No, with the resources available to him he should be doing better, sure, if Lambert does it he's a legend, but if AVB doesn't he gets crucified, no two managers' situations are the same, we should be aiming higherhighburyJD wrote:SWLGooner wrote:jees louisehighburyJD wrote:I'd take 10th and winning the CL, I really would
the CL is the holy grail for me
ANY manager won that he goes down as an all time legend
how can you say 'I really would"
but my point is clubs fire managers, which costs money, then give the new guy more leeway
its not logical
Wenger has always got top 4
that looks harder than ever right now and is probably the limit of our ambitions
if Kenny gets 4th after spending a kings ransom they will fecking beatify him
Redknapp does it he would get the England managers job in football, rugby and cricket simultaneously
surely if Wenger got 4th thats enough to keep him his job?
Do you lot really want rid of Wenger???
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SWLGooner
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highburyJD
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Deise Gooner
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Thats the problem it is wenger that has put us in the position where we allow ourselves to consider finishing in the top 4 as an achivement. AS a football club we should be looking at anything other than finishing as champions as a failure or at least if we are blown away by a far superior team we can hold our hands up and say finishing 2nd was the best we could do but we should nver be sayign finishing fourth is the height of our ambitions we arent spurs.highburyJD wrote:SWLGooner wrote:jees louisehighburyJD wrote:I'd take 10th and winning the CL, I really would
the CL is the holy grail for me
ANY manager won that he goes down as an all time legend
how can you say 'I really would"
but my point is clubs fire managers, which costs money, then give the new guy more leeway
its not logical
Wenger has always got top 4
that looks harder than ever right now and is probably the limit of our ambitions
if Kenny gets 4th after spending a kings ransom they will fecking beatify him
Redknapp does it he would get the England managers job in football, rugby and cricket simultaneously
surely if Wenger got 4th thats enough to keep him his job?
You will probably bring out the tired old line of Chelsea and Citeh have more money so us so we cant compete with them which is frankly utter shit. We had a great squad last year and with a little bit of investment in quality proven players we should have won the league. The club is making £50m profit year on year so is it unreasonable to say that 30 of this can be put aside each year to add to the core group of players we have to add the quality that we need. We dont need to go out every summer and break the bank like Citeh in order to compete just buy the players that we need and if done every year we should never have to bring in more than 2 or 3 top quality players.
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highburyJD
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storrmin571
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/articl ... notes.html
Who would you have manage Arsenal, then, if not Arsene Wenger? The sentence is phrased as a question, but is usually intended as a full stop; the cocksure closer to any discussion about the rapidly escalating decline of a football club.
For the hapless critic, the only options are to denounce the achievements of one of the greatest managers in the history of the English game, offer the name of a rival whose record, with few exceptions, cannot help but be inferior, or slink back to his hole.
So, let’s widen the argument. Who would you rather hear sing Come Fly With Me, if not Frank Sinatra? Well, it depends. Are we talking Capitol Records-era Sinatra, arrangements by Gordon Jenkins, Billy May and Nelson Riddle, inventing the concept album, laying down definitive, masterpiece recordings of so many wonderful songs that it would be impossible to list them all? If so, then there is no argument.
If, however, you’re offering Sinatra in his final years, occasionally forgetting the words, no longer hitting the hardest notes, falling over on stage in Richmond, Virginia, well that’s a different story.
They did it their way: Wenger won the League in 2004 (left) but, like Sinatra, time has seen his powers fade
Sinatra died in 1998 aged 82 but within five years a Canadian singer, Michael Buble, was doing a perfectly acceptable version of Come Fly With Me for modern audiences.
Of course, boiled down, it’s a note-for-note, phrase-for-phrase rip-off of what Sinatra did in 1958 and, as recordings are permanent, there is no need to have it in the house at all but, given the choice in live performance, Buble was probably singing Come Fly With Me better as a young man than Sinatra could in his dotage.
So the question of who could do a better job at Arsenal than Wenger depends on which Wenger blueprint is under consideration. Double-winning Wenger, Invincible-era Wenger, sure, there are few to touch him; but six-years-without-a-trophy Wenger, played-off-the-park-by-Liverpool-at-the- weekend Wenger, summer 2011 Wenger, scrapping-for-a-Champions-League-place-with-Udinese-tonight Wenger: plenty could do that job.
