Arsène Wenger

It’s an easier objective than winning the League, isn’t it?

Or are you now going to argue how much harder it is to become 4th than it is to become 1st and Wenger should get so much more credit because of that?

@Trion

If I am not wrong, Schweini played right midfield/wing before moving to central.
I remembered I screamed at him many times because he was wearing the #7 jersey and freaking slow on everything and not good enough as a side midfield/wing.

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No. That’s a narrative you want to fit in because I showed how Top 4 is no easy task.

Thanks.
I remember watching this bulky guy as a winger and was like that guy is a midfielder, not a winger.
Did score some nice goals in Euro 07

Perhaps you misunderstand what I meant , we have for many years used the excuse that the financial “doping” of our peers has made us unable to win the league Leicester proved that statment to be wrong thats all.
Im not in the mood to trawl through our failures over the last few years and our lack of progress because there appears now to be some progress and a light at the end of the tunnel although its too early to say !
Wenger reminds me of a Junkie friend or relative . They swear their going to get clean they get clean for a while and you start to fell good about them again, to then they revert to type go back on ther brown and let you down ,time and time again !

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Trion talking to people about “static” opinions :arteta:

Just to give my two cents, money can explain an overriding trend (ie, say, average league position), but what it fails to explain is why, in years like 10-11 or last season or even 13-15 to a lesser extent, where there is some kind of exception to the overriding trend and the amount of money in the clubs ahead of us doesn’t correspond to quality, we can’t even compete for the title. The overriding trend in terms of league position would still be there, and still correspond to the money, if we had finished first one of those seasons, but what should be obvious to all of us at this point could, in that case, actually be denied by talking about said overriding trends. Make no mistake, the Premier League wasn’t the best league in football last season, it might not even have been the 2nd best, yet we finished 11 pts off the top. In 10-11 clubs like Chelsea and United were similarly weak and we did not finish close, despite having a more talented squad.

Finally, when are people going to accept that managers really matter? What is this obsession with thinking football is decided by the amount of talent on the pitch–which yes, does roughly correspond to money spent over a larger period–and that’s that. What is the difference between City last season and this season? United in 12-13 and United after? Liverpool pre-Klopp and Liverpool post? Isn’t it pretty obvious that Klopp’s Liverpool would finish well above Pellegrini’s City from last season, despite the major gulf in spending? How do we go on and explain why we can’t say the same thing about a Wenger side with overriding trends and financial graphs? (as in, I fail to see how Rafa, Klopp, almost Pochettino last season, Leicester, etc.–ie, the few times there has been a decently managed team–because the standard of managing in this league really has been pretty awful bar the odd exception, Ancelotti, Ferguson, Mourinho in his early years, Rafa at the time I suppose–finishing above us or basically equal with us fits into the narrative? Why are they allowed to overachieve their spending status but Wenger not?)

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Even Torsten Frings, did played some side midfield (around 2001-2002) before moving to central, was a better wide player than Schweini.
No idea why Klinsmann put him there…

Because that was his position earlier in his career. I think Bayern played Ballack, Jeremies/Hargreaves, van Bommel etc as the two centre midfielders and him on the outside. I think when van Gaal went to Bayern that was when Schweinsteiger was put in the centre of the midfield for the rest of his career.

Compare to Scholl and unfortunate Deisler, Schweini was shit as a side midfield :stuck_out_tongue:

He never had the qualities to play there.

You havent seriously put 6 community shields into an argument have you.

It is a legitimate trophy in the English game tbh. It’s just 4th in the pecking order in terms of how valuable a piece of silverware it really is.

I don’t look at the European Super Cup as a friendly and that follows the same format of entry / eligibility to play.

They condemned it to the status of glorified friendly by allowing 6 subs tbh, hard to even fathom it as a professional game when that’s in play.

Now that I hadn’t actually realised. Fair enough! :slight_smile:

Dont suppose you know if a similar ruleset applies to any other cups within the major leagues?

Not a clue, think I only found out about that 6 sub thing when we played because I don’t really pay the CS much attention.

Supercup here is normal 3 subs. Pretty sure it’s the same in European supercup?

I think it’s a friendly, tbh, lately teams play a highly rotated squad and make a lot of subs cause of the rules.

That said, the win against Chelsea I think was a rare case where both teams took it very seriously so I give that one as a kind of asterisk.

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The community shield counts. You have to have won a trophy the previous year or finished at the top of the table, as well as take on the previous champs or FA Cup winners. It’s not like it’s some randomly scheduled friendly, walk in the park. It’s a culmination of the previous seasons accomplishments. Adding 6 subs to me is more common sense because of the circumstances of the match being on the eve of the new season starting.

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Right, that’s why you get a trophy for those accomplishments. To count beating a big club in a pre-season warm up that is very much treated that way as another, then, is a bit desperate. Might as well start counting our wins against City in Iceland or whatever the past couple years as trophies, or maybe Madrid or whoever has won these big moneymaking pre-season tournaments in the USA the past few years should count them when discussing their manager’s accomplishments.

Randomly organized friendlies to help the team prepare for the upcoming season is a bit different from the first competitive game of the new season. Which is basically a +1 game.

Exactly this.

“Give Wenger x manager resources and he’ll win things in style”

No he won’t. He’ll continue to show faith in players that don’t deserve his confidence. He’ll continue to be one dimensional in his approach to the game. He’ll continue to persist with the likes of Aaron Ramsey, Oxlade-Chamberlain and so on for years past their sell by date.

The fact that Wenger waited until the tail end of the summer transfer window to sign a CB we so desperately needed and a third or fourth choice forward option that doesn’t fit the criteria of what we need tells you everything about his managerial style.

Wenger is a purist at heart and he’ll never be a manager who’ll spend extravagant sums to secure top talent and that’s a decision he’s made. He’s not fit to win elite honours in the modern game.

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A4TT was obviously one of those kids who went to bed with their participation trophy.