Leicester was lower, will do a quick scan online.

Daz, looking at Wenger's fortunes in Europe over the course of two-plus decades, perhaps it's more a question of Arsenal overachieving for a few years in England?

What is it, 1 CL final and 1 semi in all that time, and in England he won 3 ttles in his first 7 years, none since.

I'm no tactics buff, but what if it's just that Wenger arrived at just the right time for what was going on in the English game, but that he was never really that great a shakes for Europe?

comment by Edinspur (U1109)
posted 14 minutes ago
Also nick overrates that 04/05 chelsea team to a ridiculous degree.
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Yeah, he always does.

It got to a point where he said they played better football than the invincibles, I disagreed and he justified it by saying sai he went to every game.

I just decided to leave it. You can't argue with that kind of bias.

In his first two seasons we were scoring a similar amount of goals to what we had done in all the years prior in the prem era bar 99/00 where we were unreal.

Then we sold Beckham and replaced him with a scawny little Portuguese lightweight. And all the other things I’ve listed happened.

I wouldn’t expect you to know all this as it isn’t your club. But you are just wrong on so many things here with regard to that period.

The 02/03 Utd side scored the 10th lowest. I cant believe some of the early Utd/PL winning sides scored less than 70 goals and won the league despite playing 24 games.

I wouldn’t expect you to know all this as it isn’t your club. But you are just wrong on so many things here with regard to that period.
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LOL

Ffs I’ve been filtered by GB

Nick is a terrible poster. I had that same argument with him about Chelsea playing counter attacking football and weren’t an explosive attacking side. He said the same thing about going to games.

ioag, yeah I think so. There’s also the issue of game management which is all important in two legged ties, not just tactical set ups.

He probably did overachieve in England but you really had to watch Arsenal regularly back then to know how good they were. They showed it on occasion in Europe but it wasn’t often enough. With that group of players to not reach even a semi final between 00-05 was criminal. They got to the final when the great team they had was finished.

Nick was comparing Drinkwater to Lampard when they first bought him earlier

comment by Edinspur (U1109)
posted 1 minute ago
I wouldn’t expect you to know all this as it isn’t your club. But you are just wrong on so many things here with regard to that period.
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LOL
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True tho.

Wenger lost a UEFA cup final to Gala in 2000 ffs, and that was the time when he started assembling the invincibles.

comment by it'sonlyagame (U6426)
posted 6 minutes ago
Daz, looking at Wenger's fortunes in Europe over the course of two-plus decades, perhaps it's more a question of Arsenal overachieving for a few years in England?

What is it, 1 CL final and 1 semi in all that time, and in England he won 3 ttles in his first 7 years, none since.

I'm no tactics buff, but what if it's just that Wenger arrived at just the right time for what was going on in the English game, but that he was never really that great a shakes for Europe?


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More and more these days im starting to believe that Wenger maybe wasn't as good a coach/tactician as I had thought back then.

What he did from reading exerts in biographies etc from back then is revolutionise the PL in terms of Sports Science. Players stretching regularly and changing their diets etc was a Wenger innovation more than anything. (There is a brilliant story about Ginola at Newcastle getting told of for smoking on a bus, for the players to then all go to the fish & chip shop after).

On top of that Wenger was probably ahead of the rest in the league in terms of external scouting. Which is what probably made him get the best team.

comment by Alexis The King Sanchez (U10026)
posted 27 seconds ago
comment by Edinspur (U1109)
posted 1 minute ago
I wouldn’t expect you to know all this as it isn’t your club. But you are just wrong on so many things here with regard to that period.
__________

LOL
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True tho.
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nah

comment by Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria (U11781)
posted 2 minutes ago
Nick was comparing Drinkwater to Lampard when they first bought him earlier
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He also said Morata has been 2/10 this season, which I found incredulous.

I haven't said they weren't, Daz. I very much enjoyed Arsenal back then. Although other players might have been the main draw, Ljungberg's energy in particular is something that really astounded me.

I just think that fans -myself included- can be very insular when it comes to matching teams from their own leagues with others, but some fans just take it too far and make sweeping statements backed up by sheer ignorance..

Well I’m yet to see a decent counter argument.

comment by Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria (U11781)
posted 3 minutes ago
Wenger lost a UEFA cup final to Gala in 2000 ffs, and that was the time when he started assembling the invincibles.
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I think we lost the European Supercup to them too.

Yeah I agree, ioag. I think it’s only really Arsenal fans that claim they should have done this or that in Europe. I do think they should have done better, but wouldn’t go as far as saying they should have won the CL as they were never close enough to be in with a shout of winning it until 2006, by which time their great team was done.

One more thing, Daz, is that a series of factors somewhat cloud the notion of how (not really all that) competitive PL clubs actually were in Europe until Liverpool ushered in those years in the second half of the 00s where you really became a force to be reckoned with again.

The PL didn't have a single finalist between United's '99 and L'pool's '05 titles, and just 2 semifinalists in those 5 editions.

As great as they might have been domestically, it really is wafer-thin ice on which to be claiming Arsenal 'should've' won the CL at any point in those years.

Edin, this website has a good database of league tables.

It's also pretty lightweight, carries other interesting information, and it also allows you to easily skip to the league standings after any given week of competition.

https://www.bdfutbol.com/en/t/t.html

Yeah I think that’s a fair comment. But I still think they underacheived, even Leeds got to the semis.

Think we had three semi finalists. Us, Leeds and Chelsea.

With regard to the 03/04 season that was a mighty cooock up against Chelsea. Chelsea were Arsenal’s play thing back then. That result alone tells you all you need to know about Wenger’s management in Europe.

comment by Edinspur (U1109)
posted 36 minutes ago
I wouldn’t expect you to know all this as it isn’t your club. But you are just wrong on so many things here with regard to that period.
__________

LOL
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You're right, I missed Leeds.

Wengers early teams were built around power and finesse, in Europe you needed to be a bit more cultured than we were, especially off the ball

We were capable of playing that sort of game, but not at the drop of a hat.

Arsenal fans always ask why Wenger went to a bunch of midgets after having giants like Vieira and Gilberto Silva. First of all the market changed and those types of player were way more expensive, and second I think he thought it would help in European competition.

It went really well

No one misses leeds