I can't think of a more humiliating night as an arsenal fan than last night. That was a vitually full strength team that went to a team in the 4th! tier of English football and barely troubled there goalkeeper for 60-70 mins. I remember Vermaelen having one clear chance before that I think. Mind you I'm beginning to think that a couple of certain players aren't a lot better than league 2 level, there's a couple of Bradford players that wouldn't of looked out of place in our team last night!.
You can blame Wenger to a certain extent, especially when he keeps playing deadwood like Chamakh, you see Wengers reaction when Chamakh missed his pen lol. I was thinking, "We'll you put him there!". The players have to take as much of the lion share, there are two players that really look like they care and are pulling there weight at the moment and they are Cazorla and Wilshere. Add Rosicky as well tbf, was chasing like mad to win the ball back for us.
I really don't know where we go from here, cup game or not. For 120 mins against a team that's 60 odd places below us and we scrape an equaliser in the 88th min!, it's just not on!. And as for Gervinho, actually I suppose that was a hard chance to convert for him! . Just get the rubbish out of our club, seriously. Then we can all move on.
Where do we go from here?
posted on 12/12/12
That's fair enough BIGIRISHG:
But i said 2 more years, in 2010
Im willing to give him another couple of seasons, like its my choice
But we need to sign better players at the very least to give us a chance
posted on 12/12/12
Why does he continually sell our good players and instead of getting better ones, we get cheap crap ones?
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Does he have much of a say? I've always thought Wenger was pretty savvy in the market with some of the players that he has found. Every manager makes mistakes... I think that recently a lot of his signings have been panic buys along the lines of "uh oh, the board have just sold [RVP, Nasri, Song, Fabregas] with a week left of the transfer window.. who's available????" Furthemore, he's still managed to find players like Ramsey (whom I rate highly despite what I hear from Arsenal fans), the Ox, Diaby, Walcott etc. and developed others like Wilshere and Gibbs... I know its hardly consolation but you would have some squad if you had kept even Nasri and RVP. Regardless, I think Wenger has realised how shocking the likes of Gervinho and Chamakh are and will be looking to rectify this in Jan.
There's nothing that a new manager could hope to improve right now so Wenger should be given until at least the end of the Jan window to sort things out.
The way I would look at it - and I know it's easy for me to say as a United fan - is that, despite being up against one of the richest clubs and greatest managers in the world (United) and two Billionaire's playthings in City and Chelsea, Wenger has still kept you in the top 3 or 4...
Maybe that seems like failure given your history of winning titles and going unbeaten in league season etc.. but it's still a bloody good achievement... Realistically, if 2 clubs hadn't won the ownership lottery, you'd still be one of the top 2 teams in the country!!
posted on 12/12/12
But we need to sign better players at the very least to give us a chance
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We do, but I don't think many of the players are as bad as some people like to make out. We're 6th in the league, 2 points off 4th.
So there are 14 teams in the league who would swap places with us right away.
We may have some players who aren't playing well at the minute - but they still have us within touching distance of the top 4.
We probably haven't been able to give the new players the time to bed in that's usualy required for foreign imports, but even while they're having their adjustment season, they are still near the top 4.
Podolski, Giroud, Cazorla, Arteta, Mertesacker, Vermaelen, Sagna, Wilshere are all VERY good footballers ( even if some of them are performing below par ). Now when these players hit a bit of form ( which eventually will happen ) you're looking at the makings of a decent side.
Yes better quality reinforcements are needed.( Arteta and Mertesacker for example are players we should have signed 4 years ago, not 2. ) But I think Wenger deserves to try to find those reinforcements when the money is genuinely there and available.
posted on 12/12/12
To Feed The Scousers
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You are the most sensible United fan ive ever met on this forum
And you right but its just frustrating cos regardless of the money men @ City & Chelsea we could still have been more successful,.
Wenger like all people has his flaws and 1 of the most obvious ones is gambling on players fitness knowing our history with injuries, not learning from his previous gamble on players fitness, his stubbornness in realizing that his squad isn't good enough, his persistence with inept players(we had Almunia as no.1 for 4 years and being too nice(that is a weakness)
SAF will get rid of a player on 2 mistakes at most(1 in Taibi's case)
posted on 12/12/12
"Wenger can't ignore the problem any longer"
The problem is Wenger and he will continue to ignore it as long as he is picking up his £7.5M a year.
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Do you really think Wenger is money oriented? A bit naive to think so.
posted on 12/12/12
Lets make it 10 yrs (U16317)
SAF will get rid of a player on 2 mistakes at most(1 in Taibi's case)
Nani, Anderson, Rafael, Ferdinand, Phil Jones, Smalling, Rooney, - all players who've been badly injured, had more than one poor season or spoken out of turn in public and have been kept and nurtured and played by Ferguson.
Sometimes cutting and running isn't the best strategy. We might look at Diaby now and wonder if he'll ever be fit and why we bother. But Look at RVP. Pretty much injury free for 2 years now. It must be really tough to KNOW someone is a world beater when fit and cut them loose... you know just in case.
posted on 12/12/12
On a separate tack - it's good to see that this has been conducted as a genuine discussion and not descended into an online yapfest.
Cheers folks.
posted on 12/12/12
his persistence with inept players(we had Almunia as no.1 for 4 years and being too nice(that is a weakness)
SAF will get rid of a player on 2 mistakes at most(1 in Taibi's case)
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A valid point and I totally get where you are coming from. However, the same attitude also led Fergie to bin Jaap Stam and leave us in defensive hell for a couple of years to it's not always a great thing to be ruthless!
Regardless, I sincerely hope that Wenger can turn it around because I don't think he deserves to go out in a whimper after everything he has done; and Arsenal fans certainly deserve better.
I'd love to see us battling it out for the title again; especially now that you don't have that 'ladies private parts beginning with C' Keown
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You are the most sensible United fan ive ever met on this forum
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Given that I only found/joined the site today, I will reserve judgement on whether or not that is a compliment!!!
Good luck for the rest of the season
posted on 12/12/12
I’m not talking about Injuries BIGIRISHG:
I’m talking about constant incompetence, 1st time Rafael, Jones, Rooney, Nani, Anderson, Rio etc played you could see the potential so you would excuse the occasional error/or loss of form.
1st time I saw Almunia, it was vs Man Utd in the carling Cup at OT (04 or 05) he was captain and in the 1st couple of mins, he let a tame Bellion shot squirm past him, imagine my shock when he then displaced Lehmann as No.1
Look at how long it took Wenger to give up on Denilson & his current obsession with playing Gervinho as a striker
posted on 12/12/12
Have to go - work over. But will continue this in the am as I'm enjoying the debate.