Even I Haven’t Seen That Before
Aug 28th, 2011 by 'holic
I have just finished watching the news. Thankfully Irene didn’t claim a number of good people who watch Arsenal on the East Coast of the States today. That’s the important stuff sorted.
Apparently though, Arsenal lost a game in a fashion even I haven’t seen in my lifetime. Chances are I will never see anything like it again. I’m pretty pleased about that because trust me, sitting with a couple of grandkids in expensive new recycled kits watching us getting ripped a new one wasn’t pretty.
Now they are in the land of nod I am wondering what happened today that we didn’t, all of us, suspect was capable? It’s a matter of record that we thought the squad that finished last season had fallen short. It is not a secret that the dead wood is being cleared out this summer. The world and his dog will tell you we have not replaced those we have let go. The loss of Sagna, Vermaelen, Gibbs, and Wilshere to injury, and Song, Frimpong, and Gervinho to suspension left us travelling to the reigning champions in as vulnerable state as I can remember any Arsenal side being in.
Some are hurting more than is healthy. I absolutely understand the emotion, but would suggest that reactions are exaggerated. This was not an entirely unpredictable outcome. Take a step back and consider what was important in August. We have the Champions League berth that was absolutely critical. Eight points behind the leaders in August? We’ve won the League having been further behind than that in February!
Don’t take that as being satisfied with where we are, but do have a sense of perspective. Don’t think for one moment I do not want to see at least three top quality signings before Wednesday. Then even I will admit we have not got ourselves into a stronger position than we were at the end of last season, and that wasn’t good enough.
Unfortunately there isn’t time to do more than that, and I am more concerned with getting behind those who will be wearing the red and white this season than those who won’t. We still have an opportunity to bring in much needed quality, to welcome back those injured and suspended, and to get the show back on the road before Christmas. Provided that happens we still have an opportunity to strengthen further in the January transfer window.
I can only close by expanding on the thoughts of a top, top Gooner who suffered more than most today, having treated his son to a first away game as a seventh birthday treat. I am listening to people ripping into the manager in the aftermath of that performance. I have seen Arsene Wenger do incredible things at our club. I have seen some people ripping into the established board figures, but the families involved in Arsenal down the years have overseen remarkable progress.
Mr Kroenke, we are yet to see the fruits of your period of tenure, and we are not off to the best of starts, if you don’t mind me saying so. We have money sitting in the bank having offloaded two of our very best players. Our business is all about being successful on the football pitch, not just on the balance sheet. Quality needs to be replaced. Your plans for our club need to be made clear.
We’re paying a premium for the privilege of watching our first love Stan, Please spend SOME of OUR ****ing money when it is clearly needed. Thanks.
209 Responses to “Even I Haven’t Seen That Before”
first
large scotch then i need one
“This was not an entirely unpredictable outcome”. I assume your talking of the bigger picture Holic?
Gibberish, i didnt read 2 of your paragraphs-you drew with the laest of team during the pre-season-who was suspended,nonsense
Please,dont suggest to me that this rabble can win the Pl or the CL.
That’s On The Scorecard As An Away Defeat – Nothing More. Nowt Less.
There was little to be positive about today. It’s not unusual after a hard mid-week game in Europe. But, frankly, I found myself feeling distinctly indifferent and absolutely unemotional for this rather hollow victory by The Deeply Indebted. When you go ANYWHERE with three of your first choice defenders, your two most influential midfield players and your live-wire new wingman all missing, you shouldn’t hope for too much. Arsenal lost this battle, but there is a long way to go in a League race already being skewed more by Abbly Dabbly Oil money than anything else. Do not even think about counting us out.
Our travelling support was a magnificent 12th man today, regularly drowning out the MancyWanky’s putrid spew. Ramsey was our best player by a long chalk and shone brightly throughout. He worked hard and tirelessly and is on his way now to being one of Europe’s greats. Wilshere and Song’s presence in the midfield alongside him would have transformed the team and Vermaelen, Sagna and Gibbs at the back would have steeled the back line. But that will all come on another day. Holic’s request for a counter-punching effort was only partially heard by the attack while our makeshift defense leaked like a sieve and undid their good work.
But you have to live on the resources available to you. Coquelin did well on his debut. Jenkinson toiled hard and was extremely unlucky to see red for a 50:50 “bump” with Young. Arsenal created some fine chances and, on a different day, would have scored more. RvP’s penalty miss was uncharacteristic, and came at a critical time. To level then would have inspired great belief. He scored with a fine effort later and was unlucky to see a superb right foot volley saved at the post. Theo’s goal was great but he defers to The Jenk too often. There are flickers that he will increase his menace as the season progresses. That must happen. He needs to become a goal a game poacher.
Ironically, we could easily have counter-punched four times – and still been beaten. Having pulled back to 3-1 we had a very good spell early in the 2nd half.
Rosicky worked hard and contributed well. Sczez was superb – funny thing to say about a keeper who lost a snowman – but I wouldn’t blame him for anything other than Rooney’s second free kick. Russia’s finest haircut slipped between comb and clippers with very little buzz. The game was over by the time the substitutions were made and commentary on their contributions isn’t worthwhile. However, I wouldn’t have pulled Coquelin and would have subbed Chamberlain for AA.
I thought Traore confirmed today that he won’t make it at Arsenal as a LB or in any other position. It’s not too late to switch him out before the window closes. (I couldn’t get images of a hippo in a tutu out of my mind now that Arseblog has sewn the seeds there). His contribution was even more dire than Gael Clichy at his worst.
Manure played quite well, but not at the level that the euphoric commentary team would have had the oohing and aahing home-counties jellybelly men, who make up most of their support at the Theatre of Debt these days, believe. They did score some very good goals. Young’s brace and Rooney’s first free kick were fine efforts. The others were largely down to ineptitude and incompetence on Arsenal’s part.
Green puke and bile of a “told you so” hue will be spilling forth from Muppets Le Grove and their likes in torrents. “Wenger Out!” will be their carefully thought through solution. In reality, Song, Gervinho and Frimpong need to look pretty hard in the mirror. Arshavin and Chamakh need to take stock of what, if anything, they want to achieve at Arsenal and set about raising their game. The back room medics need to deliver, Jack, Sagna, TV, Gibbsy and Diaby in one piece. Quickly. The board needs to address the star player wage gap well before next season.
And, Arsene: – Cahill, plus a new LB, and a very creative mid-fielder are a MUST before the window closes. Frankly, I’d take a punt on Sturridge as well. I have a feeling Chelski might let him go for a price and salary in our range. We may shortly Cee Why Park C.Y. is judged good enough to cover for an RVP injury, but right now, if Robin misses a game, the prospect of starting with Chamakh or Arshavin up front doesn’t make me feel warm and fuzzy. I’ve seen that movie.
So, reality-check. Last time we played Manure we beat them very convincingly at home. Anyone who believes that a six-goal chasm has opened up in the meantime doesn’t understand this game. However, currently NONE of the Europe’s second- best midfield from last season (F,S,N,W) are available and two will never re-appear. Things may look less than shiny, but we’ll do fine this season – BUT only if we can add discipline to the squad and buy a new CB, LB, and creative mid-fielder as a minimum.
We’ve lost two, drawn one. A long unbeaten run is now required to keep the defeats at two and establish a firm platform by Christmas. That is nowhere near beyond us. We are The Arsenal.
And, Holic – SINCERE congratulations on 1001 in black and white without spots, Cruella. You are a very fine man, sir, and a great credit to The Arsenal and all Gooners who sail with her. Where would we be without this fine sand box of yours to play in. Where else could our happy train trundle along such fine lines?
Arsenal, Bloody Arsenal.
I think as an Arsenal fan since only 1993 I can count today as character building (footballistically speaking).
Well said, ‘Holic. At 3-1 I thought we had a shadow of a chance of nicking a point (or at least keeping it respectable), but such is football.
I’m rather puzzled by our lack of activity in the market. Wenger obviously knows we’re short (he has said so himself along with many of our players). I don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes, but it all seems a bit odd.
At least the ladies won the league.
I’ve stayed away all Summer and I wish I was back in the US where its easier to ignore what’s going on.
It was a totally piss poor performance today. On Sky Merc was absolutely spot on, any Championship club in the same situation at Old Trafford would have been better organised and been harder to beat.
So Wenger has made history again, we haven’t leaked 8 goals in the League since 1896!
I’m totally despondent about the way Wenger has overseen the decline of the squad with no challenge from the board or the owners.
Three quality signings before the transfer window ends, not a fucking hope. We now hear that he is going to spend £3million quid on a Korean striker from Monaco, he’s cheap so that’s alright then (Chamakh mark 2?).
The only way that the club will progress is to change the management. He’s won fuck all for 6 yearsn and counting, how much longer has he got before its obvious to everyone that the Emperor has no clothes?
Another great post, but you make it sound as if this was just a blip.
The reality is that we’ve only won two (count them) of our last fifteen Premier League games – that is relegation form and equates to almost half a season.
Some blip…
BtM, thank you, but you are the shining light here.
Well, you and the thousands who kept up that wonderful chant of “We love you Arsenal” at Old Trafford today.
Deserved better, I think.
Top drink, BtM.
Chances are you will see something like this again – this season. sorry, but at the moment there is not a single thing that would indicate otherwise.
Worst defeat since the 19th century and reactions are ‘exaggerated’? What would it take to give up on Wenger?
That was the worst performance by players and manager in living memory. No matter who is injured, players from an Arsenal squad should not be conceding 8 goals. It’s utterly humiliating and there are no excuses for things descending to this level.
This one really hurt, as like many people I watched 180 minutes of North London getting hammered by Manchester. I think we need four top class players- two defenders (one who can play LB/CB), one midfielder who can pick locks, and a striker who actually likes shooting. Injuries and suspensions coming back will strengthen us, but the familiar weaknesses are still there. Fix them Arsene.
Also didn’t like seeing Nasri get 3x as many assists today than he did all of last season.
Holic, BtM – I take my hat off to you both.
The result today was painful, but in my mind it fell squarely between the more important issues of European qualification and bringing in adequate reinforcements.
We were able to tick the box in respect of the first issue. If we can do likewise with the second (and that still feels a big if) then this week, this season, may still be salvaged.
We are in for a very interesting 72 hours. One which will see a lot of old questions answered (not least whether the club is now totally dysfunctional behind the scenes) and doubtless some new ones posed.
Cahill, Baines, M’Vila, Kaka/Hazard would suffice for me, and all appear possible. In reality I suspect we’ll see just two players arrive.
As I said on the previous post, what all of this means is that Swansea is now a massive, massive game for this club, quite likely even bigger than today’s little number. We need to bounce back and fast. Win that game and debut a couple of new signings and we’ll be on our way. Anything else doesn’t bear thinking about.
COYG
Also, great work to the Arsenal Women’s team winning the FA WSL title. Finally, some silverware! Erm.
Agree with some of this ,but lets have some clarity on our injuries. Diaby hasn’t started 4 games on the trot for3 years. Gibbs is always injured. You have to write them off and if either ever get well enough to turn out reguarly and earn their vast wages, treat as a God sent bonus i.e plan on them not being there.
Secondly I dsagree on Ramsey. He has a great motor and always looks good in the last 10 minutes, [think Udinese]. But whilst I dont write him off, he’s a mille away at the moment from the first team quality of Chelsea, City and M. U. I hope he gets back, but dont delude yourself by the fact he runs around.
“Six years and you’ve won f—k all.” the United fans sang. That’s the bitter and unavoidable truth. And what are we doing to correct it ? Apart from a “super super quality” signing in Park Chu Young ( lol ) – f–k all.
Seems those United fans have a point.
” In Arsene we rust.”
No Gooner thought we would even get a draw today.But that was a fucking disgrace.QPR Swansea and Norwich wont concede 8 at OT.Once again let down by a defence that cannot defend.If it hadnt been for Szczesny the score would have been 15
Kroenke should fly into London tomorrow and sack Wenger.
Wenger has used our great club as his plaything for the last 6 years with his Youth Project.It has to end.
Jenkinson way out of his depth.He was a 1st division player for a reason.Traore on loan for the last two seasons NOT good enough.Same goes for the two CB’s thats why us Goonershave been crying out for two new CB’s.Rosicky finished.Ramsey has recovered from his broken leg,another Eduardo
A final thought the average age of Uniteds team was 5 months young than ours.So no one play the defeat on youth.It was down to lack of quality
Worst defeat in 115 years
‘Holic – congrats on the 1001st. Richly deserved.
BtM – thanks to you and ‘Holic. Saved me writing another word about the game.
It would be easy to dig out one or two individual players today, but what would be the point.
On the whole, a lot of players with far too little experience, tried hard but were not up to the task.
It must be said though, that out defending was unbelievable for any team of professional footballers, let alone The Arsenal.
I am not prepared to join the “Wenger out” brigade. None of us knows whose fault the current state of our squad is.
What is for sure, is that we are in a disgraceful mess, that should never have been allowed to happen to a club like this.
THE AWAY SUPPORT was absolutely BRILLIANT.
Read this:
http://blog.emiratesstadium.info/archives/14177
Then this:
http://www.thefootballnetwork.net/main/s378/st170548.htm
Get behind your team, boys. That’s it.
Good post m8, Kroenke needs to pull his finger out and start some pro active major shareholder decision making. At least give the supporters a press conference or statement of intent. Arsenal fans deserve that much.
Holic, I love your loyalty, but even you must be thinking that we’re watching Arsene’s time coming to an end. It happened with George ans we’re watching it unfold before our eyes now. The three signings you demand will not happen now, why will the board let Arsene run amok with their cash knowing that he’s totally lost the plot? Sad days but it’s been a decline over four/five years now. Nobody, least of all you, can be surprised at where we are now, and no other manager would have been given this long to sort things out. It’s the end of an era.