There is never only one way to achieve excellence in any field. Even some of Sinatra’s greatest moments are not unmatched. Chet Baker’s beautiful, sweet and slow take on My Funny Valentine is a jazz classic, as is Miles Davis’s achingly poignant version of It Never Entered My Mind, which does not even need Lorenz Hart’s words to achieve its gorgeous melancholy.
Harry Nilsson prefers the alternate gag conclusion to It Had To Be You, heightening the delightful ambiguity of Gus Kahn’s serenade to a domineering partner:
I’m five foot ten, a man among men, and you’re seven two,
But with all your faults, it’s you I adore,
When you stand up, your hands touch the floor…
Football is like that. There were some years when nobody parcelled the whole package better than Wenger but, even in those times, there remained rivals, challengers, others doing equally impressive work.
The presence of Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United throughout Wenger’s time with Arsenal shows he has been far from alone in raising standards. Ferguson’s budget is greater, but history and the performances of Danny Welbeck and Tom Cleverley this season show he has never relied solely on United’s financial advantages for success.
The big difference in recent years seems to be that Ferguson has balanced his squad more successfully and therefore not exposed his kids to the intense pressure that is now falling on Arsenal at this sudden low ebb.
Take Emmanuel Frimpong. He was impressive against Liverpool on Saturday and, considering his Ghanaian background, drew obvious comparisons with Michael Essien, yet his rash sending-off changed the game.
Now, one of Wenger’s primary reasons for resisting the transfer market is that in the time it takes him to coach a new player in the Arsenal way, he is better off bringing through a teenager who has been schooled in the system.
And Frimpong, 19, has been at the club since the age of nine. Yet if, in 10 years, Arsenal have been unable to impress on him that when the score is 0-0, your team are fighting for their lives and you are already on a yellow card, it is highly unwise to fly into a tackle out of control, then perhaps it would be sensible to enter the transfer market , buy an experienced, wiser head and shield the young man until he is truly ready.
Cruel fate seems to be ganging up on Wenger and it is painful to watch. He has been hugely unfortunate with injuries and losing Gervinho for three games for what was basically a yellow card offence against Newcastle United was a blow, but much is also his responsibility.
An intelligent man, he must have known that there would be little point in UEFA enforcing a touchline ban if the manager could just relay messages from the directors’ box by proxy, as happened in the first leg against Udinese.
Fortunate not be missing the return at the Stadio Friuli on a technicality, he could be absent for Arsenal’s next two games in Europe beyond that.
Slender advantage: Theo Walcott gives Arsenal a 1-0 lead going into the second leg
Leaving aside the fact that the rules regarding a touchline ban should be made clearer, with the manager perhaps absent from the stadium entirely and made to sit with a UEFA official for the duration of the match, Wenger was still unwise to risk further confrontation.
He was equally mistaken in allowing the transfer sagas involving Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri to overshadow and disrupt preseason preparations. Maybe had Arsenal not appeared to be in a constant state of flux the club would have looked more appealing to Juan Mata than Chelsea.
This is the logical hole in the middle of the ‘if not Wenger, then who?’ defence. It implies that a football club remain frozen in their best moment when, in reality, even six months can bring a world of change.
Of course, Wenger deserves time; but he has had time. He has had seven years since Arsenal last won the League and six since the club last won a trophy.
He is not Carlo Ancelotti, a Double winner in his first season at Chelsea, preposterously sacked in his second for finishing runner-up. He is afforded enormous credit and respect for his achievements at Arsenal and the culture he has brought to the English game; but it is delusional to insist that the proof on which Wenger’s credibility is based is not taken more from the past than the present.
Back to music again. You know when you buy a compilation album spanning an artist’s whole career? There is always the odd track thrown in from the final years, the fallow years, the hardcore-fans-only years, isn’t there? And those songs might be all right, too. But they’re not why you bought it. They don’t really belong.
