Sorry to double post, but i agree with everything this post from gunnerblog says.
"57. *_Respects Highbury (at home) @ 20.53
Oh dear.
How entirely predictable and sad.
The Bayor has the last laugh and the apologetic ones are left yet again asking themselves how this could happen. I have a few theories of my own so here goes.
1. The Apologetic nature of Arsenal fans
Last week after the Man United game was for me, the clearest example yet of just how deluded some Arsenal fans are and refuse to engage in independent analysis. Arsenal lost to United last week, we lost 2-1.
If you were going by some of the reactions on here however, you could have sworn Arsenal had vanquished 2-1. ‘Oh we dominated’ said one. ‘I am not concerned at all’ said another.
For me though, the overriding prevalent train of thought was ‘how can a club that has won nothing in 4 long years simply write off defeats with such calm?’.
The mentality stinks from top to bottom. You should have asked yourselves to the right questions. Such as: why is Wenger still finding time to shoe-horn Song, Diaby, Denilson and Eboue in the same midfield? Why does he think RVP is capable of playing as a number 9? Where are the telling substitutions?
Instead, the usual delusion ensued. Well today my friends, I would dearly love to hear the explanations for that catastrophe.
I have told you all that Arsenal are a confidence-team. Losing one match to United in such fashion was always going to be disastrous – look at what has ensued now. Two beatings up in Manchester within the space of a week. We should just award them the 3 points every season now and save the travel and air pollution.
‘Citeh will struggle to make top 4’
What does the league table say now?
‘Hughes is not a decent manager’
He has put 7 goals past Arsenal at Eastlands in 2 seasons. Two consummate thrashings.
‘Liverpool look in trouble’
Again, minus Alonso, what does the league table dictate?
2. The manager.
This ties in well with point 1.
Arsene Wenger claimed in 2004 that he had a five year plan. We are coming on to 2010 soon and Arsenal are going backwards. In fact scrap that – going backwards would indicate that we were at least moving in some direction. Arsenal are stale, stationary. Travelling without moving. It’s boring now – we know at the start of every league season that Arsenal have no chance of winning the league or Champions League. So we are left with the hope of European qualification and a cup run in a domestic cup.
Sad.
Even more unforgivable is that the club is sitting on record profits.
The worst thing is the inability of some people to accept it. The facts are there and verifiable but people will continue to overlook them all in an attempt to deflect criticism from Wenger.
Last summer, what Arsene Wenger did in the transfer market was criminally negligent and would be a sackable offence in any other top club. Instead of asking the probing questions however, he threw a strop about joining Real Madrid and the Arsene Wenger inaugural day of pink t-shirts and serenades was born.
This summer, everyone knew what was needed. Nothing was done.
The reaction?
‘What can we do about it now. Back the team and manager’
At the beginning of each season, Wenger claims he will take responsibility for the failings of the team and at the end of every season, he never does. It’s beyond disgraceful now. Arsenal are becoming a joke and an unfunny one at that. The fear factor is gone, Arsenal aren’t a team that intimidate.
Wenger’s managerial decisions over the past four years have been nigh on unbelievable.
Diarra, Gilberto, Jens, Flamini, Hleb, Toure and the Bayor all gone.
Ashley Cunt departed has proved through the cups he has won the ignorance of Wenger’s decisions. Wenger continues to strengthen his domestic rivals whilst Arsenal bank profits and win nothing. Wenger’s priorities are not winning, they are capitalist-based: profits.
When Heinze wanted to leave Man United, Ferguson let him know in no uncertain terms that he would rather see his career grind to a halt than join Liverpool. And this was only Heinze, no one special, not a match-winner. Chelski offered Pool £60 mil for Torres this summer – that is a criminal amount of money that we all know Wenger would have sold for. Did Benitez sell? No. Because his priority is to keep his best players.
This summer, Wenger has made a profit of £41 million off the back of Sheikh Mansour whilst Arsenal suffer his incompetence. Thrashed consummately by a team who declared their intentions of taking our place at the top 4.
The Bayor scores, Toure is captain. Arsenal are humiliated yet again.
The Bayor and Toure have made a step up to an ambitious team going places it appears.
Wenger had his first-choice defence, first-choice keeper and had just Arshavin out.
Shockingly exposes the paucity and lack of talent and class in this mediocre squad. And that is down to one man and that man is Wenger.
I used to be one of the people who was of the opinion that, for all that Wenger has done for this club, he deserved to tender his own resignation – I no longer feel he even deserves that accolade.
I think that as with Almunia: so long as Arsene Wenger is Arsenal manager, we will never ever win another league title. The excuses don’t wash any longer because this summer he ran out of excuses the minute Citeh gave him all that cash in up-front payments.
Then Wenger is on the television talking about how he is doing a noble thing by giving kids an opportunity – all the while Wilshere cannot get off the subs bench whilst Eboue and Diaby get chances every week, and Almunia continues to anger everyone with his ineptitude.
The fans need to force Wenger out. Enough. Until the fans make their feelings known, nothing will change and we will continue in this no man’s land of knowing we can qualify in 4th every season, whilst knowing we’ll never win the major prizes.
At Liverpool, Gerard Houllier won trophies. He won them a cup treble, they achieved their highest league tally in over eight years, he got them Champions League football and generally regained respect for that club. Houllier is a successful manager who has a Legion d’honneur in France – the highest distinction.
