As we're unlikely to see terraces again at football, this is the virtual equivalent where you can chat to your hearts content about all football matters and, obviously, Arsenal in particular. This forum encourages all Gooners to visit and contribute so please keep it respectful, clean and topical.
Rob wrote:One myth in all this needs to be nailed.
The fallacy that we paid 'boring' football under George and 'brilliant' football under Wenger.
Really ?
Anfield '89 boring ?
Copenhagen CWC boring ??
Winning the title in '91 losing only one game. Boring ?
Yes in his last 18 months it was poor fare.
Conversely, with Wenger we played 'brilliant' football when we had 'brilliant' players like Pires, Henry, TA, DB and Pat.
Did we really play 'brilliant' football last season ? The best football I saw was when Barca came to the Emirates. Trouble was it was Barca playing the brilliant football, certainly in the first hour.
Was it 'brilliant' football at Wigan and Blackburn and Spurs ?
Don't think so.
Like I said, 'brilliant' football requires 'brilliant' players and we are rather short on those right now.
Good shout Rob.
Some of our football under GG, especially at the start of his time, was great stuff. As you said, great players make great football.
I have found much of the last 2 season's football, well for want of a better word, tedious.
Rob wrote:One myth in all this needs to be nailed.
The fallacy that we paid 'boring' football under George and 'brilliant' football under Wenger.
Really ?
Anfield '89 boring ?
Copenhagen CWC boring ??
Winning the title in '91 losing only one game. Boring ?
Yes in his last 18 months it was poor fare.
Conversely, with Wenger we played 'brilliant' football when we had 'brilliant' players like Pires, Henry, TA, DB and Pat.
Did we really play 'brilliant' football last season ? The best football I saw was when Barca came to the Emirates. Trouble was it was Barca playing the brilliant football, certainly in the first hour.
Was it 'brilliant' football at Wigan and Blackburn and Spurs ?
Don't think so.
Like I said, 'brilliant' football requires 'brilliant' players and we are rather short on those right now.
Good shout Rob.
Some of our football under GG, especially at the start of his time, was great stuff. As you said, great players make great football.
I have found much of the last 2 season's football, well for want of a better word, tedious.
I think the exciting football ideal is more geared towards the technical level of the players, the passages of play, technique, chances created etc. rather than "exciting games" - Portsmouth v Hull was an "exciting game" this season.
The current Arsenal side are better in that department than any of GGs teams - purely because Wenger instils a different mentality in the team, and well, the players are technically better at football - a metality that probably would not have been succesful in the late 80s early 90s***
Very different times though, and very hard to compare in a fair manner.
*** mainly because they were all getting pissed up on Tuesday afternoons!
Bendtners Drinking Buddy wrote:I think the exciting football ideal is more geared towards the technical level of the players, the passages of play, technique, chances created etc. rather than "exciting games" - Portsmouth v Hull was an "exciting game" this season.
The current Arsenal side are better in that department than any of GGs teams - purely because Wenger instils a different mentality in the team, and well, the players are technically better at football - a metality that probably would not have been succesful in the late 80s early 90s***
Very different times though, and very hard to compare in a fair manner.
*** mainly because they were all getting pissed up on Tuesday afternoons!
Good points, although I don't think you can call out football "exciting". It's artistic, like the Tate gallery - I can appreciate what I see there but does it give me any wood? No
What this debate does show, is that we have had two very different era's at the club that were both exciting and succesful in their own right and reasonably close together.
Is that maybe the reason why this 5 year spell is evoking such strong emotions? If it is, toally understandable - but we need to realise we are not that hard done by really, even if it would be nice if a trophy came sooner rather than later.
Wenger will be here next season, after that, who knows - but I hope and honestly believe that at this point in time - he is the best man for the club....this time next year, it might be different, but for now he is the right man for us.
Rob wrote:One myth in all this needs to be nailed.
The fallacy that we paid 'boring' football under George and 'brilliant' football under Wenger.
Really ?
Anfield '89 boring ? Copenhagen CWC boring ??
Winning the title in '91 losing only one game. Boring ?
Yes in his last 18 months it was poor fare.
Conversely, with Wenger we played 'brilliant' football when we had 'brilliant' players like Pires, Henry, TA, DB and Pat.
Did we really play 'brilliant' football last season ? The best football I saw was when Barca came to the Emirates. Trouble was it was Barca playing the brilliant football, certainly in the first hour.
Was it 'brilliant' football at Wigan and Blackburn and Spurs ?
Don't think so.