Ok, I am naturally upset, bordering on suicidal, but I have to say, calmer than I might usually be.
That said, I wanted to pull up a comment from the last drinks before I read today’s article…
“Asking boys to do men’s work.”
Actually, the average age of our side today was OLDER than theirs, so we cannot fall back on that old line anymore.
This debate has to shift. It cannot be about age or experience anymore as Sir Alex Ferguson has demonstrated today, it has to be about quality, something which they also showed us in full effect today.
As for those banging on about this result just offering the “doomers” more fuel for the fire, feck me yes it does! How much more fuel will it take before people start to realise that there may actually be a fire burning the house down in the first place.
No true fan wants to say that there are huge, looming problems at our great club, but a true fan has to accept when things are simply not being done in the best interests of the team or the fans.
Seriously folks, we basically have three days, yes, THREE days to save our season. Wilshere coming back from injury to play 60 games is clearly not an option, aside from not being enough, as it was exactly that which caused this injury in the first place and even Vermaelan wouldn’t have stopped what happened today single handledly. We are woefully short in important areas, we all know it and you don’t have to have a Lithium prescription to say it out loud anymore.
Come on Arsene, GET IT SORTED!
Long term reader, first time poster. I’m sat here in my newly adopted home in New Jersey, trying to make sense of the dual carnage that Irene has inflicted on the town, and that mauling we took today at OT. Whilst both were predictable, I still have a deep sense of shock.
I have been optimistic at the start of the last few seasons despite the annual media crisis mongerings, but I have to be honest – I just don’t see a good way out of this. Even if we do pull off three signings, the lack of experience and depth in the squad is truly worrying. It’s not possible to look at the state of the squad now compared to the squad at the end of last season and say we are in a better place in terms of numbers, quality, or experience, and what we had last season was roundly accepted as not being good enough.
I hope the Heineken will take the edge of things this evening, but whatever is going on behind the scenes at the club needs to be resolved and quick, otherwise it will be a long old season I fear. I agree that we need to hear something from Silent Stan soon, otherwise the feeling that he is simply milking the club for profit will take root.
Apologies for the downbeat first post, but impossible to feel anything else right now. Love the blog ‘Holic – always a voice of balance and reason.
Come on Arsene – there are 3 very crucial days ahead, time to act.
In the end I was just laughing, I couldn’t even get upset. It was that terrible. Worst part is I don’t think any established starts are comming in before transferdeadline, even after this start. The board has Wenger by the b…s. His hands are tied, the board will not offer any top quallity player the wage they demands.
Never seen Wenger like this before and I’m convinced it has to do with no backing from the board. It all started going downhill when they forced David Dein out. Dein was able to sign our targets, and he wanted to give Cashley those puny £5k extra a week that would have kept him at Arsenal. But nooooo, the rest of the board knew better!
I would understand if Wenger resigned, he has no support from the current board. Clear them out, ALL of them! (the board)
Good job board, the money you “save” on the wage structure will be nothing to the finacial loss of not playing Champions League next year.
BtM, You the man! This is why I like this blog: it is an oasis of reason and consideration in a desert of horrified reactionary nonsense.
This was an atrocious result today by all means and it was avoidable. I’m concerned at how things have gone this summer. Does anyone know what our plan was? If there was one? It all seems very odd to me.
Hmm, “shining light”.
“On The Scorecard As An Away Defeat – Nothing More. Nowt Less”.
I beg to differ. That “Scorecard” is etched with the support of Arsenal fans all around the world. They share the victories and grieve the losses. They don’t feel indifferent, unattached. They grimace and feel every goal against and cheer every goal for. Walking home from any match, the last thing you want to hear is “it’s just a game – there’s always next week!” when it really ‘hurts’ that’s when she’s got you – and that sirs is where I’m at – where are you at?
Dear fellow Gooners:
The best thing after that debacle is to go to the bar (maybe this bar) to have a few drinks and forget about it. There is no need at this point to go-off on the manager and players. Nothing new can be said. For me, it’s easy to put this in perspective….we got creamed, but my brother is under 9 feet of water, including two cars (one classic) compliments of Ms. Irene. For me, I can simply laugh about the match and look forward to Swansea.
Look, we certainly contributed to ManU’s excellence today but they had a least four top shelf goals that they pulled from a deep dark hole. Credit given where credit is due. Glad it happened in Match 3, rather than Match 35. We’re still trying to get sorted and I haven’t lost hope.
The bright spot, if any, will be that it will force us to make a few moves and not sit back on our laurels had we lost 1-0. The mindset would have been completely different if they nicked one at the end followed by the same old talk of of heart, spirit, etc.
The only real disappointment is that tactically we had no clue and I completely agree with West Upper that any Championship side, not to mention any League 1 or 2 side would been more successful in stopping the bleeding.
If good “deals” are out there, fine, have at’em but good solid quality players will do the trick to round out the squad. I know we won’t sign the mega-bucks player, but we do have the cash to slightly overpay for a few players. I predict this will be all forgetten by the end of 2011.
Thanks for yet another great post holic and well said Btm. And big thanks to all those top Gooners at Old Trafford today who know the true meaning of support. We joined in with your chants down here.
Who’d be in Arsene’s shoes now?
Large scotch please.
Reactions exaggerated!!!!
The biggest defeat any living Gooner has ever seen and we are exaggerating.FFS get real man.We are a top 4 club last season not a relegation team.We have had shit teams before in the mid 70’s and early 80’s but they never came near to conceding 8 goals in a game
Wenger sent his team out on a suicide mission.Go out and attack United.Utter fucking madness.And they murdered us.Thank God for Szczesny or it would have been the first 10 in the premiership.
Wenger should hold his hands up and say sorry i cant take the club any further its time for a new face and new ideas at the club.Because if he doesnt things will get worse not better
Win the title not a hope in hell Utd and City are on a different planet to us
Congrats on the K +1 ‘holic.
I’llpost again tomorrow when I’m less steamed. hic.
TABS @ couple of days ago ?
Thanks for the comment. My lateness in here recently has been due to finishing work far too late and having a very unwell mum.
Always read through all the drinks, even if it’s been a bit difficult to squeeze the time to write much.
Usual great stuff from all the regulars – Yourself, zico, TS, H2H, BtM,
Lars, Catalan, N7 (apologies to ant i’ve missed) and Snir – don’t jump, it will get better – good to be among true Gooners in rough times. 😉
Ben – re the ” ‘holic and that sort of fan” comment – why come all the way over here just to prove you’re a twat. Again.
Just remeber everyone, there is also 30 odd games left to play, lol, and the january transfer window.
If Arsenal lost 6-0 at home to Swansea Holic would say it wasn’t “entirely unpredictable” and make up some daft excuse to go with it.
I say, sack Wenger, sack the board and sack bloggers who don’t even raise an eyebrow when their team lets in EIGHT GOALS!!! They’re sleepwalking, just like the club. Either that or the really don’t give a toss.
What has become of this club, to feebly accept this embarrassment. Humiliation! I suppose Holic will now tell me I’m exaggerating.
I swear some bloggers would stick by Wenger if he urinated all over their post-match seat.
I mean, what about the tactics today? This clueless tactician we pay £6m a year sent his kids out to get decimated. No plan, no tactic, no nothing. It was truly horrific. Tactics for dummies. Wenger’s got to go, he’s been found out.
I’m telling you now, if you keep sleepwalking into the future you will wake up next summer and find Arsenal will be stripped naked of every decent player they’ve got and it will be hell to get out of.
Just remember everyone, there is also 30 odd games left to play, lol, and the january transfer window.
Am frm nigerIa.I have been so disappointed with arsenal dat this defeat was just like a prophecy come through.I ask my uk gooners,how d f….k do u guys fork out hard currency to watch arsenal matches live?its beyond me and I doff my heart for u guys!! If it were here,emirates would be a graveyard on match days xcept for away fans. U guys shld maybe consider that? To sum it up did u notice that lansbury was laughing when he was brought on? Sums up the state of tins@ arsenal lately,a limbo club,get in,get good,get noticed,get out.not yet good enough?not to worry nurse wenger will be at your beck and call.rubbish….. Holic,what else can u possibly say?am sure u r running out of positives?
Listen Trev, to call yourself ‘True Gooners’ just because you support Arsene is what’s called a ‘No True Scotsman fallacy’. A piece of circular logic to deny the fact that many gooners as genuine and ‘true’ as you consider yourself want Wenger out.
Personally I want him to stay. But you can’t deny the fact that there is a growing number, almost half if not more, of fans who don’t want Arsene at the club and quite frankly, he has only himself to blame.
Hi fellow Gooners, devastated by the result. But something is seriously amiss with the men high up. How can we not have bought big this summer knowing our deficiencies and the impending loss of Cesc and the goofy frog
Has Kroenke something to do with this?
I have never seen Wenger look the way he looked today and I suspect he has been squeezed to maintain the cash-books
So sad, but I still love my team
Ben – if you keep typing long enough you’re just bound to write something intelligent.
What’s all the shit about “your club”.
I’ve been going to Arsenal since 1969. I sat as numb and hurt as anyone as today’s events unfolded.
Even I can see that things are wrong, as I said above.
I simply choose to write about it in a way that is not abusive.
I am never abusive.
Now fuck off.
@6 bergkamp- did u get high before watching the match?????????We are lighyears behind man u and city. ramsey becoming world’s best????give me a break he’s decent but he will never be good cause there is no one left to learn from. fabregas learnt from some of the best… we are 8 points behind,i fear by the end of the season we will be 20. man u’s average age was 23, their “kids” look like class acts cause they have people guiding them, people who know how to win.saf bought youg players but he got them early and blended them perfectly. why did we sign joel campbell when he cant secure a work permit, why did we pay 12 million or so for AOC yet cant stump up 15 for cahill..when wenger knew nasri and fabregas would leave, why didnt he start searching for the replacements earlier.
Stella top and a diazipan chaser for me. Those Mexican 20mg ones if you’ve got em.
Could see this one coming, didn’t think we’d get quite such a tonking, but anyway.
BtM, great post as always.
Once the dust settles it will be interesting to see how much of the brittleness of our squad is down to economics.
I feel for Arsene, he’s a great man, who has done great things for our club and I have a huge amount of respect for him. If it’s his decision not to spend the (fucking) money then despite all that, it’s time for him to ply his trade elsewhere.
Seriously doubt this is the case though.
The buck stops with Wenger. Surely there should be a defensive plan b in case plan a with the senior team members is not availble.My take is Wenger doesnt practise defense drills according to Clichy.This is dereliction of duty.
So from Feb when the gunners were going for the qud,it is indeed a fall of great significance.The red faced had words of comfort before the game. But I have never trusted him for I believe he would stick the knife to get another competitor out of the way.
What now for Wenger? This is the final wake up call. His plan with kids,etc,aint working.
If he persists and the gunners fail to rise to the challenge,his head would be on the chopping block.
Btw can any fan explain why the gunner players always seem to be injured?This has happened in previous seasons. Something must be wrong and action taken to prevent it recurring.
I love Wenger but it’s seriously time to think whether the transfer money could be better spent by another manager? What’s gone on (or hasn’t!) regarding our crap coaching staff, players in and fixing the glaring problems at the club is simply lazy, self-righteous bad management. If you were in a job 16 years and have no one to challenge you, would you be at your best performance-wise? I couldn’t bare to see Wenger leave, he is a great man and he loves Arsenal but he has become complacent, to the point of neglect. I would like to hope that we get three or four signings of top quality in before Wednesday. If Wenger is smart he’ll get them at every cost or he’s going to lose his job. Or maybe he plans to leave for PSG next summer and he’s doing the honourable thing and saving the transfer money for a new manager. Who knows, but who we buy this week will define the rest of our season and the manager. No disrespect to Arsene though, he definately means well.
An Arsenal Fan @ 43 – apologies mate. I don’t like the divisions of Arsenal fans at all, and no offence was meant.
The target of the comment was meant to be idiots like Ben and Wenger Out. I mean, what is the point of calling Arsene Wenger a senile old prick, as a solution to the problem.
And does Wenger only have himself to blame ?
I don’t know, personally. What role are the board playing in all this ?
‘Holic and BtM, you point to the fact that we are missing 3 of our back 4. Many would consider Rafael- Vidic- Ferdinand – Evra as United’s main back 4. Today they played Smalling – Jones – Evans – Evra. So they’re missing 3 of their back 4 as well.
Their cover is so much stronger than ours, compare the benches today. Upon the United bench; Hernandez, Berbatov, Giggs, Ferdinand all waiting to come on. On ours; 3 who have never played in the Premier League, Lansbury and Chamakh and two others who I can’t even remember. Arsene needs to f*cking spend or f*ck off.
Ha ha ha ha . Sniff that coffee friends. That was a disgrace. No apologies. Absolute disgrace.
Cheers Lads – you put a smile on our faces after getting mauled at the Lane 😉
I think someone needs to have a word with Mr Kroenke. Does anyone know where he lives?
Sat here on my family hols I had not envisaged today. Did I think we could go to old trafford and get a result? Well, if I am honest, no I did not. This Is not just about today. The result here was not just a fuck up today. It has come from the last 3 years plus off not investing. Not making the best if what we have. I honestly do not know where my club has gone.
Take the mancs. They win the title. What do they do? They go shopping. They send the best part of 50 million early doors. Their title winning squad is now aready in place and enhanced. So, what do we do? sell our left back, don’t replace him. Sell our captain, don’t replace him, sell.arguably one if our best players? don’t replace him
Now, what do we do? Well quite simply very little. We should have Concluded the vast majority of our deals weeks ago. But we haven’t? Why?
As a club we are in a total mess. We are a shambles. I am genuinely struggling to get my head around how inept we have become.
