Arsenal 3 - WBA 0

I said I would never write on this blog again because of all the hatred towards the best manager we have or will ever had as the Boss (IMHO). You rocky janelle and others were ready to push him out are your opinions still the same or are you having to eat that HUMBLE pie with a giant spoon full for mouthing off??

Here's the thread alwaysgunner is talking about http://www.arsenal.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=525424 As everyone can plainly see there is no hatred of Wenger from anyone there, just a critique of many failings which was completely justifiable given the appalling run of results which seemed destined to continue unabated from last season. Utterly ridiculous tabloidesque sensationalism to say there was hatred of Wenger.

Loved Wengers interview after the match.. We need to be humble and try our best. First place is too far away at the moment.

Still feel we are on a knife edge. Our season depends on having a fit RvP throughout.. And you know that has not happened in his 7 seasons so far.

The doubts were perfectly understandable. The problems were/are bound to raise plenty of doubts and any grumbles justifiable. But it's equally justified for alwaysgunner to ask whether opinions are now as definite as they were a few weeks ago.

The question is for the few million that we saved on our deadline day desperation, was it really worth the worst start to the season in over 50 years, the most humiliating defeat in longer and the utter erosion of goodwill towards the manager in particular? Was it really worth it? Obviously no, in no shape or form.

It was widely accepted Fabregas was off this summer, whilst the Nasri episode may have been a bit of a curveball it happened with plenty of time to draft in a replacement. So one player we knew would be off and one player we felt would be off halfway through the summer. Failure to play hardball with Barca cost us, I also totally disagree with the assertion that you don't buy in anticipation of Fabregas' departure, well if you're a club that pinches pennies and doesn't like to be held to ransom, well yes you very much should. We've had since the start of his last season ie Aug 2010 to line that up and failed dismally. Who cares what signal it sent to Fabregas? He wanted out so forgive me for not caring about hurting his feelings. The signal it sends out to team mates is that the club has it all in hand and under control.

* either...or just roll with it.

It could also signal that the club won't do much to retain players' loyalty; but will go on to buy replacements and dare players to move. The message will be it is okay if you keep seeking the next move since we won't mind as we have your replacement already bought. Then there is the signal to the likes of Ramsey, Wilshere and Rosicky, who were our long term replacements, anyway. You see, it would be wrong to assume we needed to buy Cesc's replacement, for instance when we all agreed there is no player like him but that we had good close replicas in Ramsey and Wilshere. We did have the player quality required to sustain a better run; it was the timing of the departures that unsettled the team.

Maybe "loyalty" is an alien word these days, but call it what you like, I'm sure you get my drift. Nothing is ever conclusive in the world of player transfers and who's to say we couldn't keep both players? To say "I'm sure Wenger had an agreement with Fabregas........Barca also knew of this agreement" says nothing as it is pure presumption said only to make the argument. No way any one of us could have known what agreement Wenger may have had with Fabregas. We all feel we could have done (and wish we did) better during the summer but short of kicking out our captain for peanuts and simply taking the first good offer for Nasri, the long drawn out saga was why the club got the sums it got for the players and why our deals were hurried; City only came in after United had suggested interest in Nasri with much less than what City paid; Barca's first offer was derisive and we had no choice in Cesc's destination. It was a difficult period for everyone, including (especially, actually) Wenger.

Haha Niko! You sure are entitled to your beliefs; much as I am mine. I think we should all just enjoy this period in our resurgence and hope it lasts very long.

It's much more than a fair bet that there was an agreement between Cesc and Wenger that he could go last summer - if the terms were right. There was also an agreement that Vieira could join Real Madrid. Contracts were even exchanged between Arsenal and Real but PV decided not to go at the 11th hour - so nothing is done until it's done. That said, just an observation but if Cesc's replacement was always intended to be Ramsey (it has been so far this season) then maybe the failure to line someone else up (who would have replaced him anyway?) was just an acceptance that there fewer better alternatives than Ramsey genuinely available. In which case strengthening the overall squad as best we could (assuming there was a point when other preferred targets finally proved unobtainable) was only ever going to happen late. Whatever view you take on the summer transfer dealings it's perfectly understandable that AG should draw attention to the possibility that things might not prove quite as negative as they might have appeared to be just a few weeks back.

