We play our final 3 days before theirs. Without much difficulty I can foresee us winning ours while they wait anxiously. And then ultimately succumb to their age-old fate.
I agree this is a great article I guess the question is why is this happening. In Emery's defence, Klopp still took a long time to make Liverpool's defence better. Like 2 years. But I agree the defence getting worse while the attack also gets worse is not great - which is the point Ted made. what upside are we chasing here?
I actually don't believe it should be that tricky to get par performance out of our wage spend. We currently underperform our wage bill compared to Spurs for example.
True but a) if not for this bad run Arsenal would be sitting in 3rd, and b) our wage bill is arguably over inflated thanks to Wenger and Co's. reactionary response to the roster the last few years. Don't get me wrong I agree with what you're saying and would love for Arsenal to be more overperforming their wage rate but think there's additional info for that measure.
The wage bill is a good metric, but when you spend a lot of money on average players or over pay players (both of which arsenal has done), then it loses a lot of its validity. We underperform out wage bill, but its not because the players should perform better. It's because they should have been paid less.
This is why I and others have been talking about underlying data, because the process at Arsenal doesn't match the results. That usually results in regression to the mean.
We definitely have to trade out of the crap - it's why i pleased we didn't overspend on Ramsey Paying 250K for him to be injured and score 5 goals a season would have been so Wenger
Yes - I agree This is why I keep going back to elite performance culture being more important than Emery We still have a bunch of players who don't fit together, and too many overpaid flawed players
Would be a fun question of what Wenger would do. Wenger was willing to let Alexis walk (presumably) because he thought Alexis would age badly. Wish we'd sold him to Man City in 2017. That was a huge mistake.
I'm not really sure that winning EL is *that* much better than being in the CL final and losing. Sure winning the EL would be amazing but it's kind of like bragging about winning the Carabao Cup to whoever comes in second in the PL this year. It's just a completely different level of competition that Tottenham are in compared to us.
Isn't that why parting company with Sven seemed like a blow? I don't see Raul/Unai being able to fill that void. Let's see if/who they bring in to support the Emery's summer wish list.
OK, when Laurent Koscielny is hoisting the Europa cup, you can stay seated sighing "whatever", while the rest of us are on our feet clapping. Given where we are this year quality-wise, and given our paltry history of European trophies, this would be an unqualified success.
I've come around to that view watching the de Gea fiasco if you let the contract run down, you will end up having to pay the open market price for your own player - i.e as a free agent The only way to stop that happening, if the player is intent on that strategy, is to sell him 2 years out. IMO this is why Utd probably also need to sell Pogba
Re: the Europa League Yes, we'd all rather win the big cup but there's a whole lot to be said about winning the trophies for which you're eligible. It shows you're getting something done and contributes to a winning mentality about the club. I wouldn't want to be in the Europa every year but every year the team is in it I'd love to win the thing. Undoubtedly the best way to move back up the pecking order will be to add trophies and build experience winning knock-out tourneys. So seize the opportunity. Conversely, remember how we felt years ago losing that League Cup final?
I don't mind players getting paid, but with Alexis it seems like the club never even made him an offer. Man City offered 60 million for Alexis: that money would have been useful.
Assumes Arsenal would have spent it wisely. The money they did get for Sanchez essentially went to Miki and Ozil, and now here we are. Roster management has been an issue since the dual blow of the recession and the stadium debt. Real.or not that sharpened the club's/Wenger's cost-efficient line of thinking which evaluated each move on the individual player's deal and not the net impact on the pitch during games. The result is this parade of players that are decidedly not better than the sum of their parts. It's like a meal with leftovers that sounds appealing until you realize it doesn't blend well and doesn't taste as good as the first time. Until we fix the front office and the system for how Arsenal assesses talent and builds the roster then we're asking for perfection from a broken machine.
Borne from a bullshit power struggle. The Kroenkes are the ultimate problem, of course, because they allow or even in some sense encourage shit like Raul Sanllehi’s ‘maneuvering’.
Agreed Wenger was too emotional about that stuff - behaving like the wronged older man in a french romantic drama
I wonder if anyone can tell me what exactly is this look? (He held this pose for at least 5 seconds yesterday)