THE WENGER THREAD

As we're unlikely to see terraces again at football, this is the virtual equivalent where you can chat to your hearts content about all football matters and, obviously, Arsenal in particular. This forum encourages all Gooners to visit and contribute so please keep it respectful, clean and topical.
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northbank123
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Re: WENGER - Views For and Against.

Post by northbank123 »

Ha we are absolutely light years off a CL win. 2004 will always be the golden opportunity, and the second half of that decade when English football was dominant in Europe was a viable shot. Its not just that there are a lot of teams better than us, our chances of beating Barca, Bayern or Madrid over two legs are negligible.

kiwomya
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Re: WENGER - Views For and Against.

Post by kiwomya »

northbank123 wrote:Ha we are absolutely light years off a CL win. 2004 will always be the golden opportunity, and the second half of that decade when English football was dominant in Europe was a viable shot. Its not just that there are a lot of teams better than us, our chances of beating Barca, Bayern or Madrid over two legs are negligible.
I would have thought the golden opportunity was in 2006! :D

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SteveO 35
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Re: WENGER - Views For and Against.

Post by SteveO 35 »

105% for

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DB10GOONER
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Re: WENGER - Views For and Against.

Post by DB10GOONER »

kiwomya wrote:
northbank123 wrote:Ha we are absolutely light years off a CL win. 2004 will always be the golden opportunity, and the second half of that decade when English football was dominant in Europe was a viable shot. Its not just that there are a lot of teams better than us, our chances of beating Barca, Bayern or Madrid over two legs are negligible.
I would have thought the golden opportunity was in 2006! :D
I agree we actually should have won it in 2004. We had a far better team than 2006, at their peak. It was also a notoriously weak CL that season with most big clubs knocked out before the quarters.

And then we met the chav. Oh hey, who's that charging out of his goal like a fucking idiot? Oh, he missed the ball. God, hope he doesn't do anything stupid like that again in the CL... :x :roll: :(

For me, Lehmann's mistake was where we really lost that fixture, even more so than conceding the late winner to Bridge. :|

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augie
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Re: WENGER - Views For and Against.

Post by augie »

Excellent piece from le grove this morning -

http://le-grove.co.uk/

The part I like the best is

"Arsenal are in the process of pulling a chair up to the top table of European football. We have some money, but look, money on its own doesn’t entitle you to an elite space. You have to start behaving like one of the big boys. You have to win a European Cup. You have to dish out sustained expenditure. You have to start making world class players again. You have to have BIG CLUB at the core of your culture. 4th place trophy gets you banished, acceptance of mediocrity gets you nowhere, being anything bar ruthless is sneered at. You have to behave how you want to be treated, you have to communicate ‘winners’ in everything you do."

This has been my main gripe at the club for the last few seasons - selling players and buying unproven replacements doesnt just weaken the squad, it also weakens the reputation of the club. We have been run by a manager and board lacking ambition and reeking of that "small time" smell and whether ozil is a player is good or bad for us, it cannot be disputed that his signing has altered the view of our club by the people outside the club (not us Gooners) and have made some sit up and take notice. Of course signing ozil on his own hasnt been enough which is why the signing of sanchez has been important too, and although I am not advocating a policy of "big name" signings, it also cannot be denied that their signings has created a real buzz around the place for the first time in a long long while.

The article also states that signing players alone is not enough but most of us level headed Gooners are already aware of that

Robin_L
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Re: WENGER - Views For and Against.

Post by Robin_L »

Still 100% against, still no indication from Wenker (that's our manager) that he is willing to do anything to make this club successful.

Hoping he's sacked before another journeyman like Khedira or Bender joins the club.

:lol:

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OneBardGooner
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Re: WENGER - Views For and Against.

Post by OneBardGooner »

Sadly we are stuck with the lame *word censored* for another 3 years :cry: :banghead: :cussing: :cry:

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OneBardGooner
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Re: WENGER - Views For and Against.

