Merci Arsène

[Makingtrax]

@Heskey
Love that table you posted. It sums up just how incredible Arsenal performed up to 2015/16. Hard to imagine the sheer stupidity of thinking we were stagnant or underachieving. Everything in the club must have worked like a well oiled machine to manage that level of achievement.

As you showed in your points post the stability at the club was unreal compared to volatility all around. The board must have looked on in horror at the state of the fans. Look at us now ffs.

 

[GoonerJeeves]

Sunderland, Stoke and QPR...where are they now?

 

[Heskey]

Did you genuinely watch us in big games from 2013-2018 and say to yourself yep, we are still going places under this man. Yes or no question.

You're not getting it both ways man.

You didn't even bother reading my posts, but called it drivel or at least consider the fact that perhaps you're not 100% correct in everything.

You should consider a career in politics with the way you 'argue' and instead of answering other questions you just ask a single question back - that I already addressed (which you wouldn't know of course because you didn't read it).

 

[Heskey]

Sunderland, Stoke and QPR...where are they now?

They progressed so hard they had to notch it down a level - or 2 in Sunderland's case.

 

[HairSprayGooners]

You're not getting it both ways man.

You didn't even bother reading my posts, but called it drivel or at least consider the fact that perhaps you're not 100% correct in everything.

You should consider a career in politics with the way you 'argue' and instead of answering other questions you just ask a single question back - that I already addressed (which you wouldn't know of course because you didn't read it).

Dont answer the question then hahaha.

 

[Makingtrax]

Did you genuinely watch us in big games from 2013-2018 and say to yourself yep, we are still going places under this man. Yes or no question.

Anyway you’ve got your way, the the whole Wenger era system has been dismantled, new personnel that you’ve been bigging up and new players that you’ve been wanking over.

So where are we? Oh look, a mile below where the man you keep abusing was, even when the fans were ****ing all over him. And playing dismal football, possibly nearing relegation even. It shows what you know about football.

 

[Heskey]

Thought this one was neat.
Notice the sudden drop-off when the stadium is built/paid for and oil money comes in?

 

[novar]

Money killed us and is killing the game too, he was right in every single thing.

Can we change the title for whatever the french is for "forgive us, Arsène"?

 

[Makingtrax]

Thought this one was neat.
Notice the sudden drop-off when the stadium is built/paid for and oil money comes in?

Wenger’s reign was crazy good!

 

[Makingtrax]

@Heskey has bossed this thread and the put all the Wenger ‘decliners’ in the sin bin with ‘real’ facts. 2015/16 fans need to hang their head in shame at the treatment of Wenger. It was just boredom, self entitlement and fake news that led to the abuse. Social media has a lot to answer for, and probably will do for some time to come.

 

[HairSprayGooners]

Still absolutely bonkers that Arsène failed to win a trophy with RVP, Nasri, Fabregas, Wilshere at the time, Sagna, Song, Arshavin and Kosc in his main side. Or even got close to winning the title. The attack and midfield were absolutely elite. Decent fullbacks, Kosc was good as well.

Madness.

 

[albakos]

Be honest. Did you read either of my posts this time?

If not, then there's no point in continuing this. I spent a substantial amount on outlining why you can't say Wenger was regressing in a managerial sense by looking at 70-75 being his avg. in his last 10 years. Because when teams are investing that heavily, while others are not, what is it exactly you expect? Or at least we need to look at the definition of 'regress' and also who we believe regressed.

I think Arsenal, as a club, stagnated for various reasons - as outlined in my previous post (stadium, oil money, no margin of error, to few proper experts around Wenger - whether his decision or not, he's not his own boss, so other's need to get some experts in to help out).
But when you were in top 3-4 before oil money came in, and you are 'stagnating' by staying in the top 3-4 still, I don't see how that is necessarily something to shout up about.


Not correct, man. You definitely didn not even glimpse through the post I sent you and the screenshot outlining our season by season transfers.
Here is a breakdown for you since you ignore anything else.

12/13 we earned 9M in transfers after selling RVP.
13/14 we spent 33M only getting in Özil.
14/15 we spent 82M - but the £107M we spent on transfer fees were only 4th in the league that year, so that's not "sufficient money to challenge for a title after proper spending" when the others have outspent you with literrally 100s of millions of to that point, right?

15/16 we spent massive £20M. Cech for 12m. in the summer, Elneny 11M in the winter. And that was the year we dropped the ball to Leicester. The year I still rue. Yes, that year we flopped the chance. I can't remember the circumstances around it, but it was painful. Every team were slipping and we had a chance, and we didn't take it. But we spent 20M **** sake. That's ridiculous. WE HAD THE 14TH HIGHEST NET SPEND THAT YEAR.
16/17 we spent £90M and once again, that was only high enough to be 3rd highest Balance, and 4th highest in expenditures. Failing to see a pattern here that we spent enough to propel ourselves to the level of the other top 6 clubs.
17/18 we earned 5M in Wenger's last season. 6th highest in expenditures, 15th place overall Balance.




