Another knee jerk response where you completely miss the point! Be careful mate your in danger of vanishing up one of your own major orifices! The point about the shirts is that for years shirts virtually stayed the same. Then someone figured out that image conscious fans would be willing to part with more cash if the designs were chaged more often? It was all about image generating revenue - nothing else? I'd actually like you to show me on any thread in the last bunch of years where I've said that AW should be replaced as manger. I may have asked the question "should AW be replaced"; big difference? 1. I think that if the team is going continue to achieve success on the level that it has previously under AW then significant changes, more than the replacement of aging personal from the youth ranks, will be required. That is either a statement of fact or it isn't? You are free to either agree or disagree and I will happily listen to any considered viewpoint. Whether you agree or not, this point has nothing to do with being a "good" or "bad" supporter? 2. While it has to be acknowledged that he has been working under a number of very difficult circumstances, there is nothing at the moment to suggest that AW has been able to find a successful, and much talked about, "plan B". While other teams have adapted the way they play against us, typically 4-5-1, we don't as yet seem to have come to terms with this change? Given the current state of things, I think it is perfectly valid to start a debate to get peoples views on whether or not we need a change of managership? That's actually not the same as saying, "we need a change of manager!" 3. If you believe that being a top flight football team does not mean paying close attention to marketing and image, personally, I think you're out of touch with reality? As I have said before, I would prefer to see Arsenal continue playing amazing football and winning major honours, I won't stop following them if they don't, but, that's my preference! That being said, whether I like it or not, I think the image, marketing, merchandising pill is an unpleasant, but, necessary one to swallow, if we're to maintain that success. I think the people that are running the club also believe this and there is plenty of evidence to support that view (I did previously mention various initiatives; including the corporate rebranding and change of crest?) 4. I take no pleasure in being a bringer of gloom and doom, but, call things the way I see them. I think this could be a pretty critical time in the short term future of the club, for all sorts of reasons, and don't have the same faith in untested players that some people do. I would be delighted to be proven over cautious! There's more uncertainty around The Arsenal at the moment than there has for a long time; should we have held on to various players we've let leave, are we holding onto current players longer than we should, are our top players going to stay, are we going to qualify for Europe, where's plan B, where's the money going to come from, when are we going to get rid of these farkin fart coloured shirts? The chips will fall as they may, but, that isn't going to stop an awful lot of speculation in the meantime. 5. Most of the threads I put up are discussion points, not the musings of chairman Marty! I am genuinely interested to know what people think, and disappointed when they don't! I'm not going to add any further to this thread. I guess the safest position is just to moan about being robbed by the ref???
They were very much a staid, conservative team. Radford, George and Kennedy could produce flair, but then so could Smith, Rocastle and Anders Limpar, and that didn't stop people calling Arsenal boring. That BBA only came later is just a terrace thing, rather than an observation of how Arsenal played. The Double team played very much a punch the ball up and look for the header type game and based their excellence on a nasty defence, headed by McLintock. Everybody on the team was capable of tackling (George even played as a back a few times). They could play with flair if they had to - all great football teams can play attacking or defending - but they usually defended first. Bob Wilson claimed their style of play didn't get the accolades that Tottenham, the first Double winning side, got because it wasn't as pretty as watching Blanchflower and co stream silky passes through to Greaves.
