THE WENGER THREAD

[Midz]

That's right Arsene. You might be a nice bloke but you're simply not good enough as our manager.

please go.

[falkirk goon]

I try not to watch or listen to him when he comes on tv
I remember mancini doing a presser at inter a few years back and balotelli walking in and giving him a cuddle
Whenever le fartpipe is on talking shite and sneering down his nose at journos I imagine someone bursting in and giving him a ragdolling

[Sean]

Page 2005.



And so began the nine year trophy drought under an intransigent manager who exposed himself as a fraud

When you look at it, he was never the same since we lost the unbeaten run. He was always a persecuted victim and excuse maker from then on. That, added to his destruction of the Invincibles and the last vestiges of the GG-era players and their winner spirit, led to the largely spineless jellyfish that have pulled on the shirt since. It has been Project Ego since then for TOF.

[BFG4]

Page 2005.



And so began the nine year trophy drought under an intransigent manager who exposed himself as a fraud

When you look at it, he was never the same since we lost the unbeaten run. He was always a persecuted victim and excuse maker from then on. That, added to his destruction of the Invincibles and the last vestiges of the GG-era players and their winner spirit, led to the largely spineless jellyfish that have pulled on the shirt since. It has been Project Ego since then for TOF.

I've said it on here before, but you should see how he reacted to us pissing away the title back in the 2002/2003 season. He said how disappointed he was, and this in a season when we won the FA cup, and finished 2nd. Now, he declares failure as a success, and has turned from a winner to a loser, with a bag of excuses.

[sk-gtfo]

I've said it on here before, but you should see how he reacted to us pissing away the title back in the 2002/2003 season. He said how disappointed he was, and this in a season when we won the FA cup, and finished 2nd. Now, he declares failure as a success, and has turned from a winner to a loser, with a bag of excuses.

But this was all down to the financial doping, because of this it was our place to get top 4 more consistantly than the other teams who were not doped, this was our new measure of 'success'.

A couple of problems with this though (actually there are many but these are the 2 obvious one's!):

1. We have 2 billionaire's who own the majority of the club so quite laughable when we claim to be skint.
2. We charge ticket prices like we are showing a top west-end Opera but the show is more like a cheap Panto a lot of the time.

As I have said before NO ONE forced the board/Kroenke to force all the debt on the club, infact if someone had invested in the club back 10-12 years ago and we were more successful we could have raised our commercial profile considerably which would have had a long term payoff for the investor.

Not going to say anymore as going off topic again lol but everyone from the board down to Wenger were naive and greedy enough to think that cheaping out was the way forward, apart from ticket prices and their salaries (of course..).

[Rugby Gooner]

He has just been on SSN.
He said that no matter what he did it would not be good enough.
He also got a tad tetchy when asked about the protests,"I don't what to talk about them anymore," he kept repeating over the reporters attempts to ask him about them.
SSN also gave a good bit of coverage to a range of the banners

Resigning would be good enough!

[Pete on the beach]

guys

a favour!! could somebody stick that image up on here?

the one of wenger with the water bottle and pep, fergie and maureen kissing the champions league trophy, i want to try and see if i can rescan it and get a higher resolution for the billboard

ta

[xisstential]

guys

a favour!! could somebody stick that image up on here?

the one of wenger with the water bottle and pep, fergie and maureen kissing the champions league trophy, i want to try and see if i can rescan it and get a higher resolution for the billboard

ta

I sent it to you Pete

[Retro Gunner]

He has just been on SSN.
He said that no matter what he did it would not be good enough.
He also got a tad tetchy when asked about the protests,"I don't what to talk about them anymore," he kept repeating over the reporters attempts to ask him about them.
SSN also gave a good bit of coverage to a range of the banners

Resigning would be good enough!

Quality.

[Retro Gunner]

I've said it on here before, but you should see how he reacted to us pissing away the title back in the 2002/2003 season. He said how disappointed he was, and this in a season when we won the FA cup, and finished 2nd. Now, he declares failure as a success, and has turned from a winner to a loser, with a bag of excuses.

But this was all down to the financial doping, because of this it was our place to get top 4 more consistantly than the other teams who were not doped, this was our new measure of 'success'.

