So, it was Arsene’s fault that Flamini’s contract expired, that Jens and Gilberto got old, that Alex Hleb is a poxy cunt and Adebayor loves money?
Everyone was complaining last season about how useless Gilberto and Jens were and most Arsenal fans seemed more than happy to say goodbye to Flammers after he announced his intention of buying out his contract towards the end of 06/07. And after Hleb’s majestical, what, three goals last season it is suddenly a crisis after they’ve all left? Admittedly, that’s a blow to our depth but all have been aptly replaced or will be soon. Not to mention that Ramsey, Wileshire and Vela have been added as cover and Djourou is back from loan and to full fitness.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a part of the “Wenger knows brigade”and I have been fairly crticial of him on more than a few occasions but I honestly don’t know how everything falls down to Arsene. The only thing he was guilty of last season, was that he possibly should’ve dipped into the market for additional cover. Still, we could’ve won the Champions League had it not been for shit refereeing. The Premier League was not out of our grasps either, but it’s Arsene’s fault that Tomas just cannot seem to recover, that Adebayor’s goals had dried up, Hleb suffered from unproductivity, Kolo had to go off to the African Cup of Nations and Gallas had lost all interest in everything. These players, who had been superb for the beggining of the season, just seemed to bottle it.
Yes, with the money they get paid these things should not be coming from either manager or players, but shit happens in football. Our jobs as fans is to continue supporting the team to the best of our abilities. Some fans talk about boycotting games and merchandise and then complain about lack of spending. They want us to spend our money on an overrated, flashy young player like Giovanni Dos Santos and will then no doubt, whinge about inexperience.
You can talk about trophiless seasons, but in recent years, I can only think of one bad season that was due to Arsene’s fault.
05/06 saw our talisman leave and senior players let us down. Bobby, Freddie and Gilberto were all superb the season before, let us down tremendously. Jose missed his mummy and we had a cursed Left Back spot. We pipped the scum to fourth and missed out on the Champions League trophy due to an offside goal. Arsene’s fault?
Last season, after a tremendous amount of doubt being placed in the ability of the team, we were four point of the league and astounded people all over the world with our football, were declared the richest team in the world and generally cemented our position as a world power again. We were unlucky not to win the league, just as Chelsea were to miss out on the Champions League Final. One mistaken penalty and they sack the manager. Do you want to resort to their level? We surely have more class as a club than that.
I honestly thought after he proved every single critic wrong last season, that he would be given a confidence boost, support from the fans, but all I hear is a lot of moaners and whingers.
He proved everyone wrong last season, surely he deserves the chance to build on that? Get a team to go the extra mile, get those five extra point that would win us the league.
People want success? Well then go on, go support a team who have been more successful than us. The only team in fact – United. There has been only one club more succesful than us since the league started, yet people still complain. It baffles me.
Before the Twente game, I thought that Arsene was wasting his time on a holding midfielder. I thought Denilson could slot into that role, and revel in it as the season goes on, and that a top quality center back was in need.
I was proven wrong, as our midfield was invisible with Denilson being easily outmuscled. Whereas Djourou, who admittedly started the game slightly shaky, grew into the role and looked like the tall, commanding voice we need and Gallas the experienced head.
All I’m asking people, is that you give him a chance to build the team he believes is capable of winning the league and to think before attaching any blame.
The Fabster
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All have been aptly replaced or will?
Don’t agree, sorry!
good article but IMO wengers is to blame for lack of depth no more and no less
he is the one that should see what most of us outside the AKB’s do
we are shy again and especially with the folks who remained are the ones who keep getting injured.
i like the Le Boss and i have even criticized you guys for jumping to hard on him about standing up to the likes of Barca and Milan and maybe letting us know what he is really up to but lack of depth is his fault and now seems he is just being arrogant about it
Way to say it there!
I know Arsene isn’t perfect, but for people to act like the club is in dire straits due to Arsene is the mentality I am getting from other supposed Arsenal FC supporters.
Sure we don’t have a team like Manchester United or Chelsea, but Arsenal haven’t been taken over by rich people and borrow huge debt just to buy players.
The debt on the Stadium is a good thing for the long term, and can’t be compared to the debt of the other clubs.
But in the club’s spot at the moment, I think they are in a reasonable position.
He’s the manager and the buck stops with him. Take Flamini for example, Wenger knew in January the player had 6 months on his contract so why didn’t he get him to sign it? The fact Flamini said no means he was not committed to the club, so instead of dropping him for Diarra, he let Diarra go and then Flamini fucked off anyway and we lost both. It was pathetic management.