Would I want the boss to leave now? Well I have to be consistent as with my Cesc argument and say only if an agreement is in place with his replacement first :) If I'm brutally honest Arsenes' glory days are behind him, and I don't see us winning another trophy with him. I also have no faith in the likes of PHW to unearth the new Arsene, we have no footballing men at board level any more so my faith in them finding Wengers' replacement is negligible. Nope the only bloke that will find Wengers' replacement is Wenger himself! Such is his power at the club, he's here til he wants no longer to be. I wanted Wenger to turn the ship around and if he couldn't do that then to do the decent thing, he's since gone on to do it so it stands to reason it would be self defeating for me to want him to leave at present, but I am and was fully supportive of anyone that wanted to raise questions no matter how painful or unpalatable they may have seemed, but that's just me, blindly following has never been my strong point.

I do though completely agree that such is Arsenes' testament and legacy at Arsenal then I have no problem in him choosing his successor, & that if 'Piksi' is the guy that Wenger wants when the time comes then that is good enough for me. Difficult part as ever is knowing when is the time. http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11661_6732855,00.html

Oh FFS!! will you please stop trying to say this was only a reaction to this season??? It grossly insults the intelligence of those that had to witness the appalling self destruction of last seasons' 2nd half and a summer of sitting on hands with tissue stuffed in ears. This kind of positive 'sweep it under the carpet' propaganda is just as depressing to witness as the medias' polar opposite campaign.

Niko, are the words 'self-destruction' yours or Jeff Stelling's? What self destruction? I'll give you an 'Oh FFS!!' situation - each year, Arsenal compete on all four fronts. They tend to lose the Carlin Cup in either the semi or final, the Champions league in either the last 16 or against Barca, and go far in the FA cup. Now, in years where Arsenal don't win any of those competitions - like the last 6 years - this means that we exit all of the competitions within a month or so. And the press call it 'self-destruct' or 'meltdown'. the insinuation, of course, being that if you get knocked out of the FA cup in the first round, the CCup second round an the Champions' league in the first knockout round, that this is a better performance for a football club. It's bull***** mate.

I think you need to better appreciate the success Arsenal have had over the past six years - in spite of not winning a trophy.

We self destructed in the CC final. We had the competition on it's knees, it's defence utterly knackered on it's last legs and we self destructed and gift wrapped it for them. I would have said the same thing before any media reported it and have no argument if that was the way it was reported. I was actually talking about pushing the self destruct button in the league post that CC loss, cups are cups and you can progress or be eliminated, that's part and parcel of football. The slide down the league following the final loss and the point tally of 12 out of a possible 33 from 11 games seeing us slide from 2nd to 4th is hard to sugar coat any other way than a self destruction. But hey, whatever reality gets you through the day ;)

Or to fine point the matter. How much is that 8 points that we basically threw in the 1st 3 games going to be worth come the seasons' end? I would wager a lot more than the 10-15 million pound scrimped from not doing our business until the windows' bitter end. I'm still really struggling to get a grip on the clubs' thinking over the summer, I just can't get my head around it at all. We've had a horror show run since the end of February, by all accounts player mutiny is rife in the air and fan morale regarding the team and manager is at a nadir. If there was ever a time to win everyone back onside it was this summer, get deals and business done early, shift those on that were going and settle the squad in pre season for what the club had known for some time was going to be a very tricky opening period to the new season. I disagree with this whole mentality that we let the russian and the sheikh and the Yank family Leprechaun feast at the table first and we wait til they are sated, deals can be made to happen quickly and quietly. I really hope this was a one off and not a new strategy of redknapping about like pikeys rummaging through the deadline day debris for scraps. Very unseemly.

"We self destructed in the CC final" = 'a player made a mistake and Birmingham scored a tap-in'. In the same way as Chelsea self-destructed against Arsenal when John Terry fell on his ass? Is that all it takes to qualify?

"pushing the self destruct button in the league" - you mean losing some games? That happens. Particularly when confidence is low. You know, like when your own supporters don't support you. 'Sliding from 2nd to 4th' is self destruct? Is that not a slight exaggeration?