Arsenal need a centre half? surely not. Owen Coyle must be pissing his pants.
I dont think that Arsene can manage star players, otherwise he’d buy them
Arsenal is a renowned name in world football. It wouldnt be hard to attract talent if Arsen wanted to.
This club is Arsenal FC not Arsene FC.If the manager is doing a bad job.He should be fired.Like every other manager.Wenger has no god given right to remain manager.
The club has gone stale in the last few years under his management.Familiarity breeds contempt.Where are the new ideas where are the tactics.He wont listen to anyone.He’s too stubborn
I was waiting for him to say in his post match interview that if we had kept 11 men on the pitch we would have snatched a draw
We will not win anything again under Wenger.He has now turned into Brian Clough at the end of his days at Forest
No Arsenal manager in 115 years has seen his team concede 8 goals in a match
bergkamp
i don’t like taking issue with fellow gooners but i think most would agree we have had enough of the “if onlys”. you say
“But, frankly, I found myself feeling distinctly indifferent and absolutely unemotional for this rather hollow victory by The Deeply Indebted. When you go ANYWHERE with three of your first choice defenders, your two most influential midfield players and your live-wire new wingman all missing, you shouldn’t hope for too much. ” united had their of their first choice back 4 missing, 2 of their “first choice midfield” missing and no berbatov or hernandez. 8 of that team didn’t play regularly or at all last year and i suspect only 2 played when they were beaten by us in april. but it seems to me that ferguson will never settle for “not hoping for too much”.
the fact is that we have a very very weak squad. we were really missing 5 players, gibbs TV sagna jack and song. the best we could play instead was jenkinson, traore and coquelin ? that is disgracefiul. look at the unite dbench today, and there was no vidic, no fabio, no valencia, no owen, no macheda no fletcher. thats is waht a squad looks like and wenger has been asleep if not downright negligent.
Apart RVP, Theo and Schezny, the team was below the level of a league 4 team… No disrespect … Traore and Jenkinsson showed the difference between the millions spent by City to buy quality players and the ones we buy for cheap thinking that they are worth it…. AW stop being stubborn and ACT NOW….
I’ve been a Gooner for 30 years and that performance today was the lowest I have seen my beloved club fall.
Many saw the line up before the game and feared the worst, but nothing could prepare us for the bloodbath that followed.
The game has been covered so no need in piling on more scorn, but Wengers comments after the game actually made me angrier than watching the mancs dismantle us. Not only did he make the usual excuses about being short in certain areas (that wouldn’t happen if you actually stremgthened the squad Arsene) he even had the nerve to say the players were tired. The season has just started, to use that as an excuse was an insult to Gooners everywhere. The result is your fault Mr Wenger, you the board and the yank with the 70’s porn tash.
None of us have ever said we wanted Arsenal to become a club that throws money around like drunk sailors, but we sell 2 of our best players and do not replace them, and in Cescs case we knew he was ul for everything Wenger has given us but his time has comegoing since the season ended.
The board have been happy with a top four finish each season and haven’t aspired to anything higher, but this pile of rubbish will not get any where near the top four come next may.
I am grateful for everything Wenger has given us but his time has come and gone. He needs to do the decent thing and walk away before he, and the board, run our once proud club into the ground.
Our traveling fans were magnificent today and he should have gone and apollogised to each and every one of them. They did NOT deserve to spend their hard earned money to have to sit through that tripe.
We were Arsenal before Wenger and we will be Arsenal if he goes.
WENGER OUT
United win the title.Go out and buy 3 players in June while keeping all their best players.Compare that to us.We finished last season badly.We needed lots of new players brought in quickly so they could have a pre season.We sell our best players after the season starts with no replacements lined up.And thats why United will win the title and we will finish outside the top 4.Its not rocket science.But Wenger gets paid £7m a year
First a round of drinks for the away support. Massive contribution and sad you weren’t rewarded for your brilliant singing. Getting rolled over at OT was painful, but all those people claiming a championship team wouldn’t give up that many are right only because they would come in a park the bus and just try and avoid embarrassment. I for one am glad the team at least gave it a go being threadbare and tired from mid-week action. How much have Jenks and Ramsey run in the last week?
The only thing embarrassing about this loss and others is the inevitable deluge of moaners who come on this blog and whine and insult AW, holic, and anyone who chooses not to take a absolute dire perspective on everything. You lot are not only the worst losers, and with your deluded sense of entitlement will inevitably be the worst gloating winners when (not if) this great club finds it’s way to silverware again.
Holic, BtM,
Hear you both. But it hurts so bad just now.
Point taken that CL qualification and strengthening the sqaud and are paramount at the moment. And even I recognise the positives from todays game. Coquelin battled admirably even if his forward play needs a bit of improvement. Walcott is becoming the player that his talent sugesys he should be. Needs to do it consistently. Kos is already s fine defender. Especially when he has the TV beside him. And we still have the not inconsiderable talents of Jack, Sing, Gervinho, Sagna, Frmpong. But therein lies the problem. Our inability/refusal to sort out transfer buisness and strengthen the squad at a much earlier stage does everyone wearing the red n white a disservice of huge proportions. We may have lost out on a couple of million quid ad result but in the grand scheme of things, does that even require a second thought?
I admit to feeling I was witnessing the dismantling of a mid-table side this evening but I do know we still have the makings of a championship side. Those running the show must reward the faithfulness of the fans who stand by the team. Arsene has unearthed some hems from the muddiest of waters in the past but signing Park as standby for RvP had better deliver dividends in short order. Nothing less than proven quality will suffice further back in the line up. Gibbs remiaming fitn for the remainder of the Season will be almost like a new signing (sorry, couldn’t resist) so a new “LB is required. We all know what else is needed so I wont bother going into that.
It hurts, but it can be healed. Arsene, Ivan, Dennis, please show us all
@Wenger out Now – So do you feel good, having marched onto the internet and called Wenger ‘a senile old prick’ ?
Not to mention myself. Thanks.
My season ticket alone cost £1995 this season, if we want to get into ‘mine is bigger than yours’ arguments.
I hate days like today. I hate to see what the Invincibles have turned into.
But I prefer the reaction of our travelling fans today to your own.
That is all.
Feel free to insult me all you like, if it helps you.
Bearded Gooner – You’ve contradicted yourself there a tad. You complain about people insulting Wenger by, errr, insulting them. We need to realize that the people asking for Wenger to be sacked now aren’t just a small reactionary sect of fans who’ve ”only known the good times”, this is our fanbase, who love the club as much as you or me who are asking for Wenger to leave. While I don’t share their opinion, their voice is not one to be dismissed without consideration!
Wenger will only ever play one way: open attacking football.
Amidst the gloom of today this was hidden:
This team of misfits managed 15 shots, 9 on target. Away to Man Utd that’s incredible stats.
Just wanted to put that out there…..I’ve been off alcohol for 3 months but tonight I request a large scorn please Holic.
ben
i agree with your conclusion. any of our team that a) has ambition and b) is desirable to other top teams , must be thinking ” what am i doing here”. the ship is going down and we are signing park ? we are offering derisory amounts for cahill when clearly 3 of our 4 centre backs are crap ? i said last january that nasri and cesc would be gone by start of this season if nothing changed and i was shouted down. i take no pleasure in getting that one right.
i now say that you can add TV5 jack and rvp to that list. rvp’s contract is up in 18 months or so. maybe he has left it too late as you wonder who would take him now ? as for tv although he could well replace terry at chelsea. jack is arsenal through and through but when he sees all his england team mates at united city and chelsea he will get his head turned too. when wenger leaves, there will be no reason for him to stay.
sad to say but i don’t think that many would want any of our other players szcz aside and there aren’t any vacancies for keepers at the big clubs
Holic, BtM,
Hear you both. But it hurts so bad just now.
Point taken that CL qualification and strengthening the sqaud and are paramount at the moment. And even I recognise the positives from todays game. Coquelin battled admirably even if his forward play needs a bit of improvement. Walcott is becoming the player that his talent sugesys he should be. Needs to do it consistently. Kos is already s fine defender. Especially when he has the TV beside him. And we still have the not inconsiderable talents of Jack, Sing, Gervinho, Sagna, Frmpong. But therein lies the problem. Our inability/refusal to sort out transfer buisness and strengthen the squad at a much earlier stage does everyone wearing the red n white a disservice of huge proportions. We may have lost out on a couple of million quid ad result but in the grand scheme of things, does that even require a second thought?
I admit to feeling I was witnessing the dismantling of a mid-table side this evening but I do know we still have the makings of a championship side. Those running the show must reward the faithfulness of the fans who stand by the team. Arsene has unearthed some gems from the muddiest of waters in the past but signing Park as standby for RvP, given the general state of affairs, is a huge gamble and had better deliver dividends in short order. Nothing less than proven quality will suffice further back in the line up. Gibbs remiaming fitn for the remainder of the Season will be almost like a new signing (sorry, couldn’t resist) so a new “LB is required. We all know what else is needed so I wont bother going into that.
It hurts, but it can be healed. Arsene, Ivan, Dennis, please show us all that you know how.
Trev….I’m one of those traviling fans!!!!!
holic
An 8-2 defeat and no sign of Eboue,Denilson.Squillaci.Diaby,Bendtner and Vela
Wenger’s famous last words “this is my strongest squad EVER”
Bearded I think people have a right to complain. I will always stand by the team no matter what, but this is not something that has just happened overnight. We have 2 league wins since February and did nothing during the summer to try and improve that run of results. Instead we sold our captain and second best midfield what do we do? we offer Bolton 6m for one of their best players.
This cannot go on, something has got to change or it will be a very long season for us.
I support Arsenal, players AND managers come and go, and this is Wengers time to go.
We have NEVER conceded 8 goals in the top flight. NEVER. We lost once in 1896 in div 2 8-0. Honestly i didnt expect anything from todays game and i would have accepted a draw as a win considering the deep sh*thole were in. But this was beyond my worst nightmares… To lose 8-2 against this bloated spoiled disgusting team and manager is to much to bare. Anybody that knows any oil sheiks? Clearly this board and yankee main owner will sink our Arsenal ship right to the bottom of the sea, while feasting on the money for our (good) sold players
Wow Geoff that’s good to know. I can sleep well tonight now.
Sp. Scotch!!!
#79 Wenger Out Now:
I can’t sleep either
Wenger is not the problem, the board is.
When David Dein was GM we were able to sign our targets now we can’t sign jack. Same manager, different head of negotiations. Gazidis come from a draft background in the US sports. For him and Kroenke its unnatural to pay clubs big money for players.
He has no grasp of what it takes in the PL, and he is Kroenke’s YES man.
Wenger puts on a brave face, but I bet he is fed up with the board, several reports indicate it.
When Wenger in june said ” If we sell Cesc and Nasri we can not convince anyone we have ambitions”. Who do you think he was talking to, himself?
No, it was aimed at the board! And he has pretty much been using the media to hint to the board all summer. Thats why his statements has been fairly odd all summer.
Support Wenger and start putting presure on the suits without a clue.
There should be a law against selling shares in english football clubs to americans, as americans just want to milk their businesses for cash. Guess Kroenke is getting ready to dig into his new cashcow!
So how much money do we save on the current wage budget? It can’t be anywhere near what we lose on not playing ECL next season.
@Yann M’Vila I agree completely with your perspective and quite frankly if people want Wenger out they are more than entitled to that opinion but I just think they should express that in a respectful manner as you have. Unfortunately many don’t (ie Wenger out Now in every post on here).
It was very very painfull to watch that display 2day, crucial moment was the penalty, had we scored the penalty then the game could have turned out differently, never seen van persie take such a poor penalty, maybe he was lacking confidence.
A good team is built from the back, ive said this many a time on blogs, theirs no point us scoring 3 goals and conceding 6 or should i say 8, it was very poor, mistakes, poor communication, why does wenger continue to play such a high back line ????, its suicide against teams with quick strikers, wingers.
Our game plan was all wrong, wenger knew our team was bare to the bone with suspensions and injuries so why play those high line defensive tactics and push all the players up, we should have sat deeper as a team, defended properly and then attacked on the counter, this would have made more sense, the way we played barce in the 1st leg last season, its bloody crazy, its like we were asking man u to slaughter us and they truely obliged.
I know we had half of our 1st team missing in this game but thats still no excuse for such shambolic defending, i just hope this game hasnt destroyed the young players confidence, coquolan, AOC, jenkins and the rest, i hope this team can pick its self up and go again, we need to get a better defensive coach, a better fitness coach and bring in 4 quality players to have a chance to salvage something, quality players are needed to strengthen this team and bring in some needed confidence as we are down on the decks.
UP GUNNERZ
Geoff
You could have 50 shots.The only stat that counts is 8 goals to 2.The day they bring in points for shots on goal we will win the league. If you cant defend Utd will kill you.I bet they dont score 8 again this season becuase teams wont go to OT being so gung-ho.Wenger didnt have no game plan as usual.What has this open attacking football won us in the last 6 years?Football is about defence and attack not just attack
@Robbie I completely respect your opinion on that. You are not who my comments were directed to.
Well, credit to you if you were one of those we could here on the telly.
It was brilliant.
I think you will find a lot of regulars on here have real and deep concerns about the state of the squad.
But the Guvnor, and we, just prefer not to be abusive to people who you have to assume are doing their best.
There were some players today, whose best was clearly nowhere near good enough. Others tried manfully in impossible circumstances.
But, as i’ve already said above, I don’t know if it is Wenger’s fault.
The Cesc and Nasri situation has been dealt with very poorly, but is that because Wenger is stubborn and stupid, or have the board told him he will not get the money to replace them properly, and he just desperately tried to hang on to one, or both, of them.
I don’t know. Maybe you do ?
