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.
antgel wrote:
But calling someone who has brought us unprecedented success a c**t, wanker, etc blah blah, is totally classless, inaccurate, and it isn't in the true Arsenal spirit. With some on here defending the chav scum Joey Barton, I can see how extreme sections of our support have become, and next time we have a debate about the club losing its class (via commercialization), maybe we should take a look in the mirror.
Enjoy the season if you can stand to watch it, you hard-done-by lot. The way I see it (not that you will care as I'm not in the c**t-calling brigade) is that it will be a toughie, and the best we can hope for is that some of our more promising players continue to develop and we can build on it.
Don't agree with calling AW a c**t but I also don't agree with unprecendented success. A lot of success in his early years, yes. Unprecedented, no. Success is winning trophies, not finishing second (or third or fourth). If we don't ever win the trophies we are just bit part players in the story of ManU's, Chelski's and Barca's success stories. That is not good enough for this club.
It is unprecedented. 3 Leagues, 4 FA Cups. So there have been barren years, but he's still the most successful manager we've had in terms of bringing in the trophies.
(Do I have to put a disclaimer here that I'm not AKB, just quoting stats?)
Additionally, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ar ... ._managers, Wenger has the highest win percentage of any Arsenal manager at 58.5%. Neither Herbert Chapman or George Graham broke 50% wins. I know this isn't trophy-related, but I dealt with that above and it is somewhat interesting.
So again, whether you are AKB or think he's a *word censored*, it's hard to argue that he hasn't presided over unprecedented success during his career at the club.
Dan_85 wrote:Is a manager who wins 7 trophies in 15 years (AW) better than one who wins 6 trophies in 9 years (GG)? I wouldn't have thought so...
Actually it was 7 trophies in 7 years of trophy-winning (1998-2005). GG won 6 in 7 years of trophy-winning. Also remember the couple of doubles that GG didn't achieve although so painfully close in 1991.
Notwithstanding that, who knows what would have happened to GG at the time of bung-gate? I don't exactly seem to remember a team on the up with the likes of Jimmy Carter, Steven Morrow et al.
In 1992 we finished 4th. 1993, 10th. 1994, 4th. 1995, 12th. So let's not pretend that GG (who was great at the time and revitalized the club) was so much ahead of AW.
FA Cup winners: 1930, 1936, 1950, 1971, 1979, 1993
League Cup winners: 1987, 1993
Fairs Cup winners: 1970
Cup Winners Cup: 1994
All the above happened before Arsene FC was formed in 1996.
Thanks for filling me in, I didn't know that. I meant unprecedented success from one manager and you knew that full well.
But if you want to argue strawman, I can do the same. Let me point out that AW:
1. Has been behind 3/13 (23%) of our League wins, not bad considering 5/13 (38%) were before the war.
2. 4/10 (40%) of our FA Cup wins.
Thanks for providing the historical context to allow me to show how successful AW has been in our history.
Between 92 and 95 we weren't charging the highest ticket prices in the world, we didn't have a wage bill grossly dissproportionate to playing success and we hadn't torn up 93 yrs of history and tradition and sold our soul.
selsdon wrote:Between 92 and 95 we weren't charging the highest ticket prices in the world, we didn't have a wage bill grossly dissproportionate to playing success and we hadn't torn up 93 yrs of history and tradition and sold our soul.
Agree completely. But we were pretty shit and I remember more than one dissatisfied Gooner saying that the cup success was papering over the cracks. I don't remember anyone calling GG a *word censored* (although they may have done).
But we also didn't do the above between 1998-2005. I remember being the only one of my Gooner mates who didn't want to chase the pound signs nor move stadium. A lot of people (Gooners included) panicked when they saw what Chelsea did with half a billion quid.
selsdon wrote:
antgel wrote: Thanks for providing the historical context to allow me to show how successful AW has been in our history.
No-one's disputing he's been successful but unprecedented?
You're talking rubbish mate.
You snipped the statistics that explained why it was so.
psychoangus wrote:Personally I think the defence did well, we won most of the midfield battle, it was RVPs control letting him down from the Arshavin chip and Arshavin's poor ball when Gervinho was clean through that were two easy chances we fucked.
If you raise your hands you will be sent off. Exactly how fucking brain-dead do you have to be to let yourself do that?
Agreed. Defence did well IMO! (I was expecting the worse) we missed creativity, hardly surprising when you take out wilshere fabs and nasri!
One of the reasons his reign isn't "unprecendented" is that throughout his time as manager there has been another manager at another club who has basically "butt-fucked" his record and continues to show he is the best manager of this era of English football.
Pretty much AW has been second fiddle to SAF. We haven't won consecutive league titles under Wenger. Fergie has done 3 in a row, got two CLs (nothing in Europe for us during the Wenger era) and is embarking on a campaign where his team is pretty clear favourites to win Man U's 20th title.
The only thing Wenger can cling to is the invincible season, but GG was so very close to that in 1991 as well.
Dan_85 wrote:Is a manager who wins 7 trophies in 15 years (AW) better than one who wins 6 trophies in 9 years (GG)? I wouldn't have thought so...
