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*Official* English Football Season 2014-15

Cabinet96

Cabinet96

Hall of Fame Member
Ikki said:
Although I'm aware of Arsenal fans' longstanding gripes with Wenger I don't think their current position or play is dire enough to be talking about sacking the guy mid season, especially considering the injuries. Look around you, it could be worse.

The reality Arsenal fans (and fans not of the following) have to accept is that there are 3 behemoths in the league in City, United and Chelsea that will stand in their way. This is no longer 95-05, those 3 aside there is Everton, Liverpool, Spurs and now Southampton pushing hard as well.

It may take a change of manager, and the overhaul with it, to bring them up to that legit title challenging level (they're not Everton in terms of resources) but the way a lot of their fans talk of the title seems a bit deluded. It can happen but let's not pretend it won't take an almighty season with the current setup.

The obvious CB and DM arguments aside they need a world class forward - and I don't think of Sanchez as a forward despite how brilliant he is. Scholes made a great comment after the Chelsea-Liverpool game that for him a great side is largely so because of its forwards and it makes everybody else look good when they're firing. As a Liverpool fan I appreciate this more this season.

Ultimately, I just don't think the ruckus around Wenger will help at all this season and in fact will hurt them. Something tells me the Arsenal higher ups are running out of patience anyway.
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I don't think that many are really saying he should be sacked right now though. I just have a growing sense that everyone may have missed a trick at the end of the season by not letting him "retire" or whatnot. The narrative was perfect, having guided us consistently through financial constraints he'd finally won another trophy, he would be leaving it to someone else to take us on to that next level, with a very solid base to work from. There wouldn't have really been a result that would tarnish his legacy.

The forward argument I'm not so sure about. Obviously it's important and I accept Giroud and Welbeck aren't brilliant, and a better alternative would improve us, but it's not like it's impossible to have success without one. My idea of a forward seems to be a bit different to yours if you don't consider Alexis one, but assuming you basically mean a striker/centre forward, there have been loads of teams that have had huge success without a truly world class one. Bayern Munich, Germany and Spain are the best examples. What they had was really solid cores and a wide variety of high class attacking players; Iniesta, Silva, Fabregas, Ribery, Robben, Müller, Özil, Götze, Reus etc. Arsenal aren't that far off that. Just need a better DM and someone extra so we don't fall to bits if Koscielny gets injured.
 
P

Pothas

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
I know Villa did not always play a central striker for Spain but not having that Spain did not have a world class striker.
 
P

Pothas

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
I know it has been mentioned many times this season but am going to say it anyway, they really really really should have bought Fabregas back.
 
sledger

sledger

Spanish_Vicente
Pothas said:
I know it has been mentioned many times this season but am going to say it anyway, they really really really should have bought Fabregas back.
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I am forcing myself not to think along these lines. The whole Fabregas situation is just too unspeakably poor to stomach. It's better just to pretend there is no such player.
 
P

Pothas

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
It was always such poor logic, I mean Bees have lots of players that play in his position, but as great as Alan Judge is I think we would probably take Fabregas.
 
sledger

sledger

Spanish_Vicente
Pothas said:
It was always such poor logic, I mean Bees have lots of players that play in his position, but as great as Alan Judge is I think we would probably take Fabregas.
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I sympathise with Wenger to some extent, because in his mind signing Fabregas probably ran the of risk of losing Wilshere or Ramsey forever due to not being able to give them playing time. If he really does believe that either, or both, of them will go on to become a truly top player, and that they need regular starts, then I can at least understand why he made the decision he did. It'd still be a very questionable decision at best, and that is putting it diplomatically, but I can see why he made that decision.

I suppose if Wilshere suddenly kicks on and becomes amazing then you might say his decision was vindicated, somewhat at least. But that doesn't seem very likely at all at the moment.
 
Cabinet96

Cabinet96

Hall of Fame Member
Pothas said:
I know Villa did not always play a central striker for Spain but not having that Spain did not have a world class striker.
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Yeah, I should've qualified I was more talking about the Euro 2012 win where he was injured and Torres was Chelsea Torres.
 
Cabinet96

Cabinet96

Hall of Fame Member
Re Fabregas. I think at the time not signing him back didn't seem such an awful decision. In my eyes he'd have had to replace either Arsenal's most expensive player of all time or their 23 year old player of the year the previous season, and we had greater concerns at the back. What was rubbish was letting him go to Chelsea then immediately switching to a system which would get another central midfielder in and only having two centre backs. Using Özil wide in order to get another non Fabregas player in the middle is pretty much blasphemy.

Edit: Also hasn't helped that Ramsey has been rubbish this season.
 
sledger

sledger

Spanish_Vicente
Fabregas and Alex Song playing behind Ozil, Walcott and Sanchez would be amazing.

Why do we not have this?!
 
GIMH

GIMH

Norwood's on Fire
Marcuss said:
Because the work permit wouldn't have been an issue at all? Non-starter.
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Isn't he a Spanish citizen? Suppose that came later.

These articles are usually clutching at straws anyway just seemed timely for this thread :p

Anyway. Another day, another win, five unbeaten and Wembley on the horizon evidently. SWA
 
dontcloseyoureyes

dontcloseyoureyes

BARNES OUT
The entitlement in this thread is sickening. You can tell that being one of the 3 or 4 best teams in the league is all any of you people know.

Try being relegated and we'll see how much you hate finishing third and making the knockout stages of the Champions League every year.
 
Jarquis

Jarquis

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
dontcloseyoureyes said:
The entitlement in this thread is sickening. You can tell that being one of the 3 or 4 best teams in the league is all any of you people know.

Try being relegated and we'll see how much you hate finishing third and making the knockout stages of the Champions League every year.
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Sigh. Go back and read the article duffer posted which basically kickstarted this discussion
 
Ikki

Ikki

Hall of Fame Member
Cabinet96 said:
I don't think that many are really saying he should be sacked right now though. I just have a growing sense that everyone may have missed a trick at the end of the season by not letting him "retire" or whatnot. The narrative was perfect, having guided us consistently through financial constraints he'd finally won another trophy, he would be leaving it to someone else to take us on to that next level, with a very solid base to work from. There wouldn't have really been a result that would tarnish his legacy.

The forward argument I'm not so sure about. Obviously it's important and I accept Giroud and Welbeck aren't brilliant, and a better alternative would improve us, but it's not like it's impossible to have success without one. My idea of a forward seems to be a bit different to yours if you don't consider Alexis one, but assuming you basically mean a striker/centre forward, there have been loads of teams that have had huge success without a truly world class one. Bayern Munich, Germany and Spain are the best examples. What they had was really solid cores and a wide variety of high class attacking players; Iniesta, Silva, Fabregas, Ribery, Robben, Müller, Özil, Götze, Reus etc. Arsenal aren't that far off that. Just need a better DM and someone extra so we don't fall to bits if Koscielny gets injured.
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What I mean is that by having great forwards you can get away with some weaknesses; but I think the teams you're talking about that didn't have great forwards basically were perfect in all the other facets. Just having an above average forward was enough. In Bayern's case though, they still went for the upgrade.
 
dontcloseyoureyes

dontcloseyoureyes

BARNES OUT
Marcuss said:
Sigh. Go back and read the article duffer posted which basically kickstarted this discussion
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The article he posted doesn't negate the ferocious entitlement of his posts. I'm not saying he shouldn't want his team to be the best it can be, we all want that for our chosen club, but the way people are carrying on you'd think you were supporting a League 2 club in admin heading towards amateur status.
 
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