There's not enough evidence. There's not enough "evidence" for me either to say we would have been winning year in, year out had we spent like the likes of City, Chelsea or Man Utd. I have stated that multiple times. It's too hypothetical. Especially when looking at some of our signings post StatDNA. Could have been the same result, could have been better, could have been worse.

But there is nothing to take from those numbers saying that Wenger was regressing. The club from a spending perspective were stagnant or even regressing compared to the market and competition. Not Wenger.

"There's a reason why going away to Manchester City and winning 2-0 was seen as a WOW moment for Wenger, because we'd been failing miserably away from home in big games for years. Because the manager was regressing..."
Sigh...

Thought this one was neat.
Notice the sudden drop-off when the stadium is built/paid for and oil money comes in?

Brilliant summaries, well done.

Just as the majority of Arsenal players who left and found it that the grass is not always greener, all of the fans who heaped massive pressure on Arsène and the club for him to be let go, are now finding out the same.

Considering the **** year that we're in, the phrase "Hindsight is 2020" gets a whole new meaning.

 

[squallman]

Still absolutely bonkers that Arsène failed to win a trophy with RVP, Nasri, Fabregas, Wilshere at the time, Sagna, Song, Arshavin and Kosc in his main side. Or even got close to winning the title. The attack and midfield were absolutely elite. Decent fullbacks, Kosc was good as well.

Madness.

Made of glass (Wilshere, RVP) , purple patch maestros (Song, Arshavin, Nasri), and the consistent performers (Fabregas, Sagna) Even Cesc missed parts of the season through injury.

You're also forgetting what was behind them, both as back up and on the field simultaneously. Eboue, Bendnter, Chamakh, Squillaci, Almunia, Santos and Denilson. I was going to chuck Rosicky into that last list but fans love him for scoring the odd goal against Sp**s when he was largely mediocre after his return from injury.

In fact I dare anyone to find me ten league games in a row where RVP, Fabregas, Nasri, Wilshere, Sagna and Kos all played and were all in good form. Liverpool have played the same team for the past two years.

That's why we didn't win the title. People are romanticising that era now, forgetting that that lot almost never played together, were never in form at the same time and were surrounded by utter garbage.

 

[Makingtrax]

Still absolutely bonkers that Arsène failed to win a trophy with RVP, Nasri, Fabregas, Wilshere at the time, Sagna, Song, Arshavin and Kosc in his main side. Or even got close to winning the title. The attack and midfield were absolutely elite. Decent fullbacks, Kosc was good as well.

Madness.

You're just showing your lack of understanding of football. That squad overall, not just the stars your pointing out, had quite low investment. And as @squallman has pointed out some of the other players were fairly poor.

The only teams that win the league are squads with high enough investment to cover all positions with quality. You tell me this, me how often has a squad with investment outside the top 3 won the premier league. Once in almost 30 years, the freak Leicester year.

To say it was madness that Arsène didn't win the league with a squad investment that low is sheer stupidity. It was amazing what Arsène achieved with such low spend as @Heskey has shown you in charts and clear language you can understand.

 

[Tir Na Nog]

Tbf in 10/11 we were competing on 4 fronts up until March and in the space of a few weeks it all went up in smoke. I genuinely believe if that squad had stayed together for a bit longer eventually we'd have won something but Cesc got homeskin and understandably wanted to go back to Barca where he's still there to this day, Nasri was out of contract and we decided to sell, Clichy left and although I didn't think he was world class going from him to Gibbs was a massive downgrade, Wilshere had his injury problems. Also think about this, RvP's peak season was 11/12, Nasri, Cesc and Wilshere never got to play with peak RvP, imagine how much more devastating we'd have been in that scenario. Also we'd go on to sign Mertesacker and Arteta two players who might've added much needed experience to the 10/11 crop of players. If we somehow managed to keep it all together I think we'd have had more than enough to win something.

Szczesny
Sagna Mertesacker Koscielny Clichy
Arteta Song
Walcott Fabregas Nasri
Van Persie
​

I'll go with Arteta-Song in midfield here because obviously I can't rewrite history in terms of the injury Wilshere got and Ramsey still wasn't 100% over his leg break at the time. But to me this honestly has a great balance to it.

Subs would then consist of Fabianski, Vermaelen, Gibbs, Ramsey, Rosicky, Arshavin, etc. Maybe we'd have still signed Gervinho/Ox.

