards and that is not enough for a club of this size

[Kevinho]

After this shocking debacle can you still really defend Wenger? Surely it is getting harder now?

Certainly more questions about Wenger and the board are surfacing but I'll always try to defend our greatest ever manager.

This has been an almighty fuck up! You sell your two holding midfielders and don't replace one let alone both! You say you don't need a striker but then it comes into the open we chased Kalou!

This time last season Mathieu was on his way to Birmingham or Wigan or some such club. There weren't too many Arsenal fans who would have batted an eyelid then. Flamini had us over a barrel, being on a Bosman any club could have offered him a shitload more wages than we could. You'd hope, having answered our challenge to prove himself at Arsenal that he'd stay and continue his fine work with us but he chose not to. Wenger got the benefit of a Bosman when he took him from Marseille and was paid back this time.

Gilberto knew the over 30s rule and was seemingly told directly by Wenger that he would no longer be first choice. Again you'd hope that the player would be like DB10, Scholes & Giggs and accept that but the lure of being the highest paid player in Greece proved too much. I back Wenger for doing as much as he could without allowing the players to take the piss. In summary here Wenger knew that Denilson and Diaby were waiting in the wings in case one or both Flamini/Gilberto left. In fact if Diaby had played this season would any of us be even thinking of Chavvy Alonso?

The Kalou thing is just bizarre, was Wenger genuinely spooked by Adebayor leaving? Was Scolari simply bullshitting? Can't really comment on that one.

Sorry we are becoming a joke, a joke because our long trusted manager is clutching at straws and bullshiting ot hide it and a joke because we refuse to move with the times!

I trust that Wenger is a man of his word. I get this impression because he has never broken a contract himself. I genuinely believe he believes in the policy of buying and creating great players from youngsters, adding the occasional top class experienced player now and then but the finances right now are preventing that. Instead of a "joke" I commend Wenger and the board for sticking to the plan they first envisioned back in 2001 when no football fan had heard of Abramovich, DIC, Hicks, Gillett et al.

Carry on and we will be the Arsenal of 1985 making 10th spot very quickly believe me!

If transfers happen in the same manner next season I'll be more inclined to think something's badly wrong but for now I'll see how this season pans out.

[the playing mantis]

diabys not a DM like gilbert or flam

[Bergkamp95]

Of all the transfer windows this has to be the worst ever for Arsenal fans players stressing their desire that they want to play for Arsenal and Wenger taking no interst in them.
For God sake will somebody please think of the supporters.

[Natural Born Gooner]

One thing which has been metioned on threads before this summer was the role of our assistant manager Pat Rice.

Now, after calming down from last nights debacle of not strengthening, and taking some deep breaths (or Prozac, whatever helps), I do think some fresh input would be needed in this area; someone to positivley disagree over decisions, new ideas, someone who wants the push towards maybe taking the main job over when Wenger does decide to call it a day.

Ever the loyal servant to the club he has been, I do think Rice has become a "Yes" man to Arsene, not wanting to rock the boat, and seeing out the rest of his career in a cushy job. Maybe keep him on in a coaching role, probably with the youngsters.

[Kevinho]

diabys not a DM like gilbert or flam

Not sure Flamini is a pure DM like Gilbs, Makalele or Diarra. But Diaby is a Vieira-type box-to-box player (before anybody starts NO I'm NOT saying he is the same quality as PV4 at his best). He has the height requirement to address Wenger's concern at protecting the defence from the long ball through the middle and set-pieces. Whether he possesses the defensive nous I guess we'll find out.

[Kevinho]

One thing which has been metioned on threads before this summer was the role of our assistant manager Pat Rice.

Now, after calming down from last nights debacle of not strengthening, and taking some deep breaths (or Prozac, whatever helps), I do think some fresh input would be needed in this area; someone to positivley disagree over decisions, new ideas, someone who wants the push towards maybe taking the main job over when Wenger does decide to call it a day.

Ever the loyal servant to the club he has been, I do think Rice has become a "Yes" man to Arsene, not wanting to rock the boat, and seeing out the rest of his career in a cushy job. Maybe keep him on in a coaching role, probably with the youngsters.

I was thinking about this a few months ago; if Wenger were to leave could you see Rice or Primorac even being considered to take over? I couldn't. I agree, perhaps we need somebody as a No.2 who you could realistically see taking over if needed. Not as a threat to AW but somebody like a Carlos Queiroz for instance.

[Its Up 4 Grabs Now]

Agree entirely with NBG & Kevinho about Pat Rice and the need for an injection of new ideas and someone willing and able to challenge Wenger’s ideas from time to time. I have mentioned the idea before on other threads - albeit at the time I was trading puns with IHH regarding Wenger being constipated (“in need of a new number twoâ€

[Kevinho]

I used to think for a while that Paul Le Guen would come to us a No.2 and eventually take over from Arsene.

Considering what he done at Rangers and PSG perhaps that's not such a good idea right now.

[I Hate Hleb]

... If Wenger can keep hold of or major players and we continue to 'make' stars as opposed to buying them we can still compete with the silly money teams. This means Arsene can also consentrate on the top English youth in the country. As Chelsea, Man U & now Man city will be to busy buying the creme of the world which will hinder any youth programme & we'll continue to building the team of the world and complete with them.

Unfortunately it's more wishful thinking than anything else because the facts don't back-up that particular argument. All the clubs mentioned, as well as Liverpool, have a very strong youth programme in operation and are spending millions themselves on young players.