Like I said, 'brilliant' football requires 'brilliant' players and we are rather short on those right now.
We were so outplayed in that final is was funny, Seaman kept us in it, they hit the post and we scored with probably our only shot. Although campbell missed a sitter or a header that hit his shoulder.
So yes wengers team play much better football than GG in my opinion.
Not as outplayed as the last time we actually won a trophy.So much for Wenger playing attacking football.10 men behind the ball and Lehmann playing Utd on his own.
Yes Wenger's teams play "better" football.But it has done us a fat load of good for the last 5 seasons
Graham built his teams like Mourinho does now.Get the defence sorted first.Something Wenger has forgotten all about if you look at his choice of keepers since Lehmann left
When Graham first came we were excellent, 4s and 5s was regular. This boring tag really came because we stopped challenging for the league, settled into winning cups and our defence was so good we didn't need to be flash to win a game.
For me, when we were winning stuff I didn't notice how good or bad the football was.
I think what people forget is in 1994/95 at the end of Grahams reign we didn't win a home game from October until when he left in February..some of the worst games I can remember in my time as an Arsenal fan (losing to Sheff Wed 3-1 at home, losing to Leeds 3-1 at home and the dullest game of all time, a 0-0 with Villa on Boxing Day). Not to mention we had been knocked out of the FA Cup 3rd round to Milwall at home...gates had dropped to below 30,000...not to mention we were hovering above the relegation zone in the league
I think if things got even half as bad as this under Wenger I do hope he would do the decent thing and resign.
This Is The Daybreak wrote:I think what people forget is in 1994/95 at the end of Grahams reign we didn't win a home game from October until when he left in February..some of the worst games I can remember in my time as an Arsenal fan (losing to Sheff Wed 3-1 at home, losing to Leeds 3-1 at home and the dullest game of all time, a 0-0 with Villa on Boxing Day). Not to mention we had been knocked out of the FA Cup 3rd round to Milwall at home...gates had dropped to below 30,000...not to mention we were hovering above the relegation zone in the league
I think if things got even half as bad as this under Wenger I do hope he would do the decent thing and resign.
This Is The Daybreak wrote:I think what people forget is in 1994/95 at the end of Grahams reign we didn't win a home game from October until when he left in February..some of the worst games I can remember in my time as an Arsenal fan (losing to Sheff Wed 3-1 at home, losing to Leeds 3-1 at home and the dullest game of all time, a 0-0 with Villa on Boxing Day). Not to mention we had been knocked out of the FA Cup 3rd round to Milwall at home...gates had dropped to below 30,000...not to mention we were hovering above the relegation zone in the league
I think if things got even half as bad as this under Wenger I do hope he would do the decent thing and resign.
I'm sure George would have turned it round, if we'd given him another 5 seasons to sort it out.
[quote="goonersid"].......Finally, there is one last thing that cements Graham as no 1 for me, and that is, everyone hated us, and I liked that.
I don’t want to be everyone’s “second favourite teamâ€
The one difference for me is that Graham knew he had taken the club as far as he could and was set to leave anyhow
You are having a laugh!!?? Graham almost got us relegated, and would quite possibly have done it had he been allowed to stay in charge. We were 17th in the table, disgraceful.
There are real similarities between GG and Wenger, both took us to amazing highs from nowhere, both went on a big downturn afterwards. (Wengers downturn not so much in league position as yet, but in distance from the top sides). The big difference is Graham got sacked at the right time, Wenger hasn't.
This Is The Daybreak wrote:I think what people forget is in 1994/95 at the end of Grahams reign we didn't win a home game from October until when he left in February..some of the worst games I can remember in my time as an Arsenal fan (losing to Sheff Wed 3-1 at home, losing to Leeds 3-1 at home and the dullest game of all time, a 0-0 with Villa on Boxing Day). Not to mention we had been knocked out of the FA Cup 3rd round to Milwall at home...gates had dropped to below 30,000...not to mention we were hovering above the relegation zone in the league
I think if things got even half as bad as this under Wenger I do hope he would do the decent thing and resign.
Things were gloomy under Graham before then. We won domestic cup double in 1993, but coming out of Wembley that night after the FA Cup Final replay the crowd was not celebrating as much as it should have. People felt like we had a consolation prize, because we did not look like we could challenge for the title, and the team of 1991 has started to get broken up.
Really VforVictory? Maybe you did but I thought people came out of the ground that evening delirious because of the last minute winner and the fact that we'd just created history as the first club to win both domestic cups!!