Marty, you have so completely missed my point and are so completely out of touch with what everyone here has said that it's not even funny anymore. My point was not that THE CLUB shouldn't focus on marketing and image. I've said for years that they severely underperform in that field. My point was that it shouldn't matter to us, the supporters, what the image of the club is. It's there. We support it. Some of us (like you claim to) have supported it longer than others, but, no matter who lines up for Arsenal at either Highbury or Asburton Grove, we'll be behind them. I am NOT saying that I don't care about how a kid in China or the U.S. or North London views the club. The more supporters we get, the better off we'll be. As for your discussions, sorry, but you put these points out there that I genuinely think are panicked and short-sighted. I bolded your main problem in particular. You seemed to have completely and totally disregarded the long-term plan that's in place with the youngsters. We knew (well, everyone but you, evidently) that this year wouldn't be easy. We had more youth in the squad than ever, a new captain and a wide gap in age and experience between the vets and the youngsters. Am I happy with where we are now? No, but I also don't think we're as directionless as you seem to. We're building for the future because, unlike Chelsea, we can't just go out and buy up to fill the gaps. And that's your other problem. You seem to have this vision of us being a big club with a lot of cash reserves. We've never been that kind of club. During Wenger's run, he's had this remarkable ability to find guys that make you go "who's that?" and turning them into great players. Henry's the perfect example of that. He was an underachieving winger at Juve. Wenger brings him in and suddenly he's the best striker in the world. That's how we've survived this long: WE'VE BEEN SMARTER THAN A LOT OF THE OTHER CLUBS. However, you can only survive like that for so long before it catches up to you, and this is the year. I think it will get better after the New Year and next year, but our lack of spending ability combined with getting nailed with injuries in key areas (who loses two left backs in a week?) has worked against us. Again, I'm not happy about it, but bitching and moaning about it doesn't do us any good. As I've said in other threads, we definitely have issues in different areas that need to be addressed, but I refuse to sit here and constantly moan and whine and bitch like you do about every little thing. I personally don't care if we're the coolest team or not. I care about the future. And I think that future is bright. We have great young talent moving into a gorgeous new stadium next year. Sure, there will be growing pains, but I think most people here have been able to accept that (though admittedly through gritted teeth). If you can't see the forest through the trees, that's your problem.
But this is agreeing with the main point of this thread? No! I keep saying as a supporter I want us to carry on improving and not slip majorly and permanently backward. Money is important in that and image helps bring money! Agggghhhhh (pulls out hair) you're exactly making my point. More worldwide support = more money = (hopefully) more success. And image is crucial to international support; Look at Beckham for Real Madrid? Okay, I was very careful to state the all current problems are short-term. I am aware of the clubs pedigree and know it ain't gonna fold up over night, and also I don't have a crystal ball to look 3 or 4 years down the road. That doesn't make discussing those issues any less valid? The dynamic of the EPL is changing rapidly at the moment, and if we take too long to deal with our current problems it might be more difficult for us to get back in touch with the top? Not so and not fair! I specifically said I don't have the same faith in the youngsters as others, that's not disregard that's distrust? I've been watching the game a long time and seen far more young players fail to fulfill their promise than come through and meet expectations? These comments are dismissive, rude and ignorant! Go back over my posts and you'll quickly see that I've had a pretty clear handle of what was coming down the pipe for quite some time! Agreed, but, whatever the reasons we seem to have been operating less smartly of late? The problems you refer to here are a symptom of our problems not the cause. Plenty of people hear and in the press have been discussing these same problems for quite a while and they don't "appear" to have been addressed? I think that's worthy of discussion, perhaps you don't? but... Your words not mine? "One team in London, there's only one team in London"...Do you think that there could be a little bit of self-image rapped up in that chant? Ah, so this is a manly thing is it? No matter how bad things are you button your lip, bend over, and take it like a man? I've started a couple of threads praising the future of the club, but, in recent times I've seen a couple of things that cast a shadow and I think those concerns are worth discussing? Do I think that image is the be-all and end-all of everything? No, absolutely not, but, definitely something to be aware of! Was this the most important thread I ever started? Clearly not! Are there current problems, both inside and outside the club, that could put a dampener on our AG party? I think so. Loving someone doesn't mean that you can't recognise faults in them. If your other half had BO, bad breath or one of your pubes on their top lip, most of us would diplomatically tell them, to save them embarassment, would'nt we? Likewise I fail to see why discussing things that can help our clubs' cause should be simplistically dismissed as moaning and griping? You may not agree, and, viva la difference, but, I don't believe that disagreement means viturperative personal slagging? If that's what I'm gonna get I will respond in kind, but, I'd prefer that we all just stick to the merits of the point???
not to be argumentative, but looking at beckham at madrid doesn't exactly support the final portion of the equasion. note: this post was not intended as a constructive contribution to the dialogue, but merely as the exploitation of an opportunity to demean madrid's 'galactico' policy. carry on.
Cool, like...David Mellor. Boring, boring or scoring, scoring, I love the Gunners. But I am afraid that the architects of Ashburton Grove are relying heavily on plastics.