Actually it was 7 trophies in 7 years of trophy-winning (1998-2005). GG won 6 in 7 years of trophy-winning. Also remember the couple of doubles that GG didn't achieve although so painfully close in 1991.
Notwithstanding that, who knows what would have happened to GG at the time of bung-gate? I don't exactly seem to remember a team on the up with the likes of Jimmy Carter, Steven Morrow et al.
In 1992 we finished 4th. 1993, 10th. 1994, 4th. 1995, 12th. So let's not pretend that GG (who was great at the time and revitalized the club) was so much ahead of AW.
In fairness can you say that a team including the likes of song, theo, rosicky etc is on the way up either ? You are being selective when comparing wenger's record with GG's - surely when assessing the sucess or failure of any manager you have to look at the whole of their tenure and not just selective golden years ? If we are to do that you could argue that bertie mee was an all time great as he won 3 trophies and was runners up in the cup in a very short spell as gaffer.
If anything your selective comparison shows that wenger was indeed a great manager but has been on the slide for a number of years and I will always argue that GG was more successful
Dan_85 wrote:Is a manager who wins 7 trophies in 15 years (AW) better than one who wins 6 trophies in 9 years (GG)? I wouldn't have thought so...
Actually it was 7 trophies in 7 years of trophy-winning (1998-2005). GG won 6 in 7 years of trophy-winning. Also remember the couple of doubles that GG didn't achieve although so painfully close in 1991.
Notwithstanding that, who knows what would have happened to GG at the time of bung-gate? I don't exactly seem to remember a team on the up with the likes of Jimmy Carter, Steven Morrow et al.
In 1992 we finished 4th. 1993, 10th. 1994, 4th. 1995, 12th. So let's not pretend that GG (who was great at the time and revitalized the club) was so much ahead of AW.
In fairness can you say that a team including the likes of song, theo, rosicky etc is on the way up either ? You are being selective when comparing wenger's record with GG's - surely when assessing the sucess or failure of any manager you have to look at the whole of their tenure and not just selective golden years ? If we are to do that you could argue that bertie mee was an all time great as he won 3 trophies and was runners up in the cup in a very short spell as gaffer.
If anything your selective comparison shows that wenger was indeed a great manager but has been on the slide for a number of years and I will always argue that GG was more successful
I'm not saying that the team is on the way up. But GG's record would have been longer if not for bung-gate, and it wasn't going in the right direction. That is assuming that the board didn't use bung-gate as an excuse to sack him because the team was going down the shitter.
Dan_85 wrote:Is a manager who wins 7 trophies in 15 years (AW) better than one who wins 6 trophies in 9 years (GG)? I wouldn't have thought so...
Actually it was 7 trophies in 7 years of trophy-winning (1998-2005). GG won 6 in 7 years of trophy-winning. Also remember the couple of doubles that GG didn't achieve although so painfully close in 1991.
Notwithstanding that, who knows what would have happened to GG at the time of bung-gate? I don't exactly seem to remember a team on the up with the likes of Jimmy Carter, Steven Morrow et al.
In 1992 we finished 4th. 1993, 10th. 1994, 4th. 1995, 12th. So let's not pretend that GG (who was great at the time and revitalized the club) was so much ahead of AW.
I respectfully disagree that GG wouldn't have won more trophies if he had kept his job after the bung fiasco.
I don't think for a second that he was capable of building another team that could win the league, but his sides were capable to doing well in cup competitions. Where as Arsene's teams since 2005 have been in three cup finals and blew the lot.
In fairness can you say that a team including the likes of song, theo, rosicky etc is on the way up either ? You are being selective when comparing wenger's record with GG's - surely when assessing the sucess or failure of any manager you have to look at the whole of their tenure and not just selective golden years ? If we are to do that you could argue that bertie mee was an all time great as he won 3 trophies and was runners up in the cup in a very short spell as gaffer.
If anything your selective comparison shows that wenger was indeed a great manager but has been on the slide for a number of years and I will always argue that GG was more successful
I'm not saying that the team is on the way up. But GG's record would have been longer if not for bung-gate, and it wasn't going in the right direction. That is assuming that the board didn't use bung-gate as an excuse to sack him because the team was going down the shitter.
selsdon wrote:Between 92 and 95 we weren't charging the highest ticket prices in the world, we didn't have a wage bill grossly dissproportionate to playing success and we hadn't torn up 93 yrs of history and tradition and sold our soul.
....and I don't remember the manager and/or Board continually trying to pull the wool over our eyes. Look, we've had this argument on here time after time after........for what it's worth I don't agree with people calling Wenger a crunt either. But he has to be criticised. The lies about money, is it there or isn't it? The bullshit about major activity in the transfer market, the way the Cesc and Nasri sagas have been handled etc etc
He is too powerful and I was over the moon yesterday when the away boys turned from 'Arsene Arsene give us a wave' to 'spend some fucking money'
Lack of trophies I can handle. Lack of honesty? NEVER