Me @87 – that was a reply to Wenger out Now.
82 – Arsene is the captain of this ship. The youth transfer policy is his, the ‘no long term contracts for over 30s’ policy is his, the 4-3-3 formation which doesn’t work without Cesc is his, the pinpointing of players like Squillaci is his. He has brought this reaction on himself. He has the ability as a manager to redeem this situation, but he must spend. If he doesn’t spend in the next 3 days, well then I may be a little more convinced that the board are tying his hands.
Wenger said if we sell both Cesc and Nasri we cannot be called a big club.For once he was right
Pretty sure there is only a few derogatory comments about Wenger, please don’t lump everyone who wants a change in the same box.
As spooky said he is not alone in his blame. The board are quiet clearly tying his hands somewhat when it comes to transfers but I don’t think it’s as 100% cut and dried as some people claim.
I would also like to Ask Stan Kroenke why he bought our club just to sell off our best players. Even if we spent the money we earned on transfers this summer we could have strengthened. No one is asking us to go into massive death, please just show Gooners that you have some ambition.
Bearded – where’s the posse ? We’re getting a right kicking here!
@ bearded ok fair enough man. Thought you were tarring us all with the same brush. Sorry
Spooky @ 82 – good stuff. Seems very plausible to me.
Here in Texas, a few margaritas and some Guinness down. I don’t feel as bad. After wanting to give all this football shit and focusing on team Family. Because at the end, what else matters? But this read has given me some perspective. It’s only 3 points. Forget about the 8 goals, one for each injured or suspended first teamer. i feel bad for the youngsters thrown into the wolves. But they will learn. Better now than in December. Wenger is a good man, with good principles, and he will get us through this. He WILL.
I’ve run out of Guinness, a Tecate will do.
Just noticed spooky’s remark about Dein. A lot of Gooners, myself included, didn’t like what he was doing with Usmanov, but since he left it has seriously hurt us. As stated now we can’t seem to sign anyone without it being a long drawn out drama.
Sorry if I am a JCL to here, my usual site is down for maintenance and need somewhere to vent. Good blog though that I will deff start following.
@Spooky – How much money has John W Henry injected into Liverpool this summer? Remind me again where he’s from?
@gariago Yes it’s only 3 points. But last week against Liverpool was another 3 points. The week before against Newcastle it was another 2. The point being, individually each of these games is only worth 3 points (‘duh’ I hear you say), but this isn’t a one game blip. This has been going on since February. Only 2 league wins in 13. How many points is that? It’s relegation form in any case.
@ Robbie that is the beauty of this bar. Different opinions are welcome and even encouraged. It makes for a lively debate. As you have probably noticed very few people disagree that players need to be bought and that the whole transfer business this summer has been poorly managed. No arguments here. I do however still think Wenger is the right person to take this club forward and will get it right in the end even if he hasn’t recently. Plenty would disagree and I accept that.
@ Trev the hardest part is trying to maintain a respectful tone with those who choose not to. It always reminds me of a famous saying which is something along the lines of never wrestle with a pig, you’ll both get dirty but only the pig will enjoy it.
Bearded – thank god for that. Now can you hold my coat ? 😉
Who are we going to bring in now that is ‘super quality’ though? Eden Hazard? M’Vila? Cahill? All three would be great additions in my opinion but altogether you’re looking at a cost of at least 55-60 million pounds.
@97 Senderos’
That is quite different and let me tell you why.
When Bank of Scotland forced through the sale of Liverpool against Hicks & Gilletts wishes, they confiscated most of the sales sum to pay of the creditors (mostly themself) Hicks and Gillett was left with next to nothing.
So The Liverpool debt except £37M was cleared, the deal was a frickin’ gift for him. So Oct 2010 Liverpool only had £37M debt. Today under a year later they have £118M debt.
So how do you think they finaced this summers spending spree?
You got it, they took up a loan in Liverpools name of close to £100M so Daglish could rebuild the squad, with no real risk to their own investment.
I guarantee you Liverpool won’t spend like that the comming seasons.
The deal NESV got on Liverpool was a goldmine, since most of the money they payed to buy the club went into clearing the debt of their newly bought business.
Hicks & Gillett were the big losers and tried to sue pretty much everyone involved.
Senderos’ snout, I hear you( and can’s say i disagree)
We can start blaming, but at this juncture, I am not sure this will help the cause. We know we should have sold Nasri and Fab4 2 months ago and bought new talent without any pressure. But this is where we are at… If the board is worried about loosing money, a non performing team is a clear excuse for a fan to let go… And fans like me who do suffer this loss may opt to ignore the club and focus on what is really important— my family, my two sons, not buying shirts or caps or anything…
But the ones that are away will come back and it won’t be this bad. And they will buy players or risk loosing income.
Trev – You know I can’t do that, but I’d be happy use it to hold our seats at the bar.
Haha like the pig comment.
I am sure a lot of the piss and vinegar I and others are feeling is down to being humiliated today, but there doesn’t seem to be any accountability. I am under no illusions that if we got rid of Wenger tomorrow and all would be well, but I really don’t see another option.
His tactics today were also quite dreadful. In the first half it was clear we were playing too high a line but we never changed that. Jenkinson will be having nightmares about Young but he didn’t stand a chance. Taking off le Coq was also a chin scratcher. He was actually giving our defence a bit of cover and when he went off it was like the floodgates opened.
Yann,
They will have to spend. If this continues, it will only alienate those marginal fans, even if we go into a “little” debt.
In my opinion, the formation, system and tactics need an overhaul. The current 4-3-3 was customized to Cesc. We built the team around Cesc as the playmaker. We can either spend 30-40 million on a player of supreme quality to replace Cesc and slot right into this role, or else revamp the entire formation.
I really don’t know why we don’t play a 4-4-1-1. We play van Persie up front alone and if we bring on a second forward we invariably stick him out wide. RvP just isn’t a hold the ball up sort of forward and looks much more comfortable playing the Bergkamp role sitting deeper and playing behind another CF.
Not that I am comparing him to Dennis but he often comes deep to get the ball anyway and he is a lot better passer than many people give him credit for.
Cheers Bearded – have one on me. 😉
Right, I’m off. Hope it feels better tomorrow. SLOFM.
Both good and bad here :
1) We were always going to get beaten by united today, so why not stop them playing football and defend more, rather than sticking with the same old ethos and exposing the back 4 to a drubbing, which will only knock confidence !
2) 8 goals against is going to push the board and Wenger into buying some players now ….. if this doesn’t happen the fans will revolt. If we had lost 1 or 2 nil, then they would have put it down to the players that were out … so I think this will be a good thing in the interim.
3) Things will have to change – be it Wenger, the board, the club ethos or all three
Robbie @108 – agreed. Could Jack be that player ?
Drop in again tomorrow – I’ll buy you one, Lars’tab 😉
Heh I’ll take you up on that Trev. After the slagging I get at work I’ll probably need a drink or two.
Here’s hoping Jack is that player. He has heart and is getting better and better. He is a blood and thunder player which is something we sorely lacked at old toilet.
I don’t know anything @ 61 – take issue as much as you like.
Had we started with:
Sczezny,
Sagna, Koscielny, Vermaelen, Gibbs,
Ramsey, Song, Wilshere,
Wacott, RVP, Gervinho
Fabianski, Diaby, Djourou, Rosicky and Arshavin
We would have had a stronger starting team than manure and our bench would have done just fine even with Jenkinson, Chamberlain, Miyaichi, Coquelin, Frimpong Chamakh and C.Y. Park sitting watching in the stand.
Owen, Macheda wouldn’t get on our bench. Neither has a future in the BPL.
Read the rest of my note, you’ll see that I agree we need to add some players. No argument from me there – but I’m not going to shit myself because we lost away with half a team after a great, but very tiring night in Italy on Wednesday.
Fabregas and Nasri are great players. Great players are not easy to acquire unless you have silly money like Shitty. Fortunately, we have Wilshere who is as close to that level as anyone else in the league. Clichy is NO loss – I’m pleased he’s gone.
Get over it, we’ll beat Manure again at home later in the season as we did, very comfortably last season.
Is that starting XI stronger than
De Gea,
Smalling, Vidic, Ferdinand, Evra,
Nani, Anderson, Cleverley, Young
Rooney, Hernandez
I don’t think so.
Stronger than…
Hart,
Richards, Kompany, Toure, Clichy
De Jong, Yaya,
Silva Nasri
Aguero Dzeko (or Tevez)
Certainly not.
Include the benches and it’s quite obvious how weak our squad is in comparison. United had the league practically wrapped up when we beat them last year. That defeat meant nothing to them.
1. Yes
2. Don’t even think of comparing a squad being managed with good financial prudence with Shitty. When you have an unlimited amount of Abbly Dabbly petro dollars at your disposal just so some Shake can get his name in the Manchester Gazette you are untouchable in terms of who you can acquire and retain. Even then, I recall we thumped Shitty away last season and they played 11 in their own half for 90 mins in London.
Unfortunately, this is not a level playing field we’re on.
well said senderos’s. bergkamp do you really think that team is better than united’s ? really ? please. i tried this debate last year – man for man, what would your combined team be ? i can only see jack and probably (currently anyway) szcz getting in a combined side . and while we can disagree on this its also a squad game and NO bench with Fabianski, Diaby, Djourou, Rosicky and Arshavin on the bench is credible. not one of them deserves to be at the club (and you can add gibbs and walcott to that)
I suppose the Chelsea win and Barcelona wins were gifts as well granted by teams who didn’t care either? Jog on.
I watched the Manure defeat last season again this afternoon. Didn’t look to me like they didn’t care. They looked pretty pissed off actually.
I enjoyed watching that team thump Manure last season. I will enjoy watching them do so later this. Are you two guys here in the US?
they “thumped” them 1-0. the way ferguson saw the weaknesses in his team (a team that won the league and got to final of CL…) and rebuilt it so quickly sums up the difference between him and wenger
BTM:
How are we to compete for the top with the endless dollars being spent by those who have it (Chelsea, Oil City) and those that don’t (ManU, Liverpool) who are bleeding money to the tune of hundreds of millions? Few players have the loyalty we nned to see through the tough times. I’m serious, not giving anyone grief.
The Arsenal Board are happy to take our money for tickets and merchandise but are not willing to spend some money on players. Time we started boycotting games until they start spending some money on players. Lets boycott all games until they spend 70 million on new players.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Boycott-Arsenal/266192366741705?v=wall
Being in New York this weekend, I was hoping before Irene hit that it wouldn’t take out the power as the United game was on TV Sunday morning. I now rather wish it had.
Someone here said Wegner takes good players and makes them great, but Fergie takes good players and makes them a great team. ‘Bout sums it up right now.
Rooney’s two free kicks and Young’s pair were all great strikes. Take them out and a 4-2 defeat would be a fair reflection of the current disparity between us and United.
A pick-me-up is definitely in order, if you would, ‘Holic.
I agree with the opinion that it is Wenger who must sort out the mess that he and the board have created. Arsenal right now need a few signings and the most crucial thing of all we need someone like Martin Keown. He would be crucial in getting the team’s attitude right and most of all concentrate on the basics. That would go a long way righting a lot of wrongs.
For the past six years we fans have moaned, but now is the time to direct our protests to the board directly. We need to make sure that we are heard. Something like the Liverpool or ManU fans did against their respective boards in the recent past.
Trev…
I’m trying man, I really am. But I can’t stop thinking about ‘what next’… What about next season? How will we get out of this?
I’m not dealing with who to blame, I’m concerned about next season.
It’s clear to me that we need TOP quality players so that we could be able to have cover like United had today with 3 of their back 4 out.
My problem is how do we attract those players and start the rebuilding project?
We don’t pay good wages for top players, a top player can always earn more somewhere else if he’s a top player and we’re perceived as a club on the down not on the up so our force of attraction is quite weak.
You get why I’m this depressed? I just feel we’ve got ourselves in a giant snowball that I don’t see stopping anytime soon…
the football business models can be roughly broken into 3 groups
– don’t earn it but have rich backer so spend it. city, chelsea . they play a dangerous game as one day abramovich and/or abu dhabi will get bored. they hope to be self sufficient by then but no real chance for either. FFP is designed to get at these
– don’t have it but are spending it in hope of making big time. liverpool and to some extent sunderland qpr etc are in this group. they have a gripe with FFP as it it precludes them from ever getting up to the very top
– have it and spend it accordingly (self funded). these will be ok under FFP but the danger is the first and maybe the second group are at the top when FFP kicks in and once it does it will be hard to catch up. we are clearly in this group as i think are the LWCs. also in this group are united (despite all the misguideds who moan about them in this and other blogs. FFP doesn’t take into account debt that was used to buy the club, it just looks at the affordability of the playing operations). there are 2 main differences between LWCs/us and united; 1) they make much more than we do (unbelievable commercial operation and sadly a defeat for us like yesterday enhances their appeal in asia/usa immeasurably) and ii) they spend it much more wisely. others have commented on why we think jones/smalling are overpriced but yet spend 12m on a teenager with no track record but also, crucially is NOt what we need right now.
Snir:
My thought is that we have to bring in veterans that are solid players with perhaps one or two studs with the big wages. Let the youth grow while having a core of veterans to follow and look up to. The problem has been we relied on Cesc as our sole creative engine and the last few years when he didn’t play we struggled and we are struggling now. We need to build-out the squad.
Not that this is the solution, but why couldn’t we sign Parker or a few players like him? He’s not a world-beater but he would provide depth, experience and he would cost, what, $5 million, big deal. We have to provide a bridge for the youth to cross. United doesn’t have world-class from 1 to 11 but they have a core which we don’t. Just a thought.