A couple of problems with this though (actually there are many but these are the 2 obvious one's!):

1. We have 2 billionaire's who own the majority of the club so quite laughable when we claim to be skint.
2. We charge ticket prices like we are showing a top west-end Opera but the show is more like a cheap Panto a lot of the time.

As I have said before NO ONE forced the board/Kroenke to force all the debt on the club, infact if someone had invested in the club back 10-12 years ago and we were more successful we could have raised our commercial profile considerably which would have had a long term payoff for the investor.

Not going to say anymore as going off topic again lol but everyone from the board down to Wenger were naive and greedy enough to think that cheaping out was the way forward, apart from ticket prices and their salaries (of course..).

This is, of course, in many ways the crux of the last 12 years. It was, as you say, the excuse put forward for the re-defining of "success". I do have a certain sympathy for the Club, as the building of the new stadium and the associated plans to move us to the next level, were under way prior to the arrival of Abramovich. He, overnight, changed the face of English and to an extent, European football and his "financially doped" influence certainly helped take our legs from under us. He also gave rise to the fashion for the super rich to buy football clubs.

I have no way of knowing, so this is pure speculation, but I suspect that that Wenger and the board discussed the impact that our new financial burden would have and that Wenger was confident that, despite having to run a tight ship, he could cling to the coat tails of Utd. Bear in mind, that pre Abramovich, the PL had become a Utd / Arsenal hegemony and there was no reason to imagine that any other serious contenders would emerge. We would play second fiddle to Utd, still be the next best draw for quality players and be able to bloody their nose regularly enough. In time, once the benefits of the stadium etc outweighed the costs, we'd be serious challengers at home and abroad. Out of nowhere, along comes Roman and upsets the apple-cart. In time, the Arabs arrive at City.

Now, while I have sympathy, because their best laid plans were scuppered, what I despise is the Club's refusal to deal with the new reality and take it on. Instead, it was used as an excuse to fail and re-define it as success. Thus, the comfort zone and the loser's mentality was born. For me, the key to the criticism of the Club and the point that no akb has ever given me an answer to is this :

We had been competing with Utd and nothing changed for Utd...in fact, it got a whole lot worse for them. They had been the guys with the big financial stick, able to prise away players like Yorke, Ferdinand, Bosnic etc, by going in over the odds first time, taking any competition straight out of the game and making it impossible for the selling club to say no. Suddenly, that power disappeared to Chelsea and in one fell swoop, Chelsea took their MD Kenyon and their almost signed transfer targets (eg Duff, Robben, Obi Mikel). Not only had nothing improved financially for Utd, but Chelsea were targeting them and had far more financial clout. Did Ferguson re-define success, did he roll over and die, did he settle for top 4 ? Did he fuck. He came out fighting and continued to win titles. Had we kept pace with Utd (for whom nothing had changed positively), we'd have been in the mix.

Similarly, in all the years, nothing has changed in the structure of the clubs at Real, Barca, or Bayern. Edelman told us that these were the people we'd be competing with and has nothing has changed for them as regards a super rich owner, why aren't we ?

Edelman made it clear at the time, that the stadium development would not impact the on field team, that money for the team was ring-fenced and Wenger spent years telling us that it wasn't about lack of money (despite contradictorily, often banging on about financial doping). That mantra stopped around 2010, when it went a little quiet and in the last 4 or so years, they've been telling us that they were hamstrung for a few years, but now aren't !! So, they were lying 10 years ago, or they're lying now. Suffice to say, they are liars, but we all know that.

The decision to re-define success, make excuses and take the money was (if not always the plan) a conscious one. The landscape changed and rather than stand and fight, they took the lazy, feckless, yet lucrative option. Fuck 'em.

[NickF]

Excellent piece from Retro above.
I would also add that the reformatting of the champions league so that the top 4 went in, played right into the clubs hands during the move.
They could spin that getting into the top 4 was an achievement, as Wenger put it "The first trophy is to finish in the top four".

This is still believed by gullible fans to this day.

[Retro Gunner]

Excellent piece from Retro above.
I would also add that the reformatting of the champions league so that the top 4 went in, played right into the clubs hands during the move.
They could spin that getting into the top 4 was an achievement, as Wenger put it "The first trophy is to finish in the top four".

This is still believed by gullible fans to this day.