Post by OneBardGooner »

augie wrote:Excellent piece from le grove this morning -

http://le-grove.co.uk/

The part I like the best is

"Arsenal are in the process of pulling a chair up to the top table of European football. We have some money, but look, money on its own doesn’t entitle you to an elite space. You have to start behaving like one of the big boys. You have to win a European Cup. You have to dish out sustained expenditure. You have to start making world class players again. You have to have BIG CLUB at the core of your culture. 4th place trophy gets you banished, acceptance of mediocrity gets you nowhere, being anything bar ruthless is sneered at. You have to behave how you want to be treated, you have to communicate ‘winners’ in everything you do."

This has been my main gripe at the club for the last few seasons - selling players and buying unproven replacements doesnt just weaken the squad, it also weakens the reputation of the club. We have been run by a manager and board lacking ambition and reeking of that "small time" smell and whether ozil is a player is good or bad for us, it cannot be disputed that his signing has altered the view of our club by the people outside the club (not us Gooners) and have made some sit up and take notice. Of course signing ozil on his own hasnt been enough which is why the signing of sanchez has been important too, and although I am not advocating a policy of "big name" signings, it also cannot be denied that their signings has created a real buzz around the place for the first time in a long long while.

The article also states that signing players alone is not enough but most of us level headed Gooners are already aware of that

Good article, I think it expresses what many on here also feel and think very well.

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dPmunky
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Re: WENGER - Views For and Against.

Post by dPmunky »

Chippy wrote:10 mins? We were shit for longer than that weren't we? Or did it just seem like that?
agreed, we were. i just use the 1st 10 as an example of how the entire campaign went last year. we come out flat and uninspired, even against sides we ended up thrashing there were few all around dominant performances. we seem to need to go a goal or 2 down before we realise that this isnt a training match, its hull city and theyre going to walk us if we dont wake up. the attitude of only having to show up to win seems like its a culture at the club...perhaps put in place by a specialist....in failure :-P

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SydneyGooner
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Re: WENGER - Views For and Against.

Post by SydneyGooner »

DB10GOONER wrote:
kiwomya wrote:
northbank123 wrote:Ha we are absolutely light years off a CL win. 2004 will always be the golden opportunity, and the second half of that decade when English football was dominant in Europe was a viable shot. Its not just that there are a lot of teams better than us, our chances of beating Barca, Bayern or Madrid over two legs are negligible.
I would have thought the golden opportunity was in 2006! :D
I agree we actually should have won it in 2004. We had a far better team than 2006, at their peak. It was also a notoriously weak CL that season with most big clubs knocked out before the quarters.

And then we met the chav. Oh hey, who's that charging out of his goal like a fucking idiot? Oh, he missed the ball. God, hope he doesn't do anything stupid like that again in the CL... :x :roll: :(

For me, Lehmann's mistake was where we really lost that fixture, even more so than conceding the late winner to Bridge. :|
For me that 2002-04 team underachieved. Should've defended our league title in 2003 and as you've already mentioned won the European Cup in 2004. Tony Adams postponing his retirement by two years so that he could lift our's and London's first European Cup in the same season we we're invincible. What a dream that would've been.

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northbank123
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Re: WENGER - Views For and Against.

Post by northbank123 »

SydneyGooner wrote:
DB10GOONER wrote:
kiwomya wrote:
northbank123 wrote:Ha we are absolutely light years off a CL win. 2004 will always be the golden opportunity, and the second half of that decade when English football was dominant in Europe was a viable shot. Its not just that there are a lot of teams better than us, our chances of beating Barca, Bayern or Madrid over two legs are negligible.
I would have thought the golden opportunity was in 2006! :D
I agree we actually should have won it in 2004. We had a far better team than 2006, at their peak. It was also a notoriously weak CL that season with most big clubs knocked out before the quarters.

And then we met the chav. Oh hey, who's that charging out of his goal like a fucking idiot? Oh, he missed the ball. God, hope he doesn't do anything stupid like that again in the CL... :x :roll: :(

For me, Lehmann's mistake was where we really lost that fixture, even more so than conceding the late winner to Bridge. :|
For me that 2002-04 team underachieved. Should've defended our league title in 2003 and as you've already mentioned won the European Cup in 2004. Tony Adams postponing his retirement by two years so that he could lift our's and London's first European Cup in the same season we we're invincible. What a dream that would've been.
A double, an FA Cup win and an invincible season is an absolutely immense 3 years, it really is. The 2004 FA Cup semi is one of my most bitter memories and we completely folded in 2003 in the league but on balance, wow.