Look, I love Squeeze. Great band, Squeeze. And I’m sitting here with their 2007 compilation Essential Squeeze. But when I play it, I tend to lose interest beyond track 14, Hourglass, because that’s where the real magic ends. There are four songs after that, and I quite like one of them, This Summer, but really the golden years were gone. And we accept this with music.
There are limits: Squeeze pose in 2007
We get that David Bowie had said everything he needed to say before he formed Tin Machine or that The Velvet Underground were always going to be rubbish without Lou Reed.
Yet, in football, and at Arsenal in particular, we remain trapped in Wenger’s golden era so that his brilliance is immutable, his judgment immaculate, whatever the evidence. Maureen Tucker, the Velvets’ drummer, publicly endorses the Tea Party now. Times change.
Liverpool were a better team than Arsenal on Saturday, and played better football, too. Udinese were as enterprising going forward last week, but couldn’t finish. Manchester United, Sunday’s opponents, look to be in a different class on the evidence of the season thus far.
So, who would we like to see in charge of Arsenal? Still Wenger, obviously. They are his club, his glory, now his mess, and he deserves the opportunity to find a way through it. But who could manage Arsenal as well as Wenger?
That’s no longer such a tough one. Right now, name any of the big guys — from Pep Guardiola to Martin O’Neill, from Ancelotti to Jose Mourinho or Kenny Dalglish – and they would bring something new to the party.
Emulating Wenger 2011 isn’t the hard part. Emulating him back in the day would have been nigh-impossible; but not even Ol’ Blue Eyes could hold that note for ever.
Who would you have manage Arsenal, then, if not Arsene Wenger? The sentence is phrased as a question, but is usually intended as a full stop; the cocksure closer to any discussion about the rapidly escalating decline of a football club.
For the hapless critic, the only options are to denounce the achievements of one of the greatest managers in the history of the English game, offer the name of a rival whose record, with few exceptions, cannot help but be inferior, or slink back to his hole.
So, let’s widen the argument. Who would you rather hear sing Come Fly With Me, if not Frank Sinatra? Well, it depends. Are we talking Capitol Records-era Sinatra, arrangements by Gordon Jenkins, Billy May and Nelson Riddle, inventing the concept album, laying down definitive, masterpiece recordings of so many wonderful songs that it would be impossible to list them all? If so, then there is no argument.
If, however, you’re offering Sinatra in his final years, occasionally forgetting the words, no longer hitting the hardest notes, falling over on stage in Richmond, Virginia, well that’s a different story.
They did it their way: Wenger won the League in 2004 (left) but, like Sinatra, time has seen his powers fade
Sinatra died in 1998 aged 82 but within five years a Canadian singer, Michael Buble, was doing a perfectly acceptable version of Come Fly With Me for modern audiences.
Of course, boiled down, it’s a note-for-note, phrase-for-phrase rip-off of what Sinatra did in 1958 and, as recordings are permanent, there is no need to have it in the house at all but, given the choice in live performance, Buble was probably singing Come Fly With Me better as a young man than Sinatra could in his dotage.
So the question of who could do a better job at Arsenal than Wenger depends on which Wenger blueprint is under consideration. Double-winning Wenger, Invincible-era Wenger, sure, there are few to touch him; but six-years-without-a-trophy Wenger, played-off-the-park-by-Liverpool-at-the- weekend Wenger, summer 2011 Wenger, scrapping-for-a-Champions-League-place-with-Udinese-tonight Wenger: plenty could do that job.
There is never only one way to achieve excellence in any field. Even some of Sinatra’s greatest moments are not unmatched. Chet Baker’s beautiful, sweet and slow take on My Funny Valentine is a jazz classic, as is Miles Davis’s achingly poignant version of It Never Entered My Mind, which does not even need Lorenz Hart’s words to achieve its gorgeous melancholy.
Harry Nilsson prefers the alternate gag conclusion to It Had To Be You, heightening the delightful ambiguity of Gus Kahn’s serenade to a domineering partner:
I’m five foot ten, a man among men, and you’re seven two,
But with all your faults, it’s you I adore,
When you stand up, your hands touch the floor…
Football is like that. There were some years when nobody parcelled the whole package better than Wenger but, even in those times, there remained rivals, challengers, others doing equally impressive work.