However when he started picking the likes of Cheyrou and Diao every single week, the Scousers had enough. When he spunked cash on the likes of Diouf and LeTallec, the fans had enough and made their feelings known. Result? Houllier got forced out.
Benitez hasn’t done too badly for them instead has he?
When Avram Grant angered the Chelsea fans, they booed at matches and let their feelings of discontent known. They did not sit back submissively moaning ‘what can we do’? They pay their fees for a competitive team and won’t put up with crap. So Grant was sacked. That Aneclotti doesn’t look too bad does he?
At Arsenal however there is brainwashed malaise whereby people honestly think that were Wenger to depart, no one out there could take over at the club. In which case, the day Wenger retired, since no one could ever take over, might as well shut the club doors and end Arsenal FC as we know it. Non?
Every other club is capable of finsing new managers – apart from Arsenal.
When Hiddink joined Chelsea you all claimed he would struggle. I can’t remember it that way, with the highest league points tally for games played, as he thumped us at Emirates, beat us in the FA Cup and won the dam thing. This after taking over a club driven with in-fighting and an unbothered Drogba.
It isn’t my job to suggest alternatives – though I could do that now: Capello please, after the World Cup ends in inglorious failure for England in the semis. Capello will sort this mess up very quickly. People will begin to note how it feels to have a manager that understands the concept of defence, of a class goalkeeper, of tactics, of competition for places and most of all: Discipline.
Gael Clichy has been playing disgracefully for two years and not one person has commented on this. Clichy has potential sure, plenty of it. However he regresses defensively because he has a manager who will not drill him.
Some of you were deluded enough to think that by merely signing Vermaelen, this would sort the defence.
Defence is about drilling them as a unit, fostering a relationship based on mutual trust and solidarity. Not one defender at Arsenal trusts the Spanish cunt in goal. Why would they? I told you all after United two weeks ago: you can have the best set of players in the world. That Arsenal defence could consist of Maldini, Baresi, Desaiily and Ashley Cole.
If that defence is not drilled as a unit whereby every single individual knows their job, and most of all – if they do not have a keeper who is competent enough to come out and claim aerial balls, communicate with them and acts as an insurance policy; that defence has no chance.
Arsenal’s defending will never work simply because Vermaelen has turned up. You’d have to be criminally stupid to think that. Since 2006 Champions League final I have been telling you that as long as Almunia is Arsenal’s first-choice keepr, Arsenal will not win a single major trophy.
I have the facts to hand, Arsenal have won nothing since Almunia has been number one. If anyone can prove me wrong with facts – not bile – then I for one would love to hear it.
In the small matches Almunia is seldom exposed hence his ineptitude does not always get noticed. Expose him to the pressure of a big-game occasion and it keeps happening, the fuck-ups keep coming. Who remembers last week? Both goals were his fault. Today? Oh dear.
As for the attacking facet? It’s comical.
Playing a 4-5-1 at Citeh with a number 9 who is infact a number 10. RVP is not and never will be a number 9. We had one remember – I don’t miss that cunt the Bayor but I certainly, definitely, wanted him replaced. Arsenal need a number 9 with the strength speed and talent to burst a high line and spring an opposition off-side trap. One who can hold the ball up when need be, make diagonal runs to occupy a defence.
Do we have one? No. Instead, Bendtner who is a support striker for Denmark (scored playing that position this week) is shoe-horned ins a suspect formation.
RVP is looking shocking, he has the technique and can play wide of a 4-3-3 but lacks the speed and strength to play that position. For God’s sake one would have thought that after playing a Genius like Bergkamp as the lone man in a 4-5-1 in the 2005 FA Cup final, and seeing it flop so atrociously that day, Wenger would have learnt?
Ah but this is the great Arsene Wenger. Never learns.
The midfield options are atrocious. People wax lyrical about Song but forget he is incapable of playing a through ball. Fabregas must be fed up and I fully expect him to depart this summer. I feel very sorry for him – like the fans, he has been duped, lied to and let down badly by an egotistical old man who is trying to prove a point he will never ever prove.
Arshavin will follow suit because he is not stupid, he wants success and he will certainly not get that at Arsenal.
But knowing the ‘fans’ we have these days, they will probably inform us ‘We are stronger without Cesc and Arshavin, not weaker’.
We sold a title-winning defender and a proven Prem goalscorer who one got 30 goals. He is not all that the Bayor don’t get me wrong – but when Van Persie or Eduardo have 30 goals in a season between the pair of them, come back and we’ll talk ok?
I told you all at the start of this season that 4-3-3 can work with pure balers. Guardiola has Iniesta, Xavi and a top class holder in Yaya. Up front it’s multi-faceted he had Eto’o, Messi and Henry.
Arsene Wenger has tried this with a poor man’s version. It lacks the skill, the technique, the passing skill and strength or footballing intelligence for it to click. Yet, most of you were telling us ‘the system needs time’.
Oh dear.
Problems up front, disorganized at the back, no keeper, a midfield in which only one player can make a telling pass to split a high line and where no midfielder times late runs into the box.
And you really thought we were going to compete?
Brainwashed.
Let’s overlook this though, as we often do and just claim ‘judge the manager in January’"