I think we were willing to spend on Jones/Smalling but they opted for ManU. The youngsters come here in droves b/c they believe they will play right away in our ongoing youth movement. Unfortunately we are in a cycle of signing the next great thing instead of a known quantiy.
gedo
no one has a world class 1-11. not barcelona, not real madrid, not spain, not united. world class used to mean – would they be considered in a fantasy world eleven. now it often seems to loosely mean international class – in that case maybe the top teams have a world class 1-11 ; even us !
in fact the very good teams find a way of combing a few great players with quite a few very very good players and maybe a few players many would say are “only all right”. one mistake that is often made on this block is to say “liverpool are shit, look at henderson , jack is much better than him” . similarly united and o’shea (last year). this misses the point; they have a part to play in the team and play it,. most of our stars and now also the new kids have an attitude that says “look at me”. rooney and torres and drogba and tevez and ronaldo can do that ; THEY have done it and they are suppounded by players who work for them. We haven’t done it and most don’t want to do the work
gedo
its easy for wenger to say that now, just as he is willing to sign cahill (but bolton, inexplicably , won’t take 6m …). all i know is that they aren’t playing for us.
any young player is going to want to win things. assuming they have a choice, all being equal they will go to the club they think is most likely to do that for them. that is the problem we have now. even if we do spend, we are getting those others don’t want. that may be ok too, but we then buy the wrong ones and/or players we don’t need. if you are tight with money and your roof is leaking, a new TV is now your priority
Agreed, I think international class was the better term to use when I posted. Can’t we even slighty overpay for a reliable player? Why is it we have to consider a signing a “deal” in order for it to go through? The fact is that a good player’s agent is going to solicit to more than one team and we need to step-up a bit with our cash to sign that player.
How much money do we have to spend?
The board should come clean.
RVP:
Do you think it’s less than the reported 70mil? I think the Board might be complacent to sign a few studs given the success we’ve had developing the youngsters while achieving CL qualification every year. I think they believe that as long as we do that the fair play rules will swing the balance in our favor at some point. I think Arsene buys into this philosophy as well but using the excuse of the new stadium is going to lose it’s luster at some point, no?
This is what scares me the most…
Out of yankeegunnerblog.com
If you were a player at Arsenal, how would you behave? You’re surrounded by youngsters with few experienced, older teammates ready to keep you in line. You watch while players who agitate for moves out of the club are indulged by the manager as if they’re heroes or martyrs. You see players like Denilson and Diaby stroll around on defense but continue to get picked. You watch players like Almunia and Squillaci keep their jobs after proving time and again that they’re not good enough.
If I were a player at Arsenal I would believe that I could do what I pleased. Play how I want. Train how I want. Behave how I want. Perform badly. And I would have reason to believe that I could behave that way because I would see evidence of it everywhere I looked. Alex Ferguson isn’t loved by all his players, but he’s feared by all his players. Wenger is loved by all his players and feared by no one.
Thanks Holic’ and BtM, the perspective is much needed.
I felt like the minority here thinking that this was just a blip. The thought of getting away from the tv did occur to me a few times (pundits: “this is arsenal they’re doing it to, arsenal!”) but no. I figured this will make all our future victories that much sweeter.
At the end of the day, it’s all about balance. The good wouldn’t be as much fun without the bad. Balance is probably something Wenger is well aware of after his spell in Japan, and most likely anchored in his managing and footballing ethos. He’s going through a tough balancing act at the moment, and someone just through an extra eight plates to spin on top of the other ones. If I were Mrs. A. Wenger, I would be concerned about his health, this can’t be good for him.
I haven’t been supporting this team for as long as some of you might have, and yes, it was hard to take but I knew I had to. Being in a pub surrounded by ManU fans, I can’t even imagine what it might’ve felt like for the traveling gooners inside the stadium. Cheers guys, keep it loud, keep it coming.
At the end of the day, sure, it was really bad, but like a chelski friend of mine said about our line up: “Who the fuck are these guys?”. The spine of the team was missing. So far this season, I have been quite impressed with the spirit of the team, and on paper and from the grand total of thirty minutes where we’ve actually seen our complete starting eleven playing together at the same time on the same pitch, I do feel that this team really doesn’t look that bad. I definitely want to see more.
Oh, and Arshavin needs to loose 10-15 kilos. He seems to need at least a couple of minutes to get back up whenever he goes to ground…
Where are all the regulars today?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_N00lQGMj8
Van Persie interview – class….sorry if posted above
Going by recent performances, we’d be lucky if we end the season in the top half.
Hello all, we know a lot of things about this result, we’ve all sat and thought hours about it. We know a lot about the club we all love and cherish more than most things in our lifetimes. We know that we lost ( sorry to reiterate that). We know we love this club more than most things we will come across in our lifetimes (that was kind of for effect). I sat and watched and hoped we had enough at 5-2 to maybe make a charge back into the game. We didn’t. At the end of the day yes, it is a result we can all learn from, hopefully the ones in the club can more. I for one will sit and watch til Im sent out to pasture and sometimes be happy with the result. But, to be completely honest I hope this has been a humbling experience to Mr. Wenger, the board and the players. Silent Stan well, we shall see. Again time to press on and hope that the club as a whole has learned from this experience.
To be honest, I haven’t read most of the drinks just the regulars…. Thank you HOLIC for this place to gather, mourn, celebrate and sometimes just vent. Onwards and upwards, I think from here folks, let’s all have a big drink and save the negativity for something that may make a difference in this world an by that in no way do I mean run thru the streets of tottenham and burn shit…
I wouldn’t be surprised if AW would resign after the window closes – Watch this space.
And for the next question – NO! I DON’T want him to resign!
Snir, no offense my friend but, you need some rest. All of this coupled with Mrs. Irene has spoiled your mind. What if the world ended tomorrow, what if that hurricane had hit Boston, what if you didn’t get accepted to school…. What if this year we win the beer cup and FA cup, what if we win the league and cup double, what if Rooney, little P, young and Owens ( just for a mention cause he won’t get many) all do their acls? We’re only 3 games in… Have a drink or anything else on me.
We’re fans and the only Arsenal customers and customers only care much about the end products or services received and not how raw materials used by the company are got.So no one should justify whether it’s AW or the Board responsible for bad services. So far AW has failed in his role as coach to provide tactical expertise that’s he’s paid for by demonstrating that he’d rather sacrifice the team’s reputation than drop his philosophy of open attacking football even when prevailing conditions( very weak team against a very effective opportunistic one) don’t allow it.And if by any case it was a way of him passing a message to the hallucinating Board he should have found a better way instead like threaten to resign unless the board meets the reality just like other coaches have done after all the Arsenal Board know they will never find another coach like AW who can be willing to undergo such frustrations and equal pressure.
Lolo, the conspiracy theorist in me agrees with you. Have a drink.
YDWBHL, I know mate, I have a really big assignment to hand in and all I can think about is what happened today…
And how it will affect the years to come… That’s what I’m so concerned about… The next 5-10 years…
Understood snir but, I think ( I’ve read) I know you better than this. Not all doom, Players still want to come but, the media just don’t reach out to those players when all is going wrong, they have a ready made story at their fingers. We’ll get thru this and come 5-10 years you can steer them all in the right direction.
By the way, what did the good Drs. Give you in that last set of drinks?
Enough of this lunacy. Just a blip? This was 6 years in the making of lack of investment. We all saw this coming weeks ago.
We need 5/6 international players to arrive by Wednesday. We need the contracts terminated of Traore and at least alumunia and a clear out of the so called medical team. And that’s just to compete for 4 th.
Wenger, gazadis should resign.
Not a good day mate. Agree Stan’s being a bit too silent for my liking, and I dont want Ivan remembered as ‘the Terrible’, either. Was a weak patched-up team from a weak injury/suspension hit squad, so result was not really a surprise. One a two ‘wonder’ goals add to the scoreline, making it even harder to stomach. But I’ve been there before, as have others. Not exactly water off a duck’s back, but changes nothing as far as my feelings for the club go.
YDWBHL, we will get through it. But, I don’t wanna get through it, I wanna win the league and you need top players for that.
In today’s football, we’re not that attractive for top players (and boy does it hurt me to write that).
In 5 years time when AW is retired I don’t think our next manager would be able to make world class players out of the talented youth like AW did with PV, TH et al so that we could get back on track and compete for the league again.
I am very disappointed it’s come to this, I’m not focused on blaming because it won’t help but bottom line is that this summer should have played differently…
Whatever the Dr. gave me it didn’t work, I can still remember what happened at OT.
@148 If you’re referring to me sir or madam…. I was merely saying that it is one of many games to play and we can overcome. 5/6 international players? Wilshere, gervihno, song, diaby, vermaelen, sagna, Gibbs… There’s 7 but I fully agree that we will need some honest cover for those that will and most certainly will go missing throughout the year. Say Cahill, Arteta, M’vila, park( not sure why honestly?) and Hazard. Should be plenty but then who knows?
Snir, again I feel you’re sentiment however, who’s to say he made titi or paddy? They had it in their blood and in their bones. Maybe the French director of football made them then, maybe. RVP wanted van der fart here last season and he wanted to come so bad he went to SHL. So on and so forth with players and their friends in respective clubs. Maybe just maybe the French players are the problem?
I don’t think the french players are the problem, they gave us (or at least contributed heavily) all of AW’s championship.
I don’t need to repeat who they are, we all know.
And I do think it is AW who made them because that’s his specialty.
Like I said, I know The Arsenal had rough patches in the past but that was before that Shiekh and Abramovich.
It’d be very very hard to put us back in contention for the championship (I’m talking about next season and the seasons after that) with no AW.
Alex that argument goes both ways we can not sell players Aluminium,Bendy,Denilsen just to name a few because there wages are too high teams will agree a transfer fee but the wage negotiations break down,i am sure AW defended the flat line wage structure at Arsenal years ago(so your argument is ?)
HAHHAHAHAHa!!! Trev, BTm, Holic you’re lot are soooo intelligent, but still confused about who is to blame for this shy#$ squad and tactics. Can’t remember which one of you geniuses said this young team is still tired after a tough night in Italy four days ago, three games into the season. Wow, how much is the club pr department paying you??
Manchester United’s goalkeeper (De Gea) cost roughly as much as our 3 goalkeepers and 8 defenders combined.
For the last 6 years we’ve always finished either level or above (and sometimes well above) where our spending would predict us to be. That (and the ticket prices) is the reason for our delusion of grandeur but the hard cold fact is that we’re outspent at such level now that we simply cannot compete for anything else than a CL spot. Once you realize our best paid player is making much less than half the best earning players of our three top competitors the fat lady has sung. 6 years ago, capping the wages at 80K/week when the top clubs were already paying 50% more was a challenge but today it is simply suicidal. Look at Nasri’s saga, 120K/week was not an outrageous request by any mean, the player would have easily made more anywhere else. Some say it’s greed which is plain wrong and not because none of us would turn down an offer to double our income. We live in a society where one’s worth is defined by one’s earning and there’s no way a player, however much he loves the club will accept to be valuated less than half of what the market tells him he’s worth. This summer it was Nasri (admitting Cesc was a special case) but as long as we maintain the cap the exodus will continue. Until now Arsene has managed to maintain the illusion but it won’t last forever, be it with him or anyone else.
We paid off most of the debt, we made a lot of money from the property developments and with Cesc and Nasri (and Bendy, Denilson, Clichy, Eboue) gone we will be making money from the football side of the business. Yes we’re still two years away from making 30 millions more a year from the renewed contracts but that was what the ringfenced income (remember that part?) was intended for, to bridge the gap. Come Wednesday and with Park, Gonzalez and Cahill in we will actually have saved money on the wage bill. We can’t ask the impossible from Arsene and the scout network to find us world beaters at relegation club prices every single time but that’s not even the point. This is not the deal the club took with the supporters when the move to the Grove was announced.
While other clubs are moving along with the times the club will continue to decline as long as this policy is enforced. “Spend some fucking money” will not magically make us top dogs but saving money at all costs is sending us downwards, no ifs and buts about it. I used to be very proud of the way the club has been managed financially and as the regulars here know I have been closely following the financial side of things for a long time. Today I can’t find anything in the accounting that justifies the level of spending at the club. I can understand that we’ve developed a culture of thriftiness which is hard to shake but I simply can’t shake the niggling doubts which tell me we’re being conned.
Blimey you lot are busy during the night. Great stuff ‘holic and BtM.
Today I shall mostly be avoiding the internet.
And pray for signings.
Fuck off Pete. Trev, Holic and BtM and the other holics are Gooners through and through and I could only wish that I’d be as knowledgeable as they are about The Arsenal.
This bar and its’ regulars are what keeps me sane in these times and I won’t let people like you who come here only after we lose and things are bad to badmouth them.
I might not agree with them regarding the current state of The Arsenal as I’m a bit more hysterical and worried about the years to come but if there’s any place I’d like to be right now it’s in the company of Trev, Ollie, Holic, BtM, Steve T, CG, TS, Zico, 8ball and the rest of the Holics.
(Sorry if I missed anybody)
Now fuck off.
Excellent posts – Steve T at 57 and Paul at 60.
Of course no-one likes to lose a match the whole point of playing is to win, not lose and the manner of the defeat makes it all the worse.
The truth is none of us knows why players haven’t been signed (the right players that is); is it Wenger refusing to pay enough for particular individuals, is it the board refusing to release the money or pay high enough wages to attract and keep the best players or is it Stan who just vetoes everything and keeps the purse strings tightly closed?
I do feel sympathy for those among us who pay very good money to watch and support our team but the frustration you feel isn’t best expressed by being abusive and disrespectful towards the manager, players and board. In fact some good arguments are lost amongst the bad language, personal abuse and insults. Pity!
