It has indeed. If I'm honest, I'd love to be challenging for titles and cups etc. but it's going to be hard whilst City are spending money like I fart the morning after a good curry, so instead what I'd like is for us to be getting to as close to 100% of our potential as we can, and this season, the club as a whole were nowhere near that.
I get where you're coming from, but Im not sure I'd want to be sitting here today, knowing we were 2 mins away from beating our neighbours. For example, imagine if it was Spurs that had won...
The first day of the season, if I was guaranteed we would finish third, I would have been very happy. This is a major accomplishment by Arsene and the players to reach the 3rd spot. I am satisfied with the season.
This year was always going to be a difficult transition. That we achieved even 3rd with the squad we have is an accomplishment of a sort. Didn't we play 8 different players at right back this year? Not to mention only having a total of roughly 4 players manning our three man midfield. Aside from Van Persie, we are sorely lacking in star players. I hope Wenger can keep RVP and bring in a few more stars. I was talking to a friends wife the other night and she asked what famous players play for Arsenal. I named Van Persie, then got into "we used to have...". It was kinda sad, really.
Arsenal DO NOT have an "above average history" of success Before United won 3 straight titles in from 92-94, Arsenal had the 2nd most English first division titles behind Liverpool. I really don't get how/why Arsenal fans want to underrate the club so much. The correct thing to say is "those 8 years are probably the club's most successful period."
This was a crap season. Just because we knew it was going to be a crap season doesn't make it any less crap. I don't really mind that we are in 3rd place. What I mind is that we consistently lose and draw to mediocre and bad teams. Until we are able to be consistently punish teams that are worse than us, we won't have a decent season. I don't care about our record against good competition this year--in fact I think we've been really good against good teams. But that means nothing if you can't consistently beat the Wigans and Norwiches and Stokes. We are still mentally weak and complacent. Also I think finishing 3rd in this league in this year is not a massive accomplishment, even when taking into account where we were. Having said all that, I've seen enough to be optimistic about next season, especially if a few new lads come in during the transfer window.
Would you ever have expected this squad to finish higher in the table, with more points and more goals than last seasons? I'm not saying it wasn't a disappointing season, but it could have and probably should have been a lot worse.
Its funny you say that - I actually think Man U is about where we were 5-6 yrs ago. I think City has definitively overtaken them, and they just don't have the funds to compete with them.
yeah, this is very true. the problem is that the club put itself behind the 8ball by taking forever to make signings. At the end of the day tho, this was not a crap season. Finishing in the top 3 is not crap. A crap season is the year Liverpool just had. Or what McLeish did to Villa this year. to keep it funky, the Invincibles would not have won the league this season, and would have only won the league by a point this year. Look at what some of these writers/bloggers said about Arsenal's chances early in the season http://www.itv.com/sport/football/news/2011-12-premier-league-predictions-bloggers-83726/
How do you define a crap season? We finish 3 rd! I guess if we don't win the title, it will always be a crap season, right?. I just don't get the rationale.
The rationale is this: We didnt plan for losing both Fabregas and Nasri, so we had an amazingly poor start to the season. With the exception of one of the new signings, we've learnt absolutely nothing since last season about defending as a team. We had some really really bad results. We finished 19 points behind 2nd place. We only finished 3rd on the final day of the season. Had we been within 5-6 points of the winners, been in with a chance of winning it with 2-3 games left. Had we not lost 8-2 to ManU. Had we not lost 4-0 in the CL. Had we started the season with the squad all in place and ready to play, then we could have come 3rd and it wouldnt have been a crap season. Does that make sense ?
Yup. Another comparison, last year we finished 3 points behind Chelski, and ten above Liverpool. This season it was 6 above Chelski, and 18(!) above Liverpool.
Thats more about how much Chelski and Liverpool have underachieved in the league this season though. I could just as easily say we were only 1 point ahead of Spurs and 5 points ahead of Newcastle compared to 6 and 22
I'm guessing you haven't been a supporter for too long. Perhaps you should try another team to follow. I seem to remember a period when we won the league once in 36 years.
@The Grimster True, those of us who became fans in the past decade have become jaded. But how about you, was this season a success? A failure? Just another season?
Did you not see my apology a few posts up? - I was a bit wound up after a long and frustrating season. I realize that, now. I've followed Arsenal since the mid '90s (I was 11/12), when it was nearly impossible to follow English football here in the States, if you must know. Sorry I wasn't around earlier, mate.
I spent 9 months at the pub on a Saturday or Sunday morning with 20-40 of my closest mates drinking, singing, yelling, crying, laughing, and cheering our arses off. I watched the club I love be written off by the pundits TWICE only to rise again. I watched St. Totteringham's Day come in one of the sweetest of ways. This, my friends, was a good season.
Sperz and Newcastle were praised to the skies nearly all season for how well they were doing. But we were complete crap. Got it.
Well, you've avoided my point, but lets go with your reply. Sperz and Newcastle were ahead of us for most of the season hence the praise I guess, but probably because their overall spend is much less than ours, esp. Newcastle. So they were overperforming and deserved the praise. Got it ?
The outcome of the season was good. If you had offered me 3rd place before we kicked off the season in August, I'd have bitten your hand off. I still consider us ending up 3rd to be a happy accident. The team in general was awful this season - we conceded 49 goals (2 less than recently promoted Swansea), had some of our worst losses in recent memory (and history), were a 1 man team for large portions of the season, and didnt have a player (other than RvP) top 8 league goals. That said, we were just the least shit of an incredibly shitty bunch of sides this year.
And a new friend...Vodka and Cranberry! Resilient is the word for this season...Lost stars, lots of injuries, late signings--lots of excuses were there to be had. But Wenger, Rice and the team rallied from the bottom of the table to secure a Champions League spot--ahead of Tottenham, no less. This result puts Arsenal in a great position to build and upgrade at several positions--and sets higher expectations for next season.
Judging by how this team played against Man City both times we faced them, I'm saying that the quality gap between us is lower than the point gap. Additionally, our play in competitions outside of the Premiership was anemic, and that's very disappointing. And as Miles said, the fact that we finished so much higher above Chelsea and Liverpool only illustrates the weakness of the Prem this year at the top level. I had low hopes going into this season (especially after the first couple weeks) and we marginally exceeded those hopes, I suppose. But I don't think we have to settle. I think this team has the SQ and LANS to win--we just need mental strength and consistency.