The presence of Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United throughout Wenger’s time with Arsenal shows he has been far from alone in raising standards. Ferguson’s budget is greater, but history and the performances of Danny Welbeck and Tom Cleverley this season show he has never relied solely on United’s financial advantages for success.
The big difference in recent years seems to be that Ferguson has balanced his squad more successfully and therefore not exposed his kids to the intense pressure that is now falling on Arsenal at this sudden low ebb.
Take Emmanuel Frimpong. He was impressive against Liverpool on Saturday and, considering his Ghanaian background, drew obvious comparisons with Michael Essien, yet his rash sending-off changed the game.
Now, one of Wenger’s primary reasons for resisting the transfer market is that in the time it takes him to coach a new player in the Arsenal way, he is better off bringing through a teenager who has been schooled in the system.
And Frimpong, 19, has been at the club since the age of nine. Yet if, in 10 years, Arsenal have been unable to impress on him that when the score is 0-0, your team are fighting for their lives and you are already on a yellow card, it is highly unwise to fly into a tackle out of control, then perhaps it would be sensible to enter the transfer market , buy an experienced, wiser head and shield the young man until he is truly ready.
Cruel fate seems to be ganging up on Wenger and it is painful to watch. He has been hugely unfortunate with injuries and losing Gervinho for three games for what was basically a yellow card offence against Newcastle United was a blow, but much is also his responsibility.
An intelligent man, he must have known that there would be little point in UEFA enforcing a touchline ban if the manager could just relay messages from the directors’ box by proxy, as happened in the first leg against Udinese.
Fortunate not be missing the return at the Stadio Friuli on a technicality, he could be absent for Arsenal’s next two games in Europe beyond that.
Slender advantage: Theo Walcott gives Arsenal a 1-0 lead going into the second leg
Leaving aside the fact that the rules regarding a touchline ban should be made clearer, with the manager perhaps absent from the stadium entirely and made to sit with a UEFA official for the duration of the match, Wenger was still unwise to risk further confrontation.
He was equally mistaken in allowing the transfer sagas involving Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri to overshadow and disrupt preseason preparations. Maybe had Arsenal not appeared to be in a constant state of flux the club would have looked more appealing to Juan Mata than Chelsea.
This is the logical hole in the middle of the ‘if not Wenger, then who?’ defence. It implies that a football club remain frozen in their best moment when, in reality, even six months can bring a world of change.
Of course, Wenger deserves time; but he has had time. He has had seven years since Arsenal last won the League and six since the club last won a trophy.
He is not Carlo Ancelotti, a Double winner in his first season at Chelsea, preposterously sacked in his second for finishing runner-up. He is afforded enormous credit and respect for his achievements at Arsenal and the culture he has brought to the English game; but it is delusional to insist that the proof on which Wenger’s credibility is based is not taken more from the past than the present.
Back to music again. You know when you buy a compilation album spanning an artist’s whole career? There is always the odd track thrown in from the final years, the fallow years, the hardcore-fans-only years, isn’t there? And those songs might be all right, too. But they’re not why you bought it. They don’t really belong.
Look, I love Squeeze. Great band, Squeeze. And I’m sitting here with their 2007 compilation Essential Squeeze. But when I play it, I tend to lose interest beyond track 14, Hourglass, because that’s where the real magic ends. There are four songs after that, and I quite like one of them, This Summer, but really the golden years were gone. And we accept this with music.
There are limits: Squeeze pose in 2007
We get that David Bowie had said everything he needed to say before he formed Tin Machine or that The Velvet Underground were always going to be rubbish without Lou Reed.
Yet, in football, and at Arsenal in particular, we remain trapped in Wenger’s golden era so that his brilliance is immutable, his judgment immaculate, whatever the evidence. Maureen Tucker, the Velvets’ drummer, publicly endorses the Tea Party now. Times change.
Liverpool were a better team than Arsenal on Saturday, and played better football, too. Udinese were as enterprising going forward last week, but couldn’t finish. Manchester United, Sunday’s opponents, look to be in a different class on the evidence of the season thus far.