I am worried that AW is continuing to go down a blind alley, his insistence on signing ‘great potential’ rather than ready made players, the tactics and team formation that never varies to take account of the players we have available or the opposition we are facing. It is true that AW had a vision and a plan and that is a good thing because without a vision and a plan there is no direction and little if anything is achieved. He built new training facilities, a number of top class teams that played superb football and won some trophies and of course the much needed new stadium and we should all be eternally grateful for all of those achievements and AW should be given the respect he deserves and not the abuse and insults so often dished out here and elsewhere.
However, I am very concerned at how things have progressed (failed to progress?) over the last 2 or 3 seasons and I do wonder if the vision and plan he has in place currently is the right one to take Arsenal FC to where we all want it to be and is the stress and strain of being manager taking its toll on him personally? Things are much more difficult for him now than they were; fans expectations are higher, the transfer market is more difficult to operate in because other clubs now have the knowledge about world football that only he and one or two others had before and the money that has come into the likes of Chelski and Citeh has completely distorted everything. We all know that Man U has enormous debts but the size of the club in terms of the revenue it can generate world wide is so much more than our beloved Arsenal and it can service that debt. Of course the cash cows at Chelski and Citeh may well dry up and then they’ll be in the shit so to speak, and Man U may no longer be able to service its debt (although I doubt it).
For now let’s all get behind the team, the Club and the manager, wait and see who is signed and for the sick, lame and suspended to return so that we can win a few games before saying too much more. No one has died and things will look so much better after a two or three wins.
Come on Arsenal!
Welcome back snir. They (we) appreciate your defense cause lord knows it was better than JD20.
IDKA
Many of your views are valid, and you argue them without abuse, which is to your credit.
Yet, where were you after the Udinese win? Why is it that you only seem to post after a defeat? I have no doubt you are a passionate fan, so why not join in and enjoy the good results when they come along?
Seriously.
Then your views would be easier for me to read and consider…
I was always here YDWBHL ! 🙂
Sorry for leaving you out, you deserve to be written there along with Matt, H2H (how did I forget him?), CoR, Tabs, LG and many more.
God knows where we’d be without this bar.
As for the Wenger out people most of you live in la-la-land. You can dream on if you believe that top managers are so naive they’ll jump on the offer to manage a team at such a financial disadvantage. We’re not going to get Guardiola, Mourinho or Ancelotti. If anything, at this point Wenger is much more likely to take over from Mourinho at Madrid next summer than the opposite. God help us if we get O’Neil who couldn’t even maintain his club at the level they spent for more than one season. Get a grip.
Holic
Very good balanced post I have to admit, loved the ending as well. Just finished watching Van Persie’s reaction to the game on Arsenal Player and I completely agree with him. Away fans were immaculate full stop, as whoever wore the red and white just not good enough. He also mentioned that injuries and suspensions are no excuse as they had players out as well.
Nothing else will make us feel better for now than three new signings before the transfer window shuts. Nothing is going to turn back time, so let’s take it on the chin, stop fucking moaning and get on with it by supporting the club we LOVE!
@ 22CharlieGooner good links thank you it does put this in a milder mood this fine morning in Sunny Berkshire, I wonder how long for 🙂
Gooner till I die!
PS. Will try and catch up on the drinks as well, didn’t get the time last night.
Barman if you are open then can I please get a round of Dr C Chinese herbal tea for everyone? Cheers Boss
Time for a last drink, tab’s on me for anyone of our fantastic away support, the best in the league by a mile.
A simple round for all the other holics.
And a public promise of a full day of your favorite drinks, real ones this time, for you Holic. I’ll make sure not to miss you this year! You’ve been providing the best platform there is to all of of us Arsenal lovers, I can’t thank you enough.
@ 10 Wilf Copping
As Wilf once said at halftime after Arsenal were facing a heavy defeat “Everyone will now get STUCK IN”…
I hope that the board an Arsene will look at yesterday’s defeat and use it to change course. Whilst I love our football style when we are playing well the truth is it is 6 years since it was good enough to win anything. We knew we were in decline when losing the Carling cup to a team that then got relegated and drew 4-4 after leading 4 – 0 at half time. The club have taken our money and given us a world class stadium but have failed to invest in the team. Fabregas two games at Barcelona and two trophies just highlights the problem. Nasri looked outstanding against Spurs. If we want to keep our best players and be competitive we need to pay premier league wages and big transfer fees to bring in the best players available as well as win things. The fans can no longer be relied on to defend the club as we have nothing we can defend it with. As for sacking Wenger this is not an option as we have three days until the transfer window closes. If he was replaced any half decent manager would want to do a clearout and buy in some committed players but could not do so until January. If we don’t spend our decline will become terminal, our revenue will decline and we will be just another also ran.
We lost a match. Get over it like we did when a far stronger side got screwed 6-1 in 2001.
Oh, and take a cue from the Arsenal fans actually at the ground.
Arsenal till I die. They know the value of getting behind the club. Thick and thin. Good times and not.
Arsenal is a club not a vehicle for bragging to your mates.
We have one of the best managers in world football and probably the best run club in world football. Don’t break that for the sake of adversity.
Denilson is gone. Eboue is gone. Almunia is sidelined – as is Squillaci. Bendtner is going. Don’t think Wenger doesn’t know how to rectify the weaknesses from last season.
AOC has arrived. Gervinho has arrived. Young is coming. As is a new CB and a midfielder. And we’ve now a functioning captain in RVP.
At least wait until we’ve seen what the 2011-2 squad looks like before we go too crazy.
And if you can’t handle the adversity. If you want more silverware and an unsustainable club-breaking crazy pay structure … then follow Nasri all the way to City. £800M and counting.
Alternatively wait until Thursday morning. See what’s spent. See who we’ve got. And then on Sept 10 see how they play.
That is if there’s anyone left alive to watch them. Geez.
Well, if song, sagna and verm had played and let in 8 goals, then yes, it would’ve been much more than just a blip. I totally agree we need new blood in the team, but I don’t think this game was at all indicative of this squad.
And at the risk of repeating myself, I want to see the medical team’s credentials. Kos doesn’t seem like a bad center back, and playing alongside verm last season would’ve helped develop his abilities. I’m not too worried about a central defense consisting of Verm and Kos, with Djourou as back up. Now if half our team is dying most of the time, how many backup defenders do we need? I agree that left back is a much bigger worry though.
Our attack didn’t look half bad yesterday either. Hey, we even scored a couple of goals! I think we have the basis for a strong defense and attack, and there isn’t much missing. Its certainly not perfect, but I don’t think that firing the manager, the board and half the team is the best solution. We seriously aren’t all that bad.
Just fire the medical team, it should do wonders.
You know there are times when you just cannot understand why some people just cannot or will not understand or see something no matter how much proof or evidence is put in front of them or how blatently obvious it is !!
I just cannot understand anyone who still cannot see just how bad things are and how bad Wenger is and how much of a fuck up he and the board have made to our side and club.
I love our club more than anything else and have lived and breathed every up and down that we have had. But in the last 5 years I have seen a systematic weakening/decline in the team/squad and it has been completely masked by a mass dilusion and blind faith by so many in one man – Arsene Wenger.
After this absolutely abysmal start to the season following a totally indifferent summer and following a disastrous 3 months in which the side finally showed that it had over achieved for 6 months of the season, culminating in the worst beating an Arsenal side had ever received by a Man Utd side, and the worst goals conceeded scoreline in 115 years – I finally thought now, now those people referred to as AKB’s will finally see the truth, but no …. incredibly there are still those who can even believe the lies and have the wool pulled over their eyes again!
LET ME PUT IT CLEARLY FOR YOU……. WAKE UP……..WE JUST LOST BY CONCEEDING 8 (YES EIGHT) GOALS TO MANCHESTER UNITED !
For gods sake get a grip on reality!!!! This is not just a blip, this has been going on for years, it has been a slow process of our club being reduced down from an invincible side in 2004, with a squad that could boast the likes of Henry, Vieira, Bergkamp, Lehmann, Ljungberg, Pires, Gilberto, Lauren, Campbell, Cole etc …. now we have Szcezsney, Jenksinson, Koscielney, Djourou,Traore, Walcott, Ramsey, Coquelin, Rosicky, Arshavin, Van Persie. And before you all scream about those injuries etc., Wenger believes all of these players are good enough as he has built/brought them into the squad.
He paid good money for Jenkinson only this summer to bring him in
He paid Money to bring in Koscielney
He brought Djourou into the side and has steadfastly waited for him to return from injuries stating only last year that when he returned he was like signing a top quality centreback!
Likewise he has been building Traore by his now standard method of loaning out to get experience.
Walcott is the wonderkid that he rates so much
Ramsey another wonderkid, who looks just that at the moment
Coquelin is another huge potential star (AW’s words 2 years ago)
Rosicky bought in by AW at great expense (by his standards)
Arshavin ditto
Van Persie quality Dutch league player but injury prone
Now out of that lot I think I can be safe in saying only R Van Persie can be classed as a Top Quality player.
Now tell me if I am wrong but these all were picked to play and played yesterday didn’t they…… so if they are not good enough ….who is to blame? The groundkeeper or the person who brought them in and picked the to play??
To this list we can add the following players left in the squad now
Chamakh – poor acquisition and average French league player
Squillachi – poor buy and average French league player
Diaby – average acquisition French league player
Song – average acquisition French league player
Vela – average buy mexican not up to standard loaned out
Lansbury – average player youth scheme
Frimpong – average acquisition French League
Fabianski – average Polish acquisition goalkeeper
Almunia – average Spanish acquisition goalkeeper
Vermaelen – Yes quality Dutch league player but injury prone
Wilshire – good quality Youth scheme player
Gibbs – average quality youth team player injury prone
Oxlade – Chamberlain – unproven potential player purchased for 12million!!
Now lets have a look at exactly what we are left with …… only 1 real top quality player RVP, one quality proven player Vermaelen and one player with true potential quality – Wilshire, apart from that we are left with a mixture of average players at best and maybe a few young players of potential…… DO YOU REALLY BELIEVE THAT THIS LOT HAVE THE QUALITY TO WIN THE EPL ETC., if you do then you should not be reading this as you are obviously so far gone and blinded to reality that it is impossible to get through to you.
I firmly believe that Wenger should have been retired honourably 3/4 years ago….now sadly he is going to have to go almost in disgrace, but he is to blame for his own situation. No club or coach who consider themselves a TOP club would ever dream that they could rely solely on buying cheap and youth…….it is a fool who thinks otherwise. What is worse is that the board have it on record that Wenger has tried this before (at Monaco) and he failed there and was sacked but then he did not have a quasi board who are happy so long as the money keeps rolling in….to them the actual playing side is an ancillary part, a point actually made by Hill-Wood a couple of years ago.
What is even more galling is that Elisha Usamov offered the board 200 mill to buy players (no strings) BUT THEY TURNED HIM DOWN, no doubt because he did not fit into Hill-Woods view of an Arsenal director, but then again neither did Kroenke but then it all changed – I wonder why??? But tell me – exactly how much benefit have we seen from Kroenke becoming the owner of the majority of Arsenal share??? I will tell you what NOTHING!. Whereas Usamov would have put in money, installed Dein as Chairman or Director with power to sort out the club, and Dein always encouraged the buying of TOP players because he believed that to become a TOP club we had to have the TOP players. My god what different situation we could have been in now.
But one thing is for sure WENGER MUST GO and there must be a new start with someone who has the strength of character to rebuild the team and stand up to the board! Otherwise there is the danger that there will be many more days like yesterday (but not as bad – I hope) and we shall see the decline into lower table mediocrity. Just remember we haven’t been relegated for almost 100 years but however inconceivable it may seem ultimately it could happen! Just as conceeding 8 (eight) goals seemed!!!!!!!
well done to the women the trophy cabinet is back in use.and big up’s to all the away fans did the club proud.
Sorry for got her bought in another French league player Gervinho, who at best is ok, he looked ok in the French league….not a hard thing to do in the 6th best league in Europe. Is he really the TOP quality we need. Also Bendtner….what a good acquisition he was!!!!
Matt we agree on the most,i dont understand how a manager puts his team on paper goes to manure and then tries to play a formation that was only ever destined for disaster.if fergy mancini any other manager was in that same possition they would park the bus,i wont abuse fellow supporters but AW has totaly lost the plot,and frankly if i was his number two and we picked that team and he then said what tactics we were playing,i would have said you are taking them out the tunnel yourself and resigned
Good job people didn’t think like you Matt when we lost 6-1 at the same ground with a below full-strength side.
Now people. I don’t know how many more times I have to remind you you can hold whatever view you like, but personal abuse will see your pathetic contributions deleted.
To those who criticise me personally read the piece and try to comprehend what has been written before spouting your puerile generalisations wrongly based on what you think my opinion is rather what I tell you I am thinking.
Thank you.
Also, stop lying.
Usmanov made no such ‘no-strings’ offer. He wanted a rights issue so he could get control of the club by mopping up the shares of those who could not afford to participate.
If you are going to spout nonsense, make it factual nonsense.
Holic, I sent you an email…
Waiting for your reply mate.
catalan
a point well made. unfortunately i was in hospital with a viral infaction of nervous system. makes you realise that this stuff isn’t realllyyyy that important. the doctor did say it probably wasn’t football related:)
yes it was very good result and well done to our boys for getting through. watching the replay, which my wife had kindly recorded for me made me both proud of them but also even more frustrated . how can walcott play like that and seem a complete waste of time on so many other occasions. it also made me worry that it would enable wenger to paper over the cracks. yesterday put paid to that but whether they can be reupholstered in 3 days is anyone’s guess.
watching yesterday the other thought that occurred to me was the gulf between the top clubs and the rest. we beat italy’s 4th best team home and away and we get tonked at OT. the spuds looked fantastic against hearts away (comfortably scotland’s 3rd best side) and they get tonked by Utd at OT and City at home. clearly we believe we are or aspire to be one the top clubs but the fact that there can be a quick sequence of different results
as i said earlier even allowing for the fact that we were missing 8 (even though those maths would mean arshavin, rosicky ramsey koscielny and walcott wouldn’t be playing (we can only play 11..) can you ever imagine united putting out a team like that ? as i said, the united team had 8 may be 9 who didn’t play at the emirates in april . that says it all to me about the squad has been allowed to (under)develop
Matt – Diaby was chased by Chelsea and it was seen as a coup by many that he chose us. It hasn´t worked out as we wanted, in a large part down to injuries.
