Here's to history repeating!

[Epikoinos]

the last two times ManU has won the title, Arsenal has won the next year.

2001: Manchester United
2002: Arsenal

2003: Manchester United
2004: Arsenal

2007: Manchester United
2008: Let's follow the trend!

[akofman12345]

2003: Manchester United


:(

Yea, i always knew there was a reason for that one. 07/08 is our year!

[red & wite army]

Of course there was a reason for 2002/2003 - the loss made the boys stronger and perhaps aided them in there completion of the Unbeaten season!

[SKP10]

i want Arsenal to win next season, and keep on winning....

[JCGooner]

the last two times ManU has won the title, Arsenal has won the next year.

2001: Manchester United
2002: Arsenal

2003: Manchester United
2004: Arsenal

2007: Manchester United
2008: Let's follow the trend!

Nice thought... don't hold out much hope though, there is a reason we are finishing 25 points behind 2 seasons in a row... we are not good enough and are at least 4 players away from competing for the title, a goalie (Jens is on the decline), a right back - Eboue is hopleless defensively , a centre back who can head the ball (Toure and Gallas are both excellent individually but just don't play well togehter) and an out and out winger. I also think we need an Essien type ball winner in midfield, neither Gilberto nor Cesc though excellent in their own way are that type of player, hopefully Diaby will continue to develop. Bottom line is this is a 60-70 million investment and where is that money going to come from??? The table never lies....

[GriffinGunner]

Nice thought... don't hold out much hope though, there is a reason we are finishing 25 points behind 2 seasons in a row... we are not good enough and are at least 4 players away from competing for the title, a goalie (Jens is on the decline), a right back - Eboue is hopleless defensively , a centre back who can head the ball (Toure and Gallas are both excellent individually but just don't play well togehter) and an out and out winger. I also think we need an Essien type ball winner in midfield, neither Gilberto nor Cesc though excellent in their own way are that type of player, hopefully Diaby will continue to develop. Bottom line is this is a 60-70 million investment and where is that money going to come from??? The table never lies....

In a way it does, though. How many of those losses were like the 1-0 to West Ham, wherein even just Henry's presence might mean 3 points? In 6 games against Chelsea, Liverpool and ManU (the 3 clubs that are currently above Arsenal) Arsenal lost once!! Fewer injuries and some better luck offensively would be worth at least 15 points, IMO.

Yes, Arsenal lacked the consistency and potentcey worthy of a title this season. But to suggest they're $60-70M worth of investment away from that level is rubbish.

[carw2005]

I dont buy this crap that we are not good enough.

We've spanked man united twice this season.

i think injuries have a played a huge part on a squad that didnt have that much depth to begin with! I trully believe that a fully fit Arsnal will win the league next year. Dont forget how many games have we played without a proper stiker?

i luv Ade but he is nowhere near prolific and facts are facts to win the league you need to score goals, something we have struggled in this season!

im looking forward to the endof the season, gives our boys a chance to heal and re group!

Bring on the emirates cup!:cool:

[TheImposter]

I dont buy this crap that we are not good enough.

We've spanked man united twice this season.
Agreed.

In the league vs the top 3: 11 of 18 points, 3W, 2D, 1L

vs the bottom 6 (Watford, West Ham, Charlton, SUFC, Wigan, Fulham): 21 of 36 points, 7W, 0D, 4L

And if you add in the rest of the bottom 10 (NUFC, Boro, Villa, Man City): 11 of 16 points, 2W, 5D, 1L

We took only 10 more points from the bottom 6 (in twice as many games!) than we did from the top 3, and had 4 times as many losses. We dropped a total of 20 points to teams currently in the bottom half of the table, and won only half of those games. That's all you need to know about this season. We didn't pick up enough of the points that should have almost automatically been in our column. It was mental, and that's down to youth and inexperience.

If I can find the time, I'll check the same stats for ManU and Chelski. If somebody wants to beat me to it, feel free.

[wwnyc]

with a healthy squad, arsenal can compete and beat anybody. with a better mix of experienced players to motivate the younger ones arsenal will drop less points to the smaller clubs, as they have done this season.

chelsea kept a smaller squad this year (the previous 2 seasons they basically had 2 full squads) and for the first time during their campaign they had injuries to key players and dropped points, opening the door for manure.

whoever stays healthy wins the prem. it's a very fine line.

[RealMadGunner]

I was rooting for us to win the title this season, but it's going to happen next season only i guess ..

[Schu419]

vs the bottom 6 (Watford, West Ham, Charlton, SUFC, Wigan, Fulham): 21 of 36 points, 7W, 0D, 4L



I don't think you can write this type of problem off to mere fluke one-offs. The worst teams in the Prem will play a certain type of football. The problem with the team is that it is simply not prepared to deal with this type of football and the sometimes problematic set of conditions. That Eboue is crap defensively means a whole lot more against the Sheffield Uniteds of the world, who will always play a hard nosed game against us, than it means vs. the rest of the Big 4, who will really try and engage us in a technical contest. The rest of the league knows they can't play against us, so they won't. We need certain players upgraded in order to make up for this.

What exactly do we need? I can't claim to know 100%. Goals, however, are one thing, so we probablyneed a goal scoring midfield threat on both wings (Rosicky can count, Hleb certainly cannot, no matter how big of a proponent of the Belarusians you are). A third, high quality striker of the poaching sort could not hurt. It is ludicrous to think RvP and Henry will always be healthy next year. while Adebayor is fine on a rotational basis, I simply don't think he can pick up the scoring burden.