We just didn't make our mark on Europe as we should have in those 3 seasons. In 2001 we narrowly missed out on a semi against Leeds, so with our marked improvement we should have been looking to better this in the coming years. Twice we fell in the second group stage (managing 1 point in 6 away games in 2002 and 1 win in 6 home games in 2003). Although the Chelsea defeat still tears me up it was understandable as they were a good side and Lehmann gifted them 2 goals from absolutely nothing - but what is often overlooked is what a hash we made of qualifying from the group.

For the 5 seasons from 2001 to read QF, 16, 16, QF, 16 is utter turd. Make no mistake, we were one of the best sides in Europe during that time, but we were so comparatively poor in Europe. Couldn't tell you what exactly but obviously something from our approach to the domestic game wasn't transferring.

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VAVAVOOM 14
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Re: WENGER - Views For and Against.

Post by VAVAVOOM 14 »

DB10GOONER wrote:

For me, Lehmann's mistake was where we really lost that fixture, even more so than conceding the late winner to Bridge. :|
How so?

That occurred in the 1st leg - Pires equalized five minutes after.

1-1 is a good result away from home in the CL knockout stages, we had more than enough to rectify the aggregate score at home - we bottled it - as we always do in Europe.

One of the biggest regrets of my life is that we didn't do the treble that year...Can you imagine, an unbeaten treble?

It could've easily been done: beat Chelsea in the CL as we should've done and we only have to navigate Monaco and Porto, dump United out of the FA Cup after dominating them like we should've and we play Milwall in the final.

The ironic thing is the same week that saw us crash out of the CL and FA Cup respectively, Liverpool almost ended our unbeaten run and would've done but for Henry's brilliance; probably the worst 10 day spell in our history.

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clockender1
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Re: WENGER - Views For and Against.

Post by clockender1 »

northbank123 wrote: For the 5 seasons from 2001 to read QF, 16, 16, QF, 16 is utter turd. Make no mistake, we were one of the best sides in Europe during that time, but we were so comparatively poor in Europe. Couldn't tell you what exactly but obviously something from our approach to the domestic game wasn't transferring.

i can tell you exactly what - we were tactically poor. Wonga got consistently outhought.

whilst he told the genuis on our team 'to just go out and play', other coaches used hard work and organization to beat us.

we were a superb footballing side, the best to watch anywhere but we were poorly led.

one thing i have mentioned before - the double winning side of 1998 - Seaman, keown, dixon, winterburn, adams, bould, parlour, platt, vieira, Petit, bergkamp, overmars and wrighty - all had bags and bags of experience of winning and playing in Europe - in fact the ONLY player that didn't - was Anelka and he was French FFS !

but we never even made it out of the group stage.

why ?

Piss Poor management, lack of preparation, analysis and tactics.

our record from 1999 to 2006, was pathetic given the exceptional talent we had - under any other manager, a side with Bergkamp, Henry and Vieira would have picked up 2-3 CL's not just made one final.

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VAVAVOOM 14
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Re: WENGER - Views For and Against.

Post by VAVAVOOM 14 »

^ Agree, you think of the pedigree of players/teams we've had over the years: Bergkamp, Adams, Overmars, Pires, Ljungberg, Henry, A.Cole, Vieira, Petit, etc. We should have at least two CL medals.

It's disgraceful that our sides from 01'-04' hardly made a dent in Europe: we had enough talent in those sides to retain CL's FFS!

Our failures in Europe from the late 90's through the mid 2000's is a subject I've spent a significant amount of time pondering...Can't wrap my head around it. We never even made a semi-final, that's just indefensible.

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Chippy
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Re: WENGER - Views For and Against.

Post by Chippy »

Just reminded me of being totally outclassed by the Barcawhores at Wembley. Got my tix via a friend of Pat Rice. Hope he's making a good recovery.

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