Frimpong – French league?? I think you´re getting a little carried away with your xenophobia there.
As Holic has pointed out, ten years ago we were given a similar hiding in similar circumstances by the same team. The next year we won the league. Worth considering?
@matt: “I love our club more than anything else and have lived and breathed every up and down that we have had”
So why is this we never saw you here in all these years to share your love, support and joy when we won?
Let me guess…
Get into him ‘holic. Right behind you. Every step of the way.
Snir, I am away with my grandkids. Will get to it on my return.
Would n’t be at all suprised if Matt was the alter-ego of some prime gooner muppet, like Piers Gaveston, sorry Morgan.
Well, that was an experience…..
1st post, but been watching/involved in football for too many years. As BtM@6 said, in the cold light of day it’s an away defeat, 8 goals shipped yes, but 2 stunning free kicks from some balding No.10, 2 great curlers from Young (on another day they would have gone high & wide) and a soft pen (and yes ours was as well, Theo was looking for it as soon as he felt the arm on him). Would 3 – 1 have been so bad? The ‘Media’ (TV, Papers and keyboard dribblers) would still have been creaming themselves as they will always write a story according to their viewpoint rather than sticking to the (boring) facts (how many goal attempts did we have?).
Anyway, time for a deep breath. We’ve now got 2 weeks (thanks to the interlull) before Swansea and I’ll have a little wager with anyone who is panicing,
1) we’ll beat the Welsh Swans and
2) we’ll be top 4 come May – It’s a Marathon not a Sprint
How do you open a tab round here? bit worried about leaving my card behind the bar, someone might try and buy some players with it……
mines a cocktail (with an umbrella & sparkler of course – need to keep it classy….)
This will get awfully confusing with both Matt’s on at the same time…
Alright Esso? Hope the kids are ok mate.
This a cut and paste from Andy Hunter’s article in this morning’s Guardian:
Wenger claimed “it was not an 8-2 game” and insisted he is not entirely culpable for Arsenal’s struggles in the transfer market. “We have the money if we can find players who can strengthen our team but I am not the only one working on that at Arsenal. We have 20 people working on that, but today we had too many players missing. We didn’t have the squad to cope. We have not found the solutions. It is difficult to find excuses after a game like that but we are behind the other clubs in terms of wages.”
There is no point argueing about the merits of our best starting XI compared to our rivals (perhaps it is a little grandiose of us to consider Man U, City and Chelsea as our rivals); this league is about 1st team squad depth.
If we had a decent squad, with sensible tactics, we should have been able to put together a team that could have scraped a draw or, at worst, a 3-1 battling defeat.
The only player to start yesterday who was not a 1st team squad member was Cocquelin and that was down to Song’s studipidity and Frimpong’s inexperience. Yesterday’s performance confirms that we do not have adequate cover in all positions. More worryingly, who do we expect to play at LB this season and provide cover for Sagna, Vermaelen and Koscielney when they are injured, suspended or need a rest?
We need squad players who are capable of providing competition for each place. Are Sagna or Gibbs worrying about their performances this season, knowing there is someone competing for their place?
Regarding our failure to be pro-active in replenishing a failed squad that has lost its two best players (I noticed Nasri has learnt to run faster since his salary has been trebled and he is playing for his place in a good team), the club have not been transparent about how much money it has to spend whether it wants to compete for the league. The speculation will end at 23:00 on Wednesday and we may not have to wait until May for the end of season post-mortem.
Last week, I compared Arsenal to ‘a fat girl at a disco’ when it comes to its negotiating position for new players before the transfer window closes.
Another week has now passed and, after yesterday’s humiliation, it is now 4 am and the joyless fat girl has now found herself in a kebab shop 😉
CG, I think it’s better to ignore Matt 😉
Drink for you sir.
holic
one reason i liked this forum was a interesting thought out article provided a platform for people to express different views. I don’t know Matt but it seems to me that he (and i and quite a few others) are pretty p*ssed at where the team/squad stands today. that seems to me to be entirely reasonable and if he (or i as i have been accused) seem to be making negative comments is that there hasn’t been much to be positive about.
i have only been on this blog for about a year and the bad times substantially outweigh the good. i detest hubris in all its forms and when i hear “we missed frimpong and gervinho” – two players that have played maybe 6 games between them for us – it makes me laugh and not in a good way. maybe its the modern culture al need for everything to be instant. interestingly wenger has been at this project now for 6+years and we are no better forward. he waffles on about hwo he will only sign players if they are better than what he has at the moment. for 12m he signs AOC. is AOC better than what he have (heaven help us). for 12m he could have got cahill, who is much better than what we have, bar TV5. he is now a parody of himself
so let’s not turn this site into a witchhunt for those that see it half empty. it would be a poorer site if we all thought things were grand. yesterday one doubted if there is even a glass, although some here thought the result was “understandable”. i have followed the gunners since late 60s and i never ever thought i would hear an fan say shipping 8 goals is understandable.
Read todays arseblog. It sums it all up very well in my opinion.
We are in a mess gents. A proper mess. I have no idea if any individual is responsible or if it is a collective who need to look at themselves. That said I have this horrible feeling that various men in suits at our club are horribly out of their depths. I know your feeling towards David Dein holic and I understand them. But I would suggest that this would not have even been close to happening if he was still at the club.
This is not the club I know and love. I want my Arsenal.back and I want it back now.
@IDKA: I don’t understand what link you can make between AOC and Cahill.
BTW AOC was bought for half that price, the rest depends on appearances. It’s exactly the same deal we made for Walcott who’s proving he’s worth every penny.
Cahill is quoted at 19M, not 12 and it remains to be seen if he’s better than Kos. Over 4 years Cahill will cost us another 15M against a couple for AOC (probably depending on appearances too). Altogether the difference is 20M.
Spare us the witchhunt part, there’s a bunch who barge in here to erupt their hatred at every opportunity. No one here cares for a rehash of the anti-Arsenal venom that’s vomited daily at Le Groan. The usurper is not here to discuss, he’s seen the light from the Arsebollah and we’re just infidels who have to be evangelized. He can well fuck off as we’re all concerned.
Steve – My thoughts exactly.
Arseblog put it perfectly. We’re in a mess and it doesn’t really matter who’s fault it is, we’ve got 2 days and we HAVE to fix it, or at least try to fix it!
Not sure about the depth of the mess yet but if we keep saving money every summer we certainly will look at all these years of CL with tearful eyes.
I take my hat off to those of you attempting to bring the glass back up to half full.
I’m struggling to do so, after the worst statistical defeat I can remember.
Positives? Well, at least 3, arguably 5, of Man U’s goal were extraordinary, world class goals, and that ANY team would struggle when those sort of efforts are hitting the target. We were also ‘still in it’ until later on in the 2nd half.
The negative though is a big one. Yes, young, new, inexperienced players are forced into the 1st team perhaps a little earlier than desired. But that doesn’t excuse the tactical mess that ensued. When you are away to the champions, then you need to maintain positions etc, yet there was gung ho on display, which is simply suicide.
Not for the first time have I seen this in the last 6 months.
So, a real ‘major’ for AW to address.
The other thing isn’t much to ask either. Just a reasonable clarification of why players haven’t been signed yet. AW has said we need them, there’s obviously funds available, so what’s the problem? If it means AW getting in trouble with the board by outing them, if they are the reason, then so be it.
But this can’t go on. Not only do we get stuffed but the club behaves like amateurs. Laughing stock, whipping boys.. get used to these terms lads.
It’s not the bad start that’s the problem, it’s the bigger picture.
I think I may be a little bit in love with Bergkamp’s The Man.
To those supporters of Dein – he chose to sell his shares to that person. Why are you hankering after a man who sold his soul?
matt
that font of all knowledge, wikipedia says re AOC “Although neither club involved revealed details of the contractual arrangements, press sources indicated that the fee was a £12 million initial payment which could rise to £15 million with “add-ons”.” the mirror said yesterday re our bid for cahill, “Although neither club involved revealed details of the contractual arrangements, press sources indicated that the fee was a £12 million initial payment which could rise to £15 million with “add-ons”.”
seems pretty similar to me.
oh and you think walcott is worth every penny ? yes he was probably worth 6m but not much more. my views on him are well documented . talented no doubt but no football brain and turns it on maybe one game in 10. extremely overrated sense of his own self worth
i hardly cahill could have done any better than either JD or Kos or probably both yesterday. i don’t often see bolton defending like its an open house.
this maths stuff is all a bit tricky, isn’t it – if AOC is costing us ” a couple ” over 4 years then he is getting 500k pa or 10k aweek ? he may come in on that but it was 12m wasted if he is still on that in 4 years time because it shows he is no good. he is 18, not 14 – by the time is is 20 he should be showing something ?false economy and many ways some up the wenger initiative. BTW surely the wage comparison should be with the one he replaces (kos, say) because that is the equation ? imo 20-30kpw , if that is the differential with Kos /JD , is money well spent if it keeps the goals against to fingers of one hand.
i wouldn’t be so cynical about those that rightly question what is going on when we charge the highest ticket prices in europe for something that is so woefully mismanaged,. that is objectivity – it doesn;’t mean we love the club any less
Holics
To help you all forget yesterday’s MINOR hiccup in our quest for Silverware this season,here’s some useless information from 1896.
Woolwich Arsenal finished 10th in Division 2 of the Football league that year,
The league was won by Notts County,with Man Utd 2nd and Grimsby Town 3rd.
Even the wonderfully named Gainsborough Trinity finished above us in 7th place.
There were also 2 clubs that went for a ‘Burton’,
Burton Utd and Burton Wanderers,both as bad as each other as they finished near the bottom.
Loughborough,the mob that beat us 8 nil,were also responsible for the biggest defeat as well,losing 8- 1 to Grimsby.
After our 8 nil defeat to Loughborough,our esteemed manager
Brigadier Wolfgang Smallballs the 3rd, ,SBM,DCO,XYZ,with Bar and Cross,explained the defeat away by telling the press that all his first team squad had been away fighting to put down the Ashanti Tribe uprising in Africa in 1894-5,and had come back severely traumatised by the events that transpired.
A lot of them had never fully recovered despite the Club’s best efforts.
So much so that the Brigadier was missing as many as 8 first team regulars and had had to turn to members of staff to make up the numbers.
Hence the Cleaning Lady was coerced into playing in goal,the Club Doctor offered to play centre half,four 15 yr old Ballboys played in midfiel and upfront,and the Chairman and his wife played on the wings.
In the circumstances the Brigadier said he was mightily impressed with the makeshift teams efforts and but for 2 missed penalties and 3 goals disallowed for offside we could easily have conceded double figures.!!
He also said the Club were actively looking to bring in some new players before the Transfer window closed,but he stressed that they would have to be Top Top quality to make the grade at Woolwich Arsenal.
When a reporter had the temerity to ask the Brigadier why he was clad in only a loin cloth and a pair of Army Boots,he was politely told to ‘ Fuck Off ‘
Cheers
The Sweeper.
Wow knew we had problems but even I had told myself things were not that bad, obviously they are.
Hope this was a wake-up call to all the gooners that refuse to see whats in front of them.
Quite simply we have a manager & board that are more concerned with profit then winning games. so please guys don’t try to tell me everything will be alright cos under this regime IT JUST WONT.
This result has been coming since last Xmas & what have Wenger & the board done about it FUCK ALL……
Don´t mind if I do, Ollie. Ta very much.
Could I suggest that the original Matt calls himself ¨´The Real Matt¨or someting similar, so that we can then see who´s posts to skip over?
IDKA – thanks for the repsonse. Fair dos. And hope that you´re feeling better. There are indeed many things more important than footy, just sometimes it doesn´t feel like it!
catalan
i was until yesterday !! keep taking the tablets, i guess
Even though I cannot clearly explain it I do understand this issue with the board, Wenger and Kroneke.
They feel they are doing the right thing by the club by looking after the balance sheet after the purchase of the stadium and keeping the debt down to a minimum, which other clubs equal or go above us on players fees, therefore us being unable to compete on that front, otherwise we could end up like the rest of the other big club stadium purchasers (dwelling in lower league football for decades).
The worst investment 5-6 years ago was property, which bankers told us was the best and then 3 years later we had a crash and a declining market (have to be careful not to over emphasise here). We then find ourselves having to tighten the purse strings and use income to lower our expenses (ie:player sales). See I get all of that!
But to spend (a reputed)12mil on a soon to be and to bid (a reputed) 6 mil on a player which will improve our squad ten folds and then carry on the season unbalanced after the transfer window closes, is quite baffling. Are these reputed stories true or are they other exaggerated journo stories by rival club supporters conspiring to destroy the 49 unbeaten never to be duplicated again?
Who knows? Remember the Schwarzer story?
Then on the other hand there are the other stories about our wages not being able to compete with other clubs, thus players leaving and others refusing to come even though their clubs have agreed the transfer fees. Are these stories really true?
What is definitely true is that AW is still stringing together amazing results like last Wednesday on a shoe string budget. Has he told the board not to worry about spending and that he can identify the right quality at a smaller price? Who knows?
As the fair play rules fast approach and all of the sugar daddies line up their prior purchases, we continue to live off our resources and at the same time bring in quality.