Thanks Nick and you are, of course, absolutely right.....had third or fourth place gone unrewarded (as they should be), then Wenger's "failure" would have seen these protests years ago. It was manna from heaven for our scurrilous regime.

[Sean]

Great post, RG. Just goes to show how much superior Ferguson was as a manager compared to TOF. In the super-club/commercial stakes we've been a decade behind Manure for over 20 years. As you say, we fucking bottled it on every level as a club with the Cashburton move. Excuses for failure with the new money coming into the oil clubs and rewards for failure for the sham that is The Be All and End All. All these cúnts need to be fucked off, from the manager to the board.

It's been said before, but the austerity was an utter LIE. It suited TOF's agenda to push ahead with his failed Project Youth and his vanity projects of bang average players and buying their loyalty with absurdly high wages. We had £30M per season ringfenced from the stadium repayments, plus any transfer profits, money for stadium/shirt sponsorship, plus the club earned shitloads from openly fleecing the fans on matchday. All whilst increasing TOF's fat wage packet from £4M to £8.3M over the past decade of wilful failure.

What really boiled my piss was Gazidis' statement last summer that we couldn't outspend our rivals, despite recently declaring we have £100M cash in the bank, the PL having a £10.4B deal that we're taking a cut from - about £173M per season, plus £30M per year from Puma. Plus the several million per season in prize money for taking part in the Money League. We've turned into a fucking bank and our supposed football manager is acting like the budget charlatan accountant that he is. There really is no excuse for 13 years of failure in the PL and 19 years failure in the CL.

[sk-gtfo]

Excellent piece from Retro above.
I would also add that the reformatting of the champions league so that the top 4 went in, played right into the clubs hands during the move.
They could spin that getting into the top 4 was an achievement, as Wenger put it "The first trophy is to finish in the top four".

This is still believed by gullible fans to this day.

Indeed, the top 4 trophy was basically a way to pay back the short-term debt of building the Emirates so you can see why the board saw that as success, to fans it was pretty meaningless though, in 20 years no one is going to be talking about the incredible endevours of Arsenal and AW for finshing top 4 20 years in a row but not actually winning it.

As Retro said the biggest crime was not adjusting to the obvious monumental change that the oligarch arriving at the chavs was going to make, even back then in 2003 I remember feeling a sense of doom knowing how wealthy their crooked owner was, it was only a matter of time before he bought them success and 3 years later they had 2 titles under their belt.

I think DD tried to get Kroenke and later Usmanov involved for this reason, sadly he picked the wrong one in Kroenke initially, who that old c**t PHW sided with and it is now going to be a nightmare getting him out of the club as I feel he is almost as stubborn as Wenger.

I wish I could have more faith that just getting rid of Wenger would hugely improve things but I don't see how a club can be successful without an owner(s) who is more focused on winning and knowledgable about the sport, rather than a distant bean counter who only cares about how much money they can make.

One thing is for sure, I will think long and hard before spending any of my money on the club until I see some real intention to win things, blind loyalty can FO in this day and age with owners like this.

[Retro Gunner]

Some seriously good points in these last few posts from Nick, Sean and SK. I know it's all been said on here before, but if banging on about the same old stuff wasn't allowed, they'd have to shut this forum tomorrow !

A really valid point you make Sean is the total lie about the years of austerity. The was always there, it it was was sauandered and misused by Le Fraud. DB10 (new boy creeping to the mods here ) , who was never the most spiteful of wob's, constantly made the point years ago, that there was plenty of money and that Wenger had blown it on poor / average signings and contract renewals (on inflated salaries) for duffers and permanent cripples. He was signing yes men and rewarding their mindless loyalty. The tens of milllions wasted in this manner is staggering.

This ties in with another massive bugbear I have with Wenger. He has a huge ego, but is an utter coward. He won't sign top quality, because top quality players often have big egos too and the Fraud can't man manage big personalities. He prefers cardboard cut-outs like Theo and Ramsey. The real cowardly aspect is that he is very aware that signing quality removes his lame excuses for failure. With a star studded team, he'd be expected to win the big prizes (or at least mount a serious challenge), so he carries on with his no mark recruits, while peddling the myth that we can't compete financially and that he is doing a fabulous job to be anywhere near the big boys.

Sean's label "The Old Fraud", is the perfect moniker for the French clown.