Unfortunately though this is probably too idealistic and we just have to accept the way things played out. It just wasn't meant to be, with the financial situation it'd have taken a miracle for all the pieces to have came together perfectly during this period. I think we did very well to be as competitive as we were tbh.

 

[berric]

Tbf in 10/11 we were competing on 4 fronts up until March and in the space of a few weeks it all went up in smoke. I genuinely believe if that squad had stayed together for a bit longer eventually we'd have won something but Cesc got homeskin and understandably wanted to go back to Barca where he's still there to this day, Nasri was out of contract and we decided to sell, Clichy left and although I didn't think he was world class going from him to Gibbs was a massive downgrade, Wilshere had his injury problems. Also think about this, RvP's peak season was 11/12, Nasri, Cesc and Wilshere never got to play with peak RvP, imagine how much more devastating we'd have been in that scenario. Also we'd go on to sign Mertesacker and Arteta two players who might've added much needed experience to the 10/11 crop of players. If we somehow managed to keep it all together I think we'd have had more than enough to win something.

Szczesny
Sagna Mertesacker Koscielny Clichy
Arteta Song
Walcott Fabregas Nasri
Van Persie
​

I'll go with Arteta-Song in midfield here because obviously I can't rewrite history in terms of the injury Wilshere got and Ramsey still wasn't 100% over his leg break at the time. But to me this honestly has a great balance to it.

Subs would then consist of Fabianski, Vermaelen, Gibbs, Ramsey, Rosicky, Arshavin, etc. Maybe we'd have still signed Gervinho/Ox.

Unfortunately though this is probably too idealistic and we just have to accept the way things played out. It just wasn't meant to be, with the financial situation it'd have taken a miracle for all the pieces to have came together perfectly during this period. I think we did very well to be as competitive as we were tbh.

Yep with Arsène the main issue is that we were limited to buy replacements for our superstars instead of players supplementing them. Teams around kept strenghtening and after a while it all went bust.

The 2015-2016 windows were still criminal and I believe that if Wenger had a proper structure above we'd sing a different song today.

 

[HairSprayGooners]

You're just showing your lack of understanding of football. That squad overall, not just the stars your pointing out, had quite low investment. And as @squallman has pointed out some of the other players were fairly poor.

The only teams that win the league are squads with high enough investment to cover all positions with quality. You tell me this, me how often has a squad with investment outside the top 3 won the premier league. Once in almost 30 years, the freak Leicester year.

To say it was madness that Arsène didn't win the league with a squad investment that low is sheer stupidity. It was amazing what Arsène achieved with such low spend as @Heskey has shown you in charts and clear language you can understand.

Oh right, so Wenger was nowhere near Klopp then? A man who before this summer had Origi and Shaqiri as backup for Mane, Salah and Firmino oh and he won the league... and CL... and almost won the league again

Oh and to top it all off he has VVD out for the entire season plus other injuries but is still looking to fight for the title.

**** off with squad cost, just blew your stupid metric out the water. Wenger was just not as good as you think, admit it.

 

[Blood on the Tracks]

Anyone see this new Bendtner / Wenger story.

Wenger agreed to let Bendtner leave if we signing Ba on loan from Chelsea. Deal obviously fell through and Bendtner had to stay. Bendtner in his wisdom rang Wenger up and called him a ****** trying to force a move anyway.

Wengers response- Okay, see you at training tomorrow

Wenger no sold The Lord like a champ

 

[Makingtrax]

Oh right, so Wenger was nowhere near Klopp then? A man who before this summer had Origi and Shaqiri as backup for Mane, Salah and Firmino oh and he won the league... and CL... and almost won the league again

Oh and to top it all off he has VVD out for the entire season plus other injuries but is still looking to fight for the title.

**** off with squad cost, just blew your stupid metric out the water. Wenger was just not as good as you think, admit it.

Yep, and as you can see in the graphic, Liverpool had the 3rd highest squad investment last year. The league winners have nearly always come from one of the top 3 club investors.

Back in 2010-12 Arsenal had had years of under investment due to the stadium build and how Wenger assembled a top 4 side is unbelievable.

It’s a concept you’re clearly struggling with despite the attempts of people to explain it to you on here.

 

[Riou]

None of our squads post stadium move were good enough to win the league really, we had some very good ones, but we were up against fantastic United, Chelsea and City teams that were just better.

Even the 2010/2011 one, fantastic attacking players yes, but the defence just wasn't good enough...the champions defence that year was Ferdinand-Vidic, how was Kos-Djourou to compete with that

Arsenal's target, and squad quality (up to 2015 anyway, as everything started going wrong from that summer) was to finish top four, and that's what Big Wengz did and he did it with style.

It would have been against the odds for us to win a league title from 2006-2015.