But at the same time there has to be a balance. There are players who want to come here, will take the wages, and we can afford to buy in transfer fees, but we continue to bargain over pence’s(exaggerated but you get my point and thats if the stories are to be believed).
If we have identified a player in each area, lets just get the job done and move on because although we are short we still and have always had the required quality , which just needs the right 2-3 additions just to extend the squad to compete on four fronts (how many times have we heard that?)
A drink for all the disappointed and depressed Gooners in here today. I’ll spend my Theo to score at any time money 😉
@IDKA: On Walcott I’m not talking about my view (or yours), on this market he’s currently worth more than we paid for.
As for one game in 10, he just scored in the last 2 games. He’s coming of age, we’ll know more by the end of this season.
As for AOC, 12 + 3 is what Southampton wanted. It’s 5M upfront + 5M for the guardian and 7M upfront + 5 later for everyone else including the mirror. Can’t find the source I read about his wages but they were indexed on performance. 10K/week to start with sounds about right.
Let’s hope Cahill is as good as you think if we get him. We could certainly use him but he’s not worth 19M, even at current inflated prices.
There is no cynicism involved with the countless examples of all-knowing loonies trying to spread their “truth” without any interest in what everyone else is saying. If you read Arsenal blogs you already know about the kind that is cross-posting everywhere.
@CG: feel free to skip my posts as much as you want 😉
I’m not too worried about the confusion, don’t think my namesake is here to debate with us on the long term…
matt
we will see re TW. i have looked for this dawn too often. scoring goals is always good but he disappears in games even when he does score.
re cahill, this is a very well put together piece on the bolton blog. it seems there is a release clause of 17m (so why would bolton accept less ?) but the author rightly says its not that simple and, surprise surprise comes to the view that 12m is a good number.
http://www.bolton.vitalfootball.co.uk/sitepage.asp?a=253183
. re AOC, all of these think it is 12m + inc telegraph and independent….
http://www.soccer-blogger.com/2011/08/08/alex-oxlade-chamberlain-arsenal-transfer-done-teen-signs-for-gunners/
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/transfers/alex-oxladechamberlain-completes-15m-arsenal-switch-2333914.html
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/796506-arsenal-transfer-news-gunners-land-next-great-star-in-alex-oxlade-chamberlain
http://www.metro.co.uk/sport/football/871773-alex-oxlade-chamberlain-signs-for-arsenal-as-nicklas-bendtner-departs
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/arsenal/8690294/Arsenal-manager-Arsene-Wenger-hails-arrival-of-exciting-Alex-Oxlade-Chamberlain.html
http://theclockend.net/tag/oxlade-chamberlain/
Ouch! Every Gooner started there day with a smile every spurs fan ended it with a smile. Two teams stuck head first in a barrel of shit and no real path forward
Still, all is not lost. We have 80 million plus in the bank doing fuck all. Perhaps the club can take a picture of it all for us to look at? Wow, that would be a comfort to us all
Cold light of day doing nothing ease the pain after that. Good post holic, cannot remember a heavier defeat but I can remember a lot more painful ones. Yesterday will only stand out as an annoying side note we will be confronted with everytime we speak up for the Arsenal. On another note am I the only one who has a mate who is a man u fan who is also a wanker…I think its a common trend..Nurofen plus please barkeep..
At least the FA won’t fine us for putting an understrength team out yesterday.
To add to our misery, didn’t Wolves put out a weakened team at the Theatre of Debts and leave relatively unscathed?
Just looked at the Arsenal website … no new signings announced so far today
Good afternoon Holics
What can I say that would make anyone feel any better. Yes, I have seen us on our knees in the 60s but the current situation could and should have been avoided. Where the blame lies is unclear but money or lack of it and the desire of AW to hang on to Cesc and Nasri prevented us buying big early in the Window.
Our choices are now somewhat limited and there appears to be competition from up the road to grab whats left!
Cesc might have picked-up two medals but he has only played 18 minutes in those games. I hope he feels bench time is benefiting his game. Nasri and Clichy made the OT result more hurtful, they both played out of their skins for City. It appear that money does count, as it attracts world class colleagues and you have to give of your best to retain your place in the first team, something that didn’t trouble either of them at the Ems!
I will be in my seat as usual for the Swansea game but I fear many Gooners will not unless there are some significant reinforcements on view. I see the match has gone out to the general public. When did this happen for a PL match?
But as always COYRs
@ALL Arseblogs coments hit the nail on the head.
It wasnt that long ago maybe 7-10 days AW said “are squad is to big” ?
Ok maybe we need to trim the fat, and it has to be said that there is now quite alot of fat to be trimed at my club. I believe all fans know who they are.
“We need to strengthen” AW said about 5 days ago. Strange that when asked about players needed only days before he was talking about just how big are squad is and saying no new players were really needed.
As I stated yesterday all players on that field will be needed to play during the season in PL and all cup matches. Are they good enough yet ? I have to say NO !
“No players are leaving” two days later Cesc was gone, “it took longer than we thought to get these deals done” AW talking on Cesc and Nasri`s transfers. So I conclude that AW knew along with the rest of the footballing world that they were leaving.
My point ! Dont treat the best fans in the world (The fans in old trafford yesterday) as fucking idiots PLEASE !
WHO else would sing for 45 mins through pure humiliation, AW and the board plaese pay attention. I know you have rewarded the best fans by a 6.5 % increase in seat prices so to build the bank account that must now be busting at the seams but still left fairly untouched.
Every Arsenal fan knew we needed strenghting all round but in defense a absoult must. Still NOTHING, I am sorry I dont remember who posted it but I agreed 1000% every CB price has just gone up by 5m if we are interested. The point again AW wont pay it.
Bar Gerviniho who looks like he could be a great signing the rest are for the future. What about NOW ! when they are needed badly.
On our 125 aniversary we went all out to conceed 8 goals as it was in 1886 the last time we did. Who knew we would do that just for rememberence of are aniversary.
I have posted here for a few years now, not as much as I did due to work. I read Holic and the Holic`s post to get some perspective on things but this is past that now. AW and the board need to get there fingers out now and stop fucking around.
Clive / The Sweeper @184 ,
I am still working my way through the bunfight of last night , but I have to say , another fantastic post Sir .
The travails of the Smallballs family are a lesson to us all . It is at times like this when we must all grasp our collective speedoes and bellow from the highest rooftops
“We are the Arsenal “
Unfortunately TaB, the echo today is “And you got beat 8 – 2” 🙁
Re: Clive @184 It could have been yesterday. 😉
Haha yesterday I felt numb but woke with a spring in my step thinking surely now top quality will be bought in only to find the rumours doing the rounds are we are about to sign a Korean that scored 12 goals in a relegated French side and Yossi fucking benyaun is some one seriously trying to cause anachy at Arsenal now I feel numb again,
Large scotch please Barman and keep em coming!!
I like the fact that ppl like Holic and BTM can keep so level headed after such a game, but I guess its better than getting worked up, certainly better for your health!
It seems like certain parts of the media are certainly enjoying Arsenal’s tough start to the season and appear to be conducting some kind of witch hunt against AW. Seems a bit strange!
Anyway wanted your thoughts on a couple of matters:
1) Firstly do you think AW and the Board are singing from the same hymn sheet so to speak as far as transfer policy/wage structure is concerned. If not is it simply AW’s “professionalism and ethics” that keeps him from criticising the Board in any way? I think your point regarding Kroenke showing some intent is well made. It would be good to hear from him to see what his vision for the club is.
2) My second point is whether or not you feel that whilst AW unquestionably has talent at developing players and in producing an attractive style of football, he perhaps could do with some assistance with Defence tactics. He was fortunate to inherit a team with an established back 4/5 who never really needed any coaching. I think it would be fair to say that after Dixon/Keown/Winterburn/Adams etc left they have not been adequately replaced. He has not developed any defensive talent, and indeed our only other period of success came when we had experienced defenders such as Campbell and Gallas. Do you think there is a case for bringing in a specialist defence coach?
Anyway I sit and wait like most Gooners, hoping and praying that some additions are made before 11.00pm Wedneday 31st August
T least the have recognised our fantastic away fans
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/arsenal-thanks
‘Holic , another wonderful post , even in the most trying of circumstances . I , however , am silently struggling to be as polite as you in regard to Silent Stan .
BtM – another fine piece of prose with which sentiment I almost entirely agree . That your piece sometimes (imho) pushed at the boundaries of optimism , is I think entirely understandable , given some of the wretches that appear to pervade our support ( at least on the Internet , if not in person ) .
And by wretches I don’t mean those supporters who take a different view to me in regard to the competence of AW or the depth of the crisis we now find ourselves in . I mean the under-age keyboard warriors who still come here to post , notwithstanding that they can barely see their own computer screens through their own porn inspired jizz .
Spectrum@19 , always such a pleasure to read your hate-filled diatribes , and one who can always be relied on to turn up in the wake of defeat with your repetitive slogans and your inane analysis .
Ben@37 – why post on a site where you are universally reviled as a spoilt kid whose Daddy should have smacked his bottie a long time ago .
Wolfgang the Imposter @45 who must suffer that most wretched of human states – cowardice – and hides behind another’s identity .
Pete the first @49 and Pete@144 – one and the same person ? – probably – whatever , you are (both) a disgrace – to come on to an Arsenal site and gloat , when true Gooners are suffering , and suffering badly , says it all about what kind of supporter , and indeed what kind of person you truly are . Words do not fail me , but Holic’s house rules prevent me from saying more .
Anyway enough of the pricks .
Trev @various . The cavalry has arrived . Wolfie is in the shadows !! Sterling work last night . Thanks for your kind words , and very sorry to hear about your Mum . All the Best mate .
Some very fine posts from both sides of the inevitable and increasingly corrosive divide of the fan-base . There is little I can add . Even given the extraordinary circumstances of having 8 players out who might otherwise have expected to start , yesterday was a humiliating day .
Regular readers of this Blog will know that I am firmly in the AW camp , and nothing that happenned yesterday changes that view . However , it is impossible to deny that there is something extraordinary going on at Arsenal at the moment . Many , including (I think) the Great Holic have not bought the idea that there is a huge fall-out between the Board and AW . I bow to those who have a greater knowledge than I of the workings of the Inner Sanctum , but I have yet to read a convincing rebuttal that this is not indeed the case . If someone has one then I would love to read it .
For me it is the only convincing explanation of a summer that has been staggering in its incompetence . That AW is stood alone amidst the maelstrom of criticism (of both constructive , and infantile camps ) , without any meaningful support from the Board , tells its own story .
UP THE ARSENAL
Mark the Spark@199 – Fraid so mate . You are of course right . I just hanker for the days when Gooners came together in a display of solidarity against outside criticism which was unrelentingly hostile . Now , it seems we have to deal with our own first .
*emerges from a darkened room, struggling to find his shades, and blinking into the sunlight*
Is it over yet?
Did it really happen?
Can anyone get me out of this bubble wrap suit?
new post Dr Z >>>>
I was expecting something like a 3-0 defeat, and if things really went wrong maybe we`d concede 5 or 6. As soon as Jenkinson was yellow-carded, I turned to a mate and said `he`s 100% going to be sent off”. If sky is to be believed, we have gone from going after top talents like Mata, to scrapping around for other club`s 30 something cast-offs. Aside from the poss. signing of the Korean striker, a player we seemed to have snatched from the grasp of Lille, with no other PL side interested, I cannot now see any significant signings before the deadline. We made a silly offer for Cahill, a player we should have signed a couple of months ago, while Arsene was in pursuit of Jagielka, a player who wanted to stay at a club who didn`t want to sell him, and will now start september with a full-blown defensive crisis, including no available specialist LB. Even if Cahill remained unsold by Wednesday afternoon, he couldn`t be blamed if he rejected even a sensible offer from us, in favour of running down his contract and making his own choice.
Takeabowson @204: this is a theory for which I have no evidence beyond observation. My starting point is a comment by Amy Lawrence that the club developed a business plan for the move from Highbury (and I paraphrase here) that underestimated the rise in player wages that would come about from the rise in TV rights money and the advent of billionaire foreign owners. We put in place a relatively flat wage structure, including long-term contracts to retain the young/bargain players, that would hold through the building of the new stadium and redevelopment of Highbury, and still keep the team competitive (regular CL play and the occasional trophy), i.e. till about now or a season or two ahead. To keep the wage structure as high as possible – and we do have the fourth highest wage bill in the Premier League, don’t forget in the midst of all this talk of parsimony – we mortgaged commercial revenues towards covering the debt of the stadium. We are now in a position where we are struggling to pay competitive wages, as we misforecast what those would be in this era, struggling to attract players because of the trophy drought, and haven’t been able to raise wages using commercial revenue (as, say, United has done; it’s wage bill is 19% higher than ours but equivalent to only 46% of revenue, compared to our 50%. My guess, and possible explanation for this summer’s apparent inactivity on the players in front, is that the club’s business plan is being changed to allow for a more market-level wage structure. It has no control over TV rights contracts and is maxed out on match day revenue. Some expensive fringe players can be sold or loaned to cut the overall wage bill, but the only source of new revenue to pay higher wages for incoming players is commercial deals. There have been five of those, I think, may be more not reported, this summer. That has been the business focus of the club and it decided to fly on the wings of hope and a prayer (and AW’s managerial magic) that it can get through yet one more season with the squad and wage structure it has before it can get itself into a position to buy – and more importantly, pay (it is wages not transfer fees that really matter here) – the top players we all know it needs. It is a high-stakes gamble, and one that looks to have been running on fumes for at least a season. Perhaps the apparent last-minute flurry of activity this transfer window is a belated recognition by the club that it has to move now, even if all its business-plan ducks aren’t yet in a row.