"So you choose to mention the most extreme figure spent by a sugar daddy to illustrate that spending money doesn't work?" - no, to illustrate that it doesn't ALWAYS work, and isn't a solution to every problem. "We spent 50 million on the last day in desperation" - we've been tracking Mertesacker for over a year, Benayoun's signing had been agreed weeks beforehand, Oxlade-Chamberlain had been scouted for over a year and tried to sign him in the previous window, if I recall, Arteta signed as a direct, experienced, established premier league player; I don't see desperation there. The players COULDN'T BE SIGNED EARLIER IN THE WINDOW, and EVERY CLUB MOVED FOR THEM LATE. but if you're asking me do I think it's worth £10,000,000 to have a couple of players come in a month or two earlier, then no, I don't think it is; you could run the youth academy for years, drop ticket prices, buy countless other clubs and players for that kind of money; why ***** it away trying to hardball other clubs for the sake of getting a player a month earlier?

8 points lost at the start of the season is disappointing, and if it means we finish 5th instead of 4th this year (for example) then it will have cost us tens of millions. Are you going to tell me that if we signed the players earlier, for more money (if that was at all possible) that we would not have dropped those points? That Gervinho wouldn't have got riled by the journeyman pikey-scumbag Joey Barton reducing us to ten men? I don't see it would've made a massive difference.

"10-15 million pound scrimped from not doing our business until the windows' bitter end" - you're talking out of emotion and ignorance; you do not know the circumstances (unless you were closely involved with the transfers).

"by all accounts player mutiny is rife in the air and fan morale regarding the team and manager is at a nadir" - not sure where you're getting that feeling? The players all seem happy to me, saying positive things regularly, celebrating together after the Chelsea result, etc. What are the rest of us not seeing??

"I disagree with this whole mentality that we let the russian and the sheikh and the Yank family Leprechaun feast at the table first" - Juan Mata. We scouted him, approached his club, were in the process of agreeing terms for him - then Chelsea offered more money. If we get into a bidding war for a player with City, say, do you think we can afford to pay the transfer fees and wages that they do? Do you think we should pay those fees? You can't out-bid someone who has ten times your money.

Anyways my piece has been said and i hope our form continues to Norwich away, this has been rather tedious trawling through our recent turbulent history but I just can't let the wholesale revisionism of it by the likes of damian go unchecked because, well like all revisionism it's a lie.

It is reasonable to assume that had we tied up players before and taht if we had got them to have a pre-season we wouldnt have had to play Frimpong against Liverpool and start Traore and Coquelin against Manchester United. It is reasonable to expect that we woundnt have been in the position we are right now. Despite the good run, we find ourselves in 7th position...

Ooh well if it's courtesy you wanted knock yourself out, Wenger in his own words for you, a plethora of sources to choose from http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&sugexp=ppwl&cp=28&gs_id=27&xhr=t&q=wenger+arsenal+player+mutiny&pf=p&sclient=psy-ab&source=hp&pbx=1&oq=wenger+arsenal+player+mutiny&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=&gs_upl=&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=62a5e4b366e6b2e5&biw=1144&bih=587

Nicko Nicko I will try to make it simple for you. A fan in HC days saying drop those four players is as stupid as you saying get rid of AW. Do you understand now; if HC had followed that fans advice it would be the same as your advice about AW going .

No damian you are ignoring the facts because it obviously pains you to much to admit the recent mistakes and shortcomings of the club, now who is being insulting? I'm capable of viewing the situations of this year and forming my own adult viewpoint. You are toeing rigidly some party line inflexibly, afraid to question and admit where situations could have been vastly better handled. You have issued me ZERO facts, just your own opinion, you know nothing of Chelseas' transfer situation but presume you do, you knew nothing of Wengers' admission that he faced a mutinous summer but mocked me for knowing it and made poor assumptions of it's validity (probably because it didn't appear on the official site baaaaa) I have received no apology for that. According to you a fact is that AOC signed on deadline day when he penned way before but I'm supposed to believe you know what you're talking about? Your last post is an indication of a failing argument and of a boy in complete denial. I have argued my points rationally and clearly whereas you have sought to made utterly Zilch points of your own, merely looking to negate my presumptions with wilder ones of your own. That's sad.