And on top of all that, nobody is blaming Wenger for players like Hleb leaving etc., although Hleb made it quite clear to Wenger the season before that he was not happy – the problem is that Wenger will not replace them, or he will – with bloody 17 year olds or some bloke who has played 1 game in 1 year.
I think the fans are right to voice their concerns.
Basically, I am behind him all the way this season, but if at the end of it all Arsenal goes significantly backwards from last year we need to be asking some major questions about what he’s doing with the club.
real talk!!! certain arsenal ‘fans’ need to get a grip
Excellent article informative & well written.Makes a nice change to read something sensible. In these days of headline grabbing phony sensationalism a little perspective is most welcome Many Thanks, Keep up the good work.
No, I don`t think Wenger can walk on water but I think he`s the kind of guy who would give it a go. Whether he doesn`t have the money or he`s just a shrewd business man who waits til the eleventh hour in the hope of landing a bargin I`m not quite sure . One things for sure the pickings are getting less as the witching hour approaches so maybe he has left it a bit late. There aren`t too many world class mid fielders of the type that will enhance Arsenal for 12 million, which seems to be as high as he is prepared to go. Also, some are now cup tied like Alonso.
Without rocking the Gunners financial policy he has to give the crowd their money`s worth as well as giving them something to cheer about. Another Mr. Nobody, albeit with great potential, will not be acceptable.
Good article. It is simply not all Wenger’s fault. If we find out that he really was offered 70 million, then yes I would say it is, however I think Arsene does the best he can do with the money we have to spend. In all honesty there is not one manager out there who could do a better job with the resources than AW. Let me tell you now, when red nose leaves, he will leave a Man united in a serious downward spiral and he is partly to blame for that. We on the other hand will weather this storm, because that’s what this is, a little storm. Will we win the league or the CL this year? No I don’t think we will, but we should still be in the top 4 and get through this.
so 4 years now is good enough for a team of our size not to win a single trophy in 4 years now.
i completely agree with u mate.
Great article. One against the naysayers who thought that spending money will ease all worries. Arsene is the greatess manager of all times. Of course he has his faults,who doesn’t? He knows the club could ill afford to spend, until the situation with development income becomes clear. Once that happen, our club will be there to compete financially with anyone. Yes, some of you will say he is not a risk taker, but why take unnecsessary financial risks when the current team could still ive us a and the world a level of football that had and will continue to take the world by storm. Patience, one more year and the money flowing in fromthe property development will go a long way in easing our financial burden and put us in a very firm footing for years and years to come. That’s the key isn’t it. Football is not a short term venture.
Finally, I mean, finally I read a presentation of an sensible attitude towards what is one of the most mesmerizing football icons ever… I don’t disapprove the criticism, neither the anger that has been present after the last “disappointing“ season. The point is… I am from Macedonia which is pretty fucking far away from London, and I know how much I love and support Arsenal, and the most important issue regarding all this “bash Arsene Wenger“ thing is that the fans seem to forget very quickly what, in fact, has this man done for the club… In my opinion I see him as a bit restricted as a manager. Don’t get me wrong, I still think that if Wenger had all the money in the world, he still wouldn’t spend like Mourinho used to spend or let’s say like Pep Guardiola is spending at the moment. I think that this club needs a strong logistic factor like a new face in the board who’s gonna cooperate with Le Boss while answering his wishes and requests. The problem in Arsenal is not the manager, he might be the best on the face of the planet, but the board behind him. I don’t see the support needed from those guys and I barely wait for Alisher Usmanov to step in and make things right, because.. Don’t forget this, Arsenal is the greatest club in London! London is the greatest football city in the world! This club deserves better circumstances and situation! Arsene’s vision is irreplaceable!
Three years and counting, so far no end in sight to this dry spell. The fans are the ones who have it together, the squads a mess. We can finish third maybe but no honours, for some i guess that’s good enough. I respect arsene’s accomplishments but a team should be able to be built in three years that can at least have a chance of winning something, that chance with this squad is not good. We are Arsenal and we can win a lot of games but that’s as far as this team has demonstrated it can go.
Spot on!! There’s always two sides to a coin, shame u ungrateful beings…
Well you are correct that we amazing team! no doubt. The only problem is like we act like a warehouse, a store for wealthy teams to come and fetch our potential after struggling to bring them up. Trophiless seasons should not be squarely blamed to AW since if you look at last season Acelloti extremely critized us that we lack experience but I was amazed at damage we did to him at San Siro and this prompted him grab Flamoni like a flash. We had a lot of injuries to our good players RvP, Rosiscky, Eduado…if all of them could have been fit through out the season then all those meaningless draws could not have taken place. The likes of Song, Djouro, Denilson, Fabby, Diaby, Nasri, Ramsey, Bedtner, Wallcot, Clitchy, Vella, Willshere, Traore when given only four years without preditators then believe me that what AW is all about.