Eboue is, I think, another upgrade that needs to happen. He takes more away from the team with his diving etc ,and weak defense, than he adds. There must be another technically sound attacking right back out there who plays better defense.

Sorry, kind of rambling and tired, but that's my opinion, in a somewhat jumbled nutshell.

[RealMadGunner]

A comparitive of 2001 & 2007, can Arsenal can be winners in 2008? (http://www.arsenal-land.co.uk/columns/?col=279)

Three years on from ‘the untouchables’ we find ourselves in uncharted territory in the Wenger era with a young team fighting in a completely different financial setting to that when we achieved previous success. Think back to 1999-2001, it was a period of 3 seasons between Arsene Wenger’s two double sides that marked the rebuilding of the squad, so that is where I’ll look to make sense of the development between his 2nd side and his 3rd one.
.
.
The route from the 1997-98 team towards Wenger’s second winning team took 4 years to accomplish and was achieved with 10 significant changes to the player personnel.
.
.
The starting point to the comparison is the time between creating winning teams. It was 4 years first time around between 1998 and 2002, could that be a precedent this time? If that holds true, potentially Arsenal could be ready again to challenge for a title in 2008. In 2000 and 2001 Arsenal lost successive cup finals despite having numerous opportunities to win both games, in 2005 and 2006 the has happened and perhaps these defeats will provide this 3rd Wenger generation with the same lessons.
.
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At the start of the 2001-02 season the team’s main players Henry, Ljungberg, Vieira, Pires, Seaman, Keown had been together for some time, something you cannot say about Gallas, Clichy, Rosicky, Hleb, Diaby, Adebayor and Fabregas. The team in that sense need more time to gel into a unit, recall that essentially as mentioned earlier the 2001-02 team was mostly their in terms of personnel in 1999-2000. The have had one season together on the basis they might need two it would suggest that a title in 2009 is more realistic.
.
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The next big consideration is the general improvement of the team that you would expect from young up and coming players, a good pre-season could make all the difference in starting on the right foot and allowing the team to gel. The attitude of the players and responsibility will be extremely important next year if the same mistakes are to be avoided, but in young Fabregas and Clichy there are two players asking the right questions of the team as a whole and shouldering responsibility, and that gives me hope.

[Catfish]

Growing pains suck! I know Wenger said this wasn't a rebuilding year, but the lads are young and the injuries really put a damper on any momentum being built.

[billyho96]

Nice thought... don't hold out much hope though, there is a reason we are finishing 25 points behind 2 seasons in a row... we are not good enough and are at least 4 players away from competing for the title, a goalie (Jens is on the decline), a right back - Eboue is hopleless defensively , a centre back who can head the ball (Toure and Gallas are both excellent individually but just don't play well togehter) and an out and out winger. I also think we need an Essien type ball winner in midfield, neither Gilberto nor Cesc though excellent in their own way are that type of player, hopefully Diaby will continue to develop. Bottom line is this is a 60-70 million investment and where is that money going to come from??? The table never lies....


without complaining about the odd draws and the occasional loses to Bolton and Blackburn, those are going to happen, there are some disturbing results on our fixture list.

Everton (who we match we extremely well with) did the double on us
West Ham did the double
Citeh beat us
Sheffield Utd. beat us
Fulham beat us for the first time in what? 20 years

That right there account for the entire 21 points we are behind United. This is without considering our league record number of 1-1 draws.

[red & wite army]

Everton (who we match we extremely well with) did the double on us


Are you telling me that you've already forgotten RvP's brilliant equiliser in that home game? Tsk tsk...

[billyho96]

Are you telling me that you've already forgotten RvP's brilliant equiliser in that home game? Tsk tsk...

touche'

[impalemeplz]

In a way it does, though. How many of those losses were like the 1-0 to West Ham, wherein even just Henry's presence might mean 3 points? In 6 games against Chelsea, Liverpool and ManU (the 3 clubs that are currently above Arsenal) Arsenal lost once!! Fewer injuries and some better luck offensively would be worth at least 15 points, IMO.

Yes, Arsenal lacked the consistency and potentcey worthy of a title this season. But to suggest they're $60-70M worth of investment away from that level is rubbish.

no way it would be that much. if wenger was to get 4 players it would be on the cheap.

winger
babel(ajax)-8/9 million pounds

cb
delpierre(stuttgart)- 190cm+ CB 6/7 million pounds
bourillon(rennes)- same mould maybe cheaper tho

rb not sure and enke/akinfeev/gordon 10 max.

the point is most of these signings would do more harm then good.

[juanca]

^^^

good point. stregthen the squad with some good quality relatively cheap buys, thats it...

we are there, we simply need HEALTHY Rvp & TH14...

we are there for title contention, as long as our main guys stay healthy, we win all our home and stop drawing relegation teams, as well as getting a few goals from our "wide" players

[impalemeplz]

^^^

good point. stregthen the squad with some good quality relatively cheap buys, thats it...

we are there, we simply need HEALTHY Rvp & TH14...

we are there for title contention, as long as our main guys stay healthy, we win all our home and stop drawing relegation teams, as well as getting a few goals from our "wide" players

read the last line:)

on top of that the fact is none of those signings would really help unless they turned into world class next season(or a world class partnership with an existing member of team). seeing as its the point of the thread i stress next season :cool:

i think that that it would still be costly. ~30 million pounds. id rather we spent that money, if it exists, on eto'o and make do with senderos, hleb, eboue and lehmann.