Merci Arsène

[Makingtrax]

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 just no sold The Lord like a champ

Arteta would have blown his top and frozen him out on full pay to play on his lap top.

 

[Makingtrax]

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.

Tell that to @HairSprayGooners ffs.

 

[Heskey]

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

 

[HairSprayGooners]

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.

So by your logic United should've won the title or come second over the past 5 seasons? No? It doesn't make any difference within the top 6 what the ****ing squad cost is.

Honestly would love to chat with you in person, see if you're actually like this in real person

If you started talking about squad spend and wenger the way you do here at the Emirates youd get a slap pretty sharpish from someone in the stadium. Your opinions are so odd, @Heskey is following suit for some reason as well.

 

[HairSprayGooners]

Tell that to @HairSprayGooners ffs.

The defence AND keeper wasn't good enough but throughout those years everyone constantly bemoaned wenger for not signing the correct players?

You cannot tell me that wenger couldn't replace CB's and Vieira in 10+ transfer windows?

Thats down to him, he made so many mistakes you just conveniently forget that.

 

[Makingtrax]

It doesn't make any difference within the top 6 what the ****ing squad cost is.

If that’s the case why has every winner bar Leicester come from the top 3. Answer that.

 

[Makingtrax]

The defence AND keeper wasn't good enough but throughout those years everyone constantly bemoaned wenger for not signing the correct players?

You cannot tell me that wenger couldn't replace CB's and Vieira in 10+ transfer windows?

Thats down to him, he made so many mistakes you just conveniently forget that.

That’s just trolling and you know it.

 

[HairSprayGooners]

If that’s the case why has every winner bar Leicester come from the top 3. Answer that.

Naturally you'll always have one of the bigger spenders finishing first. I cant argue with that. HOWEVER, I said it doesn't matter within the top 6. Which is true, hence why United are always near the top of squad cost but are all over the shop. Because there's way more variables than just squad cost alone.

You cant disagree with that.

@Makingtrax to my second point, no it isnt trolling. You cant seriously tell me Wenger was unable to buy a decent CB, DM or keeper in 10+ years? Especially when he went and got Cech, Mustafi and Xhaka for around £85M...

He made a lot of mistakes, you might not want to admit it but its the truth. Facts are there for all to see.

Arteta and edu have proven in one summer how easy it is to buy a decent CB and top DM/CM.

 

[Makingtrax]

Naturally you'll always have one of the bigger spenders finishing first.

Hallelujah!

 

[Riou]

...back then, if we only won 1-0, it would annoy me as a kid

I wish we could go back and remove all the abuse he received, even during the 2016-2018 period when things started to go bad, it's kind of disgraceful how much **** he got from his own fans...our fanbase became a meme during this period and it turned the club into a bit of a joke...shame.

He is our greatest legend, no doubt...couldn't imagine truly falling in love with football any other way, than falling in love with Arsène's Arsenal.

 

[HairSprayGooners]

Hallelujah!

We arent talking about finishing first. You not gonna answer any of my points nah? Sums it up.

 

[Makingtrax]

Naturally you'll always have one of the bigger spenders finishing first. I cant argue with that. HOWEVER, I said it doesn't matter within the top 6. Which is true, hence why United are always near the top of squad cost but are all over the shop. Because there's way more variables than just squad cost alone.

You cant disagree with that.

@Makingtrax to my second point, no it isnt trolling. You cant seriously tell me Wenger was unable to buy a decent CB, DM or keeper in 10+ years? Especially when he went and got Cech, Mustafi and Xhaka for around £85M...

He made a lot of mistakes, you might not want to admit it but its the truth. Facts are there for all to see.

Arteta and edu have proven in one summer how easy it is to buy a decent CB and top DM/CM.

United haven’t been 1st for squad investment for 10 years. Mainly 2nd sometimes 3rd behind City and Chelsea. Their averaging finishing position is 3.7 in that time. They’ll be back up soon. They were 3rd last year and this year they’ll finish in the top 6.

The only team in my start of the year top 8 prediction based on squad investment, that won’t finish in the top 8, is Arsenal.

 

[HairSprayGooners]

United haven’t been 1st for squad investment for 10 years. Mainly 2nd sometimes 3rd behind City and Chelsea. Their averaging finishing position is 3.7 in that time. They’ll be back up soon. They were 3rd last year and this year they’ll finish in the top 6.

The only team in my start of the year top 8 prediction based on squad investment, that won’t finish in the top 8, is Arsenal.