Man City have a very strong Youth Academy and won the Youth Cup last year; Liverpool won the previous two and like Man United have always invested in buying youngsters, and Chelsea have spent many millions already in the past three years snapping up most of the top English youngsters from other English clubs, as well as some from abroad. And judging from last night's reserve match against our youngsters, they are just as good as our boys.

So what if hardly any of them make it into their first teams - the same could be said for most of our lot. The point is that even if they have strong squads and plenty of money, those clubs are not just going to suddenly stand aside and let us buy all the world's best young players. Having probably learnt a thing or two from Wenger, they are going to be just as willing to buy kids in the hope of discover a future superstar.

Therefore I would suggest that if that is the main thing you're hanging your hat on for future Arsenal success, then I'm afraid you're more than likely going to end up very disappointed.

[xDAVEYx]

BRING BACK GEORGE GRAHAM!

there, i said it

[gus ceasar is a legend]

Firstly I have to say it is very disappointing to see people playing the "I'm a bigger Arsenal fan" card. None of us here will ever defect to another club. That's why we take the extra time out of our lives to post on here.......we love Arsenal too much.

I accept a lot of the facts raised in defence of Wenger and personally I believe he should be given more time to prove us wrong but every experiment has a cut off point. I think we all beieved that Wenger himself knew this experiment was failing and that a new ingredient or two had to be added. Why wouldnkt we believe this? Wenger himself echoed the same concerns as us at the end of last season.

When I asked if you can defend Wenger it was not asking about the man as a whole but more about various decisions he has made. If you had a personal question and answer session with Arsene what questions would you ask him with regards to the concerns that seem to be sweeping through most Gooners? I would ask....

1) It may well be that you did try and sign Alonso but a fee could not be agreed. Why if it is recognised universally we need a central midfield partner for Cesc did we put all our eggs in one basket and only try and sign this player at the last possible moment with no chance of conducting a Plan B? Yes it maybe that a better deal can be struck late on with the selling club but is the saving of a couple of million quid really of more benefit of getting the right player in to boost our already slim hopes?

2) How do you justify going into a season with two players with any real experience of playing central midfield, Cesc and a very raw Denilson? We all saw the strain put on Cesc last year and how in the second half of the season he fell away so why put even more burden on him this year?

3) You claimed that injuries and lack of experience in the squad cost us the title last year. Is the answer to this to lower squad numbers, buy players with no experience such as Bischoff who also come to us with a history of medical problems. Even Nasri has only just recovered from serious illness. At the start of last season we had a fit Eduardo and Rosicky but this season we start without these and massive concerns remain if these players will ever be able to cope with the rigours of English football. Why wasn't more depth drafted in to cover for players whose return is dubious?

Then I would look him in the eyes and ask.....

4) Can you hand on heart tell me that Arsenal can wim the Premier League or the Champions League with Emmanuelle Eboue playing central midfield? If he is that good in that position why when we had a very capable midfielder in Diarra playing right back did we not see Eboue being played in the centre last year? He wasn't injured at the time? Surely the Carling Cup games would have been ideal for Eboue to gain experience there even if it was at the expense of a French international being played out of position?

Those answers would do for me!

[26may1989]

Four very good questions Gus!

Being charitable, the handling of going after Inler and Alonso appears to have been fucked up - Wenger correctly identified the problem, and seems to have made firm attempts at getting one of those two players (I don't believe he was ever interested in getting Barry or de Guzman, and appears not to have gone after Veloso). The fact that we appear to have made a late bid for Alonso suggests this is not a case of Wenger saying "The kids are alright".

But why was the offer made so late, and, given our circumstances, why not just pay Liverpool over the odds? It's not like we do that often, but we have done it in the past (Wiltord).

I can't help thinking that the lack of a Director of Football or (dare I say it) David Dein has a part to play in this. Perhaps part of the reason is that Wenger was just too busy dealing with coaching, media etc to make the Alonso offer earlier. Difficult to believe, but Wenger does have some form in this area: he admitted making a too-late bid for Woodgate and he went for Carrick when Carrick had all but signed for Pompey (the resulting stall on that deal ultimately allowed Spurs to nip in and get Carrick). Even the successful signing of Silvestre appears to have been a last gasp affair.

It does underline that this pathetic situation at the club on executives can't go on. They need more than Wenger and Friar doing all the exec work. As been said ad nauseam, we need a Director of Football, a CEO and a Director of Finance, and now. Not the most glamorous of signings but fucking important, so Danny Fiszman, if you're reading this (which I understand you do from time to time), getting it fucking sorted.

I agree that we need to factor being able to rest Cesc into the season, his tiredness was clearly one of the factors that saw us drop off so badly in February. The reason we couldn't last year was an untimely injury to Denilson (something Ferguson acknowledegd as having a significant impact on our season). Our central midfield needs to be sufficiently functional to allow Cesc breathers once in a while. And we also need Denilson basically to be Cesc's understudy, not a flawed holding midfielder.

We look stronger on the flanks than last year, the CB options (while not perfect) look better and up front we look fine, with Vela coming in, Eduardo returning soon-ish and RvP starting in good form. It's just such a shame we've not replaced Flamini and are now exposed. Diaby, Song, Ramsey or even Eboue may yet do a Flamini and take off unexpectedly in the DM role, but it seems unlikely (even to Wenger apparently, hence the offers for Alonso and Inler). Making the best of a bad situation, we could try and get Stephen Appiah in. But frankly, we're now running risks with our season that we shouldn't have done.