Arsène Wenger

So are you and a dishonest one at that. :man_shrugging:t2:

As much as I hate to debate Wenger in 2019, the thing that annoys me about bigging up Wenger as this martyr who worked miracles with nothing is the ignorance of the fact he had everything his own way which makes it not comparable to any other job. I can think of about 2 or 3 coaches in the last 10 years who had anyway near the same situation.

He got to pick the philosophy of the club. How many managers actually get that privilege? Emery got told to come in and play a certain way because of what Wenger was allowed to do in his time. He got to pick how the youth teams played. He got to have players moulded into what he wanted. He got to develop young players with no fear of the sack. He got to survive some diabolical results and runs of results without getting the sack, and then given the opportunity to rectify it. He got to have a squad of 25 players that he either signed or promoted himself.

Yes he operated with constraints others might not have had, but he also had freedoms others certainly did not have too which are not irrelevant.

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And what is that worth if you don’t have money?

It’s irrelevant.
One - Wenger earned it
Two - What sort of freedom that Wenger had that Mourinho didn’t during his time in Chelsea, that gives Wenger an edge over Mourinho?

I am sure Pep Guardiola & Mourinho will take two years of billion dollar transfer windows over 10 years of freedome with pennies.

The freedom is overstated and doesn’t give Wenger any additional power over other managers.

Wenger was so, so shortsighted. The summer where we signed only Cech half the world recognised the chance presenting itself in terms of a PL win and he thought signing just a goalie in the summer and fucking El neny in the winter was enough. Again, half the world knew he was wrong but he was just too stubborn, thought he knew better. And that’s ultimately why I can’t stand the “no one could have done better” argument. It demonstrably bullshit from that example alone because I don’t think a single manager in the world would have done what he done in that position.

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Wenger thread is poppin off :grin::grin::fire::fire: I didn’t read any of the stupid shit any of you posted because the reality is Wenger >>>>>

Imagine being a fan who isn’t happy with 17 major honors in 22 years. Couldn’t be me.

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except that it’s not true. Wenger probably wanted better players all along, which is evident by how as soon as he got to spend again after the stadium he dumped some 20 players over the next two years and got an assist king for #10 with 20 assists and a 30 goal striker. So not really.

Saying the season Leicester won everyone knew it was up for grabs is not true, every expert on for example the guardian had them finishing pretty low in the table. Thinking he’d get away with a gk was idiotic if that’s what he did but I’m not sure that was the case, we probably couldn’t get any of the 2-3 great players we were after because lo and behold they’re not groceries and had opinions themselves and chose other clubs.

Then saying we were just a couple of players short - yeah that likely goes for any other club that season. I’m sure the other top clubs’ fans also went “if we only bought a good midfielder and attacker we would’ve won” yet no one else did either.

And another perfect example of the same thing is Pochettino who did great with Spurs those years, he took them to higher league positions than ever and he didn’t have 2 belgian CB’s that were awsome, nor a 30 goal/season striker, nor one of the best wingers in league for a while, he bought and made Alderweireld, Kane and Son into those players. Yet they finished 3rd, 2nd and 3rd that year and the following but didn’t spend because they got a stadium and I’m sure they’ll say they were only a great signing or two away from winning things. Liverpool just finished a point behind winning the league, I’m sure if you ask them they were just a great signing away from winning the league.

It’s perfectly fine to think Wenger was a good manager and not be hyperbole and think he was shite and ruined the club nor to think he was the second coming of Jay-Z. You can do a bunch of good things and still fall short because one or two other clubs and managers do better and/or have more resources.

Just beacuse he bought Xhaka and Mustafi one season and that was a bum window or he only bought Cech doesn’t mean those were his ideal choices if he had to pick and choose, nor does it mean he would’ve won the triple, he did tons of good work as well. The three FA cups he won beating probably every other top team at some point or something along those lines, so he did get something done, I know we’re all salty at the current state of affairs but this perpetual absolute exaggeration of how bad the old manager was is never the answer, partly because it’s wrong and partly because nothing has changed since he went, we leak goals still, 18 months later with new managers, new coaches, new defenders, new keepers, new midfielders etc. Recognising isn’t being a fanboy or w/e, just means you have some perspective imo.

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Haha it’s absolutely shocking that people still make constant excuses for Wenger’s failings.

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Ppl are just mad because human nature is nobody ever likes to be proven wrong. A lot of idiots said Wenger was the problem and then he leaves and we get worse with even more money invested :joy::joy::joy: be careful what you wish for :grin::grin::grin::+1::+1::+1:

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Bloody good post @oompa

People say this a lot about Suarez. “Oh, if Arsenal had actually signed Luis Suarez that summer, they’d have won the league.”

Most definitely not. The mentality was shot. Wenger couldn’t win the league in his latter years.

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yes I also think that maybe he couldn’t, competition had gotten to fierce and new young managers came along with new ideas and more modern approaches, absolutely. I respect the club for at least giving him 2 years with some decent spending to try and when he couldn’t get back into top 4 I was fine with us letting someone else try, after all we need to be somewhat active in trying to change things to get back up. No problem with that.

I also think he was still good, just maybe not top 2 in the toughest league in the world (?) which you probably had to be to be outspent by the likes of United, City and probably Chelsea over a longer perspective yet still win it. Saying Leicester did is not a model because no one is trying to be newly promoted and steal the PL because it is a successful model everyone should adopt, it’s a low% move that works on the rare occasion. We need a good model with a good Director of Football or something like that with a fresh vision and a likeminded manager to compete with perhaps less money than a couple of our rivals.

Yeah well that director of football was fought against by him for years.

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^^^^^ :heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart::heart: Best manager to grace the Premier League, adjusted for investment

Definitely. And it can be done. This is why I am an advocate of Poch. Not so much this season, but in the past, he’s won games Spurs are expected to win and therefore they’ve competed.

If we had wins against Watford, Sheff Utd and Palace, poor performances at Anfield and Old Trafford would be forgotten.

well Poch is spurs-branded now :grimacing: It would never sit well :sweat_smile: but I agree it can be done, absolutely.

The flaw in your argument is that it assumes that with any other manager Arsenal would have been in a position to capitalize that season, when the reality would most likely be that Arsenal would have been in Liverpool-esque stagnation that it would need 7-8 players to compete.

The problem, and I’ve mentioned this plenty before, isn’t whether or not we would have actually capitalised. It’s whether we as a club were doing as much as we could to try to. Rightly or wrongly what was in Wengers control was in his control and if he asked for more transfer wise he’d have gotten it. I have no doubt whatsoever about that. Any other manager would have asked and more to the point would have recognised that it was needed.

This is essentially exactly what I think.

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17 MAJOR honours gets me everytime you say it :joy:.

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Is that with the 2006 fantasy CL.

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