Good article, finally a voice of reason.
Good article mate but, Wenger has not proved anyone wrong in my opinion, before the season started we all said that Arsenal were not gonna to win anything and did we? We all know that no manager in the world can make a team play better football than our own Wenger. His problem is that he does not seem to have good man managemnt skills, there’s always a rift between certain players in our squad, he doesn’t seem to be able to get the right mixture of youth and experience, some gooner mentioned something about having pires in the bench just like manu have gibbs and scholes to look out for the young players, point is Wenger is a classy manager but his not perfect and so needs to learn from his mistakes which i doubt he does cause if he did than he would not have signed so many kids over the past years which we all know that as soon as they become good they will leave for spain.
Excellent post!
You just wrote what has been going through my mind all along
Arsenal fans need to stop moaning and whinging and complaining. It’s like the media can see how gullible arsenal fans are, and I guess that why they are able to turn us against our ownselves so easily. We should support the vision of Le Gaffer and be loyal and faithful fans of the club.
We should remember no one knew of Fabregas before Wenger. No one knew of legendary Thierry before Wenger.
No one knew of Clichy before Wenger. Now people will soon start talking about Nasri, Wilshere, Djourou, Walcott, Fabianski, Bischoff, Coquelin, …the list goes on BUT the question is who knew of all these names before Wenger??
On the whole, a well reasoned and accurate account of the situation in some (small but vocal) corners of Arsenal. Maybe some of the causes for this are:
1. The increase in inexperienced and glory hunting post-Emirates supporters
2. The notorious short term memory of some of these
3. The ease with which anti-Arsen(e/al) media has started to influence their opinions
4. Ironically, the high standards that Arsene has now established for the club
5. Xenophobic tendencies among a small section of so called supporters (again, underpinned by certain sections of the media)
6. An imbalance in the ‘passion’ over ‘reason’ equation
7. A failure to appreciate the role of the “supporter” in good times and bad
8. Questions around general intelligence!
Or, maybe, other reasons
Great article. I am so sick of the large and growing section of Arsenal fans who have turned against Wenger, and now seem to attribute our every flaw or error to his judgement. Le-Grove is the perfect example, they blame everything on Arsene and reminisce wistfully of some mythical golden era for Arsenal before Wenger arrived. Well I went to Highbury regularly when George Graham was in charge, and we were awful. Yes we got results (although not as good as Wenger has), but the football on display was completely dire. If we ever went back to that, I wouldn’t want to watch the games anymore. Arsene is the greatest manager in our history. Herbert Chapman might run him close, but how many of us can remember his reign? Wenger has assembled arguably the most attractive football side in the world, and on a shoestring budget that he is forced to accomodate due to the stadium move and our lack of a billionaire sugar daddy. These idiotic fans who call for his head would destroy our club if they got their way. There is no manager in world football who I would want to replace Wenger, and those who call for us to bring Usmanov on board are just as bad. Man City may accept blood money from human rights criminals, but I’d like to think we have more principles than that. Anyway, thanks for a refreshing read, it’s nice to know that there are still some Gooners out there that aren’t total morons.
Good article mate… I like the look of Djourou aswell, he wasn’t all that reat at Birmingham but they are a crap team … he will grow in stature i also feel that Senderos should be given this season to prove he can also do the job. Only 23 but i watched an interview of after the sevilla game and he is so matur in the way he talks, he will soon cut out the silly mistakes. I think all we really need is the powerhouse in the middle to provide the extra cover for our centre backs and allow Cesc the freedom to unleash our forwards, all of which look determined to outscore eachother this season.. Can’t wait for kick off
I think Arsenal fans have been extrmely patient over the years and have given ample chances to the squad/team. If we feel disppointed, fustrated and angry we have a right to. Because at the moment the team is not delivering. I know is not right to compare us to toher set of fans, I couldn’t see any other fans of clubs who have the opportunity/potential as us taking it for granted. We have suffered too much. On the ther hand you are right that Wenger cannot control injuries, dodgy refs, unsettled players etc. But he has failied to sort out things he has control over (experitng contracts, signing important positions). Maybe if he deals with issues he is in control of maybe we could handle certain things that have gone aganst us. Wengers failure to equip us has cost us. I do get what you are saying and so I agree that the team is improving all the time. I beleive in the Arsenal, I will give them my upmost support. One thing I will not knock the team over is there heart and effort in the last season. I am thankful, because they tried so hard and yet got nothing. This year i belive we will go one better but it also Wenger has also go to go one better by to playing his part!
and you claim your not part of the arsene knows brigade, pull the other one for fuck sake