Yet United have spent 1.1 billion pounds on their squad since ferguson left? But from the year 2000-2013 United spent just under £600M and finished 1st seven times. Where Liverpool, Chelsea and City all out spent them in that period? So again that kind of debunks your metric does it not? Proof that there's so many more variables than just squad cost alone.

In the past two summers Arsenal have spent more than everyone bar United, Chelsea and City. And even then I think we are almost on par with those teams in the 200-300M range.

Liverpool have spent £80M in the past two summers, less than the vast majority of teams in the league.

Spend isnt the be all and end all.

 

[Blood on the Tracks]

...back then, if we only won 1-0, it would annoy me as a kid

I wish we could go back and remove all the abuse he received, even during the 2016-2018 period when things started to go bad, it's kind of disgraceful how much **** he got from his own fans...our fanbase became a meme during this period and it turned the club into a bit of a joke...shame.

He is our greatest legend, no doubt...couldn't imagine truly falling in love with football any other way, than falling in love with Arsène's Arsenal.

I remember the day Arsène signed. I was 11. It was all Arsène who? in the media.

It probably sounds ridiculous now to a lot of the younger members but to have this professorial French dude who'd just been managing in Japan roll up at Arsenal seemed like the height of exoticism in 1996.

Then to see him forge a legitimate footballing revolution was insane.

I'll argue the point till I'm blue in the face, no manager in the Premier League era had as big an influence in transforming English football as Arsène Wenger.

Not just Arsenal fans but English football fans in general owes him a debt of gratitude for what he did for the game over here.

 

[squallman]

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.

I like the speculation but you're forgetting that we only signed Arteta and Per because of the humiliation at Old Trafford. If we had kept the players we sold that summer, we probably wouldn't have lost by that much.

We were probably only able to bring in Arteta, Per and the rest because of the money we got for selling Fabregas and the rest.

There's no scenario where we have all of those players together.

The real what if for me is if RVP stayed instead of going to United. We looked fairly alright in that season and the rest of the league was very weak. Although again, do we buy Giroud and Podolski if we keep RVP?

That was our main problem for me. We never added to the squad back then, we only replaced players. If we replaced them at all.

 

[Riou]

I'll argue the point till I'm blue in the face, no manager in the Premier League era had as big an influence in transforming English football as Arsène Wenger.

Not just Arsenal fans but English football fans in general owes him a debt of gratitude for what he did for the game over here.

 

[Blood on the Tracks]

I love the Wenger GIFS. Even though he's an old man he looks like a mischievous little boy with his facial expressions.

 

[Makingtrax]

Yet United have spent 1.1 billion pounds on their squad since ferguson left? But from the year 2000-2013 United spent just under £600M and finished 1st seven times. Where Liverpool, Chelsea and City all out spent them in that period? So again that kind of debunks your metric does it not? Proof that there's so many more variables than just squad cost alone.

In the past two summers Arsenal have spent more than everyone bar United, Chelsea and City. And even then I think we are almost on par with those teams in the 200-300M range.

Liverpool have spent £80M in the past two summers, less than the vast majority of teams in the league.

Spend isnt the be all and end all.

Cherry picking random figures. United never dropped out of the top 3 for squad investment in Fergie’s time. And I showed you the figures for Liverpool last year, in the top 3. Arsenal have never appeared more than 5th since 2004.

 

[Makingtrax]

I love the Wenger GIFS. Even though he's a old man he looks like a mischievous little boy with his facial expressions.

Old man who gets up at 5.30am, runs 5 to 10K, completes a weights workout, played in a 11 a side match last year and sharp enough to give regular witty interviews on mainstream media.

 

[HairSprayGooners]

Cherry picking random figures. United never dropped out of the top 3 for squad investment in Fergie’s time. And I showed you the figures for Liverpool last year, in the top 3. Arsenal have never appeared more than 5th since 2004.

But Liverpool spent £9M last year and City spent £140M. Therefore going by your logic considering the point difference the season prior City should've romped to the league title. But it was actually the complete opposite.

Also I'm not cherry picking. From 2000-2013 Fergie won 7 premier league titles. In the same period Chelsea spent 950M, City 750M and Liverpool 625M. United spent less than all of those teams but won 7, yes 7 titles.

There's a lot of facts here saying that spend isn't the be all and end all you know. The facts are from 2013 as a club Arsenal have spent £700M on footballers. Now I'd personally say that's enough to build a title challenging team.