So, who would we like to see in charge of Arsenal? Still Wenger, obviously. They are his club, his glory, now his mess, and he deserves the opportunity to find a way through it. But who could manage Arsenal as well as Wenger?
That’s no longer such a tough one. Right now, name any of the big guys — from Pep Guardiola to Martin O’Neill, from Ancelotti to Jose Mourinho or Kenny Dalglish – and they would bring something new to the party.
Emulating Wenger 2011 isn’t the hard part. Emulating him back in the day would have been nigh-impossible; but not even Ol’ Blue Eyes could hold that note for ever.
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highburyJD
- Posts: 4982
- Joined: Thu Jan 04, 2007 6:36 pm
- Location: Highbury
the rest of his contract would be the costYoungGun wrote:Heard this quite a few times... what is the actual sum amount of this 'loads of money' you keep mentioning?highburyJD wrote: but paying loads of money to get rid of him
I don't know what that is (length or wage)
a lot of posters here seem to think he's getting £6-7M, an astonishing figure
Cheap as chips, if it means getting rid of the old fart.highburyJD wrote:the rest of his contract would be the costYoungGun wrote:Heard this quite a few times... what is the actual sum amount of this 'loads of money' you keep mentioning?highburyJD wrote: but paying loads of money to get rid of him
I don't know what that is (length or wage)
a lot of posters here seem to think he's getting £6-7M, an astonishing figure
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highburyJD
- Posts: 4982
- Joined: Thu Jan 04, 2007 6:36 pm
- Location: Highbury
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Bangkokgooner
- Posts: 90
- Joined: Fri Mar 26, 2010 9:16 pm
- Location: London
It's a stupidity of the board extending an incompetent manager for 3 years. I hope there is something say in the contract if you can't qualify UCL I can sack you without any payment.
I also hope that Wenger is fair enough to leave with mutual consent if the fans and the board don't want him any more. Being sacked is not a good profile on CV.
A new manager will bring a new approach, tactics, players etc. Even he manage this team to finish 4th or whatever this year, you still have a glimpse of hope for next season. Otherwise, you have to live with this for another 3 years. It won't change and it's a dire situation. We will live with a no-hope life. It will be a boring routine and I hate that.
I also hope that Wenger is fair enough to leave with mutual consent if the fans and the board don't want him any more. Being sacked is not a good profile on CV.
A new manager will bring a new approach, tactics, players etc. Even he manage this team to finish 4th or whatever this year, you still have a glimpse of hope for next season. Otherwise, you have to live with this for another 3 years. It won't change and it's a dire situation. We will live with a no-hope life. It will be a boring routine and I hate that.
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highburyJD
- Posts: 4982
- Joined: Thu Jan 04, 2007 6:36 pm
- Location: Highbury
there 100% won't beBangkokgooner wrote:It's a stupidity of the board extending an incompetent manager for 3 years. I hope there is something say in the contract if you can't qualify UCL I can sack you without any payment.
sorry, somebody who thinks they are doing their job well should accept being fired without remuneration? why? Every manager has been sacked.Bangkokgooner wrote:I also hope that Wenger is fair enough to leave with mutual consent if the fans and the board don't want him any more. Being sacked is not a good profile on CV.
so there's no hope under a manager that has won a league 3 timesBangkokgooner wrote:A new manager will bring a new approach, tactics, players etc. Even he manage this team to finish 4th or whatever this year, you still have a glimpse of hope for next season. Otherwise, you have to live with this for another 3 years. It won't change and it's a dire situation. We will live with a no-hope life. It will be a boring routine and I hate that.
but there will be hope under a manager who has never won it...?
bizarre
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cameron326
- Posts: 1115
- Joined: Fri Aug 21, 2009 1:06 am
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flash gunner
- Posts: 29243
- Joined: Tue Nov 06, 2007 6:55 am
- Location: Armchairsville. FACT.
cameron326 wrote:GoonerN5Repeating a statement and then adding a question mark at the end does not consitute responding to an opposing opinion, much less intelligent debate. How about you fuck off you ignoramus prick.Do Fuck off, Wenger doing his job to the best of his ability?
No you fuck off
No you fuck off
No you fuck off
