It wasn’t much Wenger did. Or not to the degree that he is credited with anyway. That too was one of the bigger misconceptions. Our dropoff under Wenger himself was huge already. However from 06-16 it was a top four with Liverpool from 06-09 and Man City taking their place from 10-16. We got away with it.
As soon as it became an actual top five/six with Spurs and Liverpool under Klopp joining the race for the Champions League places it became evident where we actually stood. After that we did fall off further, but the damage was already done a long time under Wenger’s reign.
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This is true, Wenger did a remarkable job with a group of shitty players, but they were teams he built. So for me, he’s responsible for those shit teams.I get that for some people they grew up with the Emirates Arsenal so they have fond memories, but really we went down hill when we started building around Cesc and Wenger took apart that physical fast counter attacking invincibles team and went towards a smaller but technically better more possession based team.
That Barcelona way requires lots of money and a youth academy where all the youngsters are trained to play in that way from a very young age, neither of which were available to us. It was the wrong direction to go in, he should of continued with that invincibles team and added players of the same ