(THE SUN ARTICLE): "It's Time to Think About the End of Wenger"

No, i don't. People have asked me this a gadjillion times.

Anyway, John Cross of the mirror has outed himself as a Wenger regime apologist.

http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/opinion/columnists/john-cross/John-Cross-column-Why-it-s-the-Arsenal-fans-who-don-t-know-what-they-re-doing-not-Arsene-Wenger-article857421.html

 

He is not an apologist, he is an idiot

Cross has been playing this game of fanning the crowd to be anti-Wenger and then pretends that he isnt ever so often for the last year.

 

I meant Antiwhinger not Antifan

I was specifically questioning the source for Antiwhinger's claim that Arsenal is sitting on 100 million in cash.

I should have been more specific - thats my bad.

I was not questioning Antifan - lol - I was making another point entirely

 

True, that was a joke on my part. But it is funny how bipolar Cross is on Wenger.

 

The money is there, but most of that money cannot be spent. That's the problem.

I'll say something I haven't said before: Wenger is no longer a brilliant manager. In the current landscape, HE has proven unable or unwilling to compete. He was great in the past though.

 

You should read the Swiss Ramble if you want to understand Arsenal's finances.

http://swissramble.blogspot.com/search/label/Arsenal

According to him we've got cash reserves of 160 million pounds, but some of it is set aside for debt payments.

 

I think the stress of the last few years has gotten to him, but i still believe he's the best man for a very tough job.

 

Even if it's in reserves, it shouldn't matter much, as transfer fees are paid in installments. The money City paid us for Nasri's transfer registration will most likely be paid over a few seasons, not in one lump sum.

I think basically that the culture of the club has got too used to Wenger using his talent spotter genius, in that we don't think we need to buy big. Another thing is that as a club, we've never been huge spenders. Not that we could not afford it, but again it's cultural. Since long before the George Graham years, it has been this way. If anything, Graham's successful teams were built with comparatively small funds. The 1991 team (IMO the best Graham team) had youth players (Thomas, Rocky, Adams, etc.) and small fee players who turned out good (Limpar, Smith, Bould, Winterburn, Dixon, Seaman, etc.) At the concurrent time, Spurs bought Lineker, and even though he scored a shitload of goals for them, they weren't as good a team.

Our problems really stem from Arsene's errors. Since 2005, he's signed high technical quality players, but no shit-kickers/determined players. He inherited some players from Graham and Rioch at the outset, granted. But his 2002 and Invincibles teams were largely his own signings, and he still managed to sign Sol, Pires, Henry, Ljungberg, Petit, Vieira, Gilberto, who if not shit kickers still seldom gave in and wilted. Had we possessed shit-kickers since 2005, I'm certain we would have won a minimum of 3 trophies since then. The 2008 and 2011 leagues would have been ours, no question.

 

Where I grew up, shitkicker meant something else.

 

So with Scott Parker we would've won it all, you're saying eh?

 

seaman was a british record fee for a keeper and limpar was around £2m, not exactly cheap at the time (considering wright was a club record of $2.5m only a season or so later), but in general you are right that they haven't spent big when compared with some other clubs.

 

Speaking of expensive goalkeepers, i recently saw that Richard Wright is on trial at FC Dallas. Reminded me that Wenger has always had his rare flops, even back in the good old days.

 

Well Spurs finished 5th last year, and may finish 3rd this year due to him in part.

The point was that both them and Liverpool are around the top by signing top British players, so one season outside of the Champions League hasn't terminally damaged them.

 

... not exactly.

 

Like Andy Carroll and Charlie Adam.

 

And he looked so promising when he was at Ipswich.....At the time he was probably looking like the next England keeper, and then it went to sh_t.

 

I enjoyed listening to Amy Lawrence's perspective today on the Arsecast.

 

ROFLMAO

Top British players? I'm going to ignore you because clearly you're just smoking crack.

Spurs are good because of Modric, Adebayor, Rafa, Friedel, and Bale. You could argue those are their best players. Only 1 is British. He signed 3 of those guys recently and one is on loan.

LIverpool? Really? Listen I know it's great fun to knock Arsenal rightfully so but don't pile sh*t on a sandwich and tell me it's a hoagie. What Liverpool are YOU watching and exactly WHICH top have they been at? one top four finish in the past 6 yrs since they won the CL? Seriously man put the pipe down

 

So we finished 4th thanks to Nasri, Almunia and Arshavin and your point is?

 

Will one season outside the top four seriously damage us? if it hasn't damaged Spurs or Liverpool, then why us? I said this in another thread, but if we get 5th (I think we can still get 4th no issue) then so be it. Maybe winning the Europa League is what is needed to lift the club and get back a winning attitude.

 

You guys remember when we used to have goals like winning the Champions League or the Premier League?

A long time go now.

 

'08-'09 was real long ago.

 

Depends. With our current squad, top four is the most we can attain. This was always a transitional season, after Cesc left (I don't care about Nasri, he was an average player).