No it's not. You seem to believe that we'll suffer an instantaneous backlash over this season. I totally disagree with that. Building (or destroying) a brand takes years to do. Even if we suddenly drop to fifth or sixth in the league, we would need to be consistenly mid-table to fall into the same category as a Boro or a Sp*rs. Even Newcastle has a surprisingly large following over in Asia, probably due to Shearer, in spite of being consistently mediocre. You missed my point on that one. I'm saying that, from a PERSONAL standpoint, not a business standpoint, our support for the club shouldn't be affected by how we're perceived by others. I'm sure the three or four actual dyed in the wool Chelski supporters who were there in the bad times couldn't give a damn now that they're heavily disliked. Likewise, a Leeds supporter probably doesn't care that his club has gone from the Premiership to the First Division. Their support is unwavering, regardless of outside perception. And exactly how many titles does Real have since Becks came over? Madrid was a successful club before Beckham with a large foreign fan base. The fact that they're pulling in more money has not made them more successful. It's made them more stupid, because they go out and blow it on "Galacticos" and don't build an actual team. Why? So they can market themselves better. The rumors I've heard in the past are that Real was hemorrhaging cash, and needs to land a big name every year to make up some debt. It doesn't make them less valid, but my point on them is that you're blowing them way out of proportion. Some of the problems are injury-related (the LB situation) and some are experience-related. You have to have patience on some of these things, as panicking and taking rash action much of the time does more harm than good. Many of the problems will work themselves out, and I trust Wenger to figure out a way to fix the others. Of course, our set-piece defending has been crap for years, so I don't expect that to ever get fixed. So would you rather have us go out and buy ourselves into oblivion like Leeds? Like it or not, this is the direction we're going in, and we have some excellent young talent. I'm sorry that you've been spurned by the likes of Jeffers and Anelka in the past, but let's not lump everyone in together. I've seen some transfers go south fast too, but that doesn't mean I'm not willing to give it a shot if we need it. You have to give guys like Cesc, RvP and Senderos time to show whether they have it or not. You can't just say "He's young...he'll never pan out" and that's that. What I've been preaching is patience and searching for the right fit. What you've been preaching is a quick fix to all our problems. It's the difference between buying your wife/girlfriend a beautiful new necklace that you spent weeks looking for and buying her the animatronic monkey that sings "Eye of the Tiger". Both are gifts, but one shows thought and the other was just an attempt to fill a need. Oh please. Your posts didn't really get going until we dropped points, then it seemed to be open season on everything that could possibly be wrong. Like I told you in another thread, it's really easy to be negative when things are bad. But I don't remember you posting any of this stuff when we were winning. But these aren't the problems that fix themselves overnight. Like I've said numerous times, you can't just walk into a Tesco in London, say "I'd like a defensive central midfielder who can operate in a more creative, free-flowing system" and walk out with the perfect fit. It's much more difficult than that. Sure, Wenger has some issues with stubborness (the only explanation for Cygan I can think of), but is there much else that can be fixed right now? That's my main point. Everyone thinks our problems are easy to fix, and they're not. And sitting here and saying it sixteen different ways is more annoying than constructive. Sure, just like there is whenever Sp*rs, Chelski or even Fulham supporters say it. Chants are meant to make digs at the other side and celebrate the club, not as marketing slogans. I don't think many Gooners go running around White Hart Lane with their willies hanging out either. No, but you don't go running out of the house screaming "FIRE! FIRE!" when you burn the popcorn either. It's not in what you're saying, but the way you're saying it. You make it sound like everything is the greatest problem since the Cuban Missile Crisis. This thread is a perfect example. You act like our entire future hinges on us being "the coolest club in London". It hinges far more on the development of young talent than it does on how many shirts we sell in China. In order to develop the following you're looking for, you have to develop the young, marketable talent. I don't want to become a club that signs players for the sake of selling shirts, like Real Madrid. In a perfect world, we could find a player that fills both the on-field and off-field holes we need, but that doesn't happen a lot. Like I keep telling you, we're now competing with Chelsea on the transfer front, which makes finding "the next Beckham" almost impossible. The biggest joke was when you were pining for us to find a new captain in the transfer market. Yeah, that would have gone over great in the dressing room. As for the "personal" nature of this, I think you're a bit oversensitive.. I'm making on observation on how you're behaving in the face of adversity. Am I toeing the line a bit? Maybe, but if that's your idea of "personal slagging", you need to walk into any high school in America and hear what kids are saying to each other. Even among my friends, what I've been saying to you would be taken as part of the conversation. Bottom line is I stand by what I've said. It's part of the discussion and that's that.