THE WENGER THREAD

[Swifty]

I've been a Wenger advocate for many a year. I applaud his teams of the past, I applaud the (mostly) attractive football we've played, I applaud the ethics of how we operate - even if it sometimes look like we get bullied by other clubs. I applaud the fact that we have made an investment and remained competitive while keeping our financial house in order. I remember posting somewhere about 6 years ago that I could see we would be in for a lean period but at the end of it we would become a financial powerhouse that could get whatever players we wanted - that time is now. HOWEVER! Now that we have substantial funds, have a long period of lack of success and charge our fans a motza - IF Wenger proves incapable of being able to attract world class talent THEN he should be sacked at midnight of the transfer window close. For some reason he is the only manager of a big club that thinks players are only available if clubs say they are - most other managers just decide who they want and go get em. Do some business Wenger or get out - stop being a soft c#ck!

[I Hate Hleb]

I've been a Wenger advocate for many a year. I applaud his teams of the past, I applaud the (mostly) attractive football we've played, I applaud the ethics of how we operate - even if it sometimes look like we get bullied by other clubs. I applaud the fact that we have made an investment and remained competitive while keeping our financial house in order. I remember posting somewhere about 6 years ago that I could see we would be in for a lean period but at the end of it we would become a financial powerhouse that could get whatever players we wanted - that time is now. HOWEVER! Now that we have substantial funds, have a long period of lack of success and charge our fans a motza - IF Wenger proves incapable of being able to attract world class talent THEN he should be sacked at midnight of the transfer window close. For some reason he is the only manager of a big club that thinks players are only available if clubs say they are - most other managers just decide who they want and go get em. Do some business Wenger or get out - stop being a soft c#ck!

Spot on!! It's something I alluded to on the Board/Finance thread a few days ago...

Basic message was, that the money is there to be spent. If it isn't then it's down to Wenger, he chooses how much and when to spend. Questions came from the floor asking Gazidis if he would put more pressure on Wenger to use it to strengthen to which he replied that "he couldn't' force him", pretty lame answer imo.

IG also mentioned that they are trying to move AW away from the "socialist" wage structure. The money is there to pay top wages if needed, apparently. Have heard this before though....

You see it's stuff like this that gets on my fecking tits!!! If the club is struggling to make a challenge because the manager is not spending the resources available to him or won't change his wage /recruitment policy, and it is proving detrimental to the club's chances of success, then you fecking well replace him - not offer him a new contract!!!

Makes you wonder what the hell is really going on at our club.

[Blood_Gooner]

Safe to assume this transfer window will be another Ground Hog Day.

Wenger will never go against his misguided penny pinching principles. Surely, when he fails to add quality to the squad, thereby consigning us to another season of mediocrity and shit football, even the staunchest of worshipping disciples will afford him no reprieve.

[Brady's left peg]

Safe to assume this transfer window will be another Ground Hog Day.

Wenger will never go against his misguided penny pinching principles. Surely, when he fails to add quality to the squad, thereby consigning us to another season of mediocrity and shit football, even the staunchest of worshipping disciples will afford him no reprieve.

You are kidding right?
8 years without a trophy, the last few mediocre at best. Forget this top 4 bollox... the last 2 we have achieved it because of the scums self destruction.
But we still have thousands of Wenger sheep blindly following our imperious leader as he takes us back to the dark ages.
They cannot see it, they have not seen it coming and they will not see it in the future, because they prefer to wallow in his previous glories instead of watching whats happening on the pitch with their own eyes!

[arseofacrow]

Wenger's only target is to qualify for the Top 4. He is competing against a maximum of 6 teams for 4 places. That's a pretty fucking big target to aim at. The ones missing out at the moment are Everton and Spurs, who have significantly lower wages bills.

It just looks to me like it would take monumental incompetence not to qualify for the Champions League.

[OneBardGooner]

HAs Wenger left yet?

[northbank123]

Wenger's only target is to qualify for the Top 4. He is competing against a maximum of 6 teams for 4 places. That's a pretty fucking big target to aim at. The ones missing out at the moment are Everton and Spurs, who have significantly lower wages bills.

It just looks to me like it would take monumental incompetence not to qualify for the Champions League.

I'm not sure I'd even include Everton in this. Since we moved to the Emirates and gave up our aspirations how many times have they put in a real and sustained challenge for CL place? Despite a great season for them they predictably faded away in the second half of the season and were huge outsiders for a top 4 place in the last two months.

[highburyJD]

Forget this top 4 bollox... the last 2 we have achieved it because of the scums self destruction.

Sperz record at the back end of last season was actually pretty good, it's just that ours was virtually perfect
they didn't self-destruct like under 'Arry

[highburyJD]

Wenger's only target is to qualify for the Top 4. He is competing against a maximum of 6 teams for 4 places. That's a pretty fucking big target to aim at. The ones missing out at the moment are Everton and Spurs, who have significantly lower wages bills.

It just looks to me like it would take monumental incompetence not to qualify for the Champions League.

You obviously accept that ManUre, Citeh and Chelski have exponentially bigger budgets than us
so that leaves one spot - for which you only mention Toffees and Spuds
what about Liverpool? Their expenditure, wages + transfer fees, is far more than us every year.

pretty bizarre claim - Citeh, Chelski and ManUre have all failed to hit 'par' more than once
during Wenger's period of relentless (if slightly disappointing) consistency

[northbank123]

Wenger's only target is to qualify for the Top 4. He is competing against a maximum of 6 teams for 4 places. That's a pretty fucking big target to aim at. The ones missing out at the moment are Everton and Spurs, who have significantly lower wages bills.

It just looks to me like it would take monumental incompetence not to qualify for the Champions League.

You obviously accept that ManUre, Citeh and Chelski have exponentially bigger budgets than us
so that leaves one spot - for which you only mention Toffees and Spuds
what about Liverpool? Their expenditure, wages + transfer fees, is far more than us every year.

pretty bizarre claim - Citeh, Chelski and ManUre have all failed to hit 'par' more than once
during Wenger's period of relentless (if slightly disappointing) consistency

No - not everybody believes that that makes ever competing with those clubs impossible.

[highburyJD]

I wasn't claiming that at all. Was working within arsecrow's 'target' paradigm
(don't agree with that either, aiming for top four only doesn't happen, or actually make any sense)
earlier I brought up BVB and Montpellier, they've recently won their leagues despite being even further behind in budget terms.
The qualitative difference for both clubs was IMO management - amazing jobs by Girard and Klopp (worth remembering their rich rivals recovered an cruised the league a year later)

I'm just saying even within crow's framing, there are more than 6 clubs

[SteveO 35]

It depresses me when people think we can't compete with Man Utd. Why shouldn't we? Despite our ground being smaller we earn at least as much in matchday revenues owing to the much higher ticket prices, the cost of servicing their debt is much higher than ours and we are now supposedly striking top market commercial deals. Manchester United isn't run like Chavski or Citeh - they have a share listing and high interest loan notes to cover. The difference is pure ambition. United have built a leading brand because of that ambition. We have settled for finishing in the lower CL places and whining about financial fair play.

Anyone who believes the top 3 is out of reach clearly buys into the Wenger mindset

[arseofacrow]

Needless to say I will not be replying to JD's post.

[highburyJD]

if it's needless to say
you don't need to say it

[OneBardGooner]

unless of course it needs saying because it is so Needleless

and even then...

as if to allude to something totally diametrically opposed to the first point of a comment and then attempt to derail its point or purpose...now THAT might be considered needless....unless of course you are inept and passed your sell-by-date...such as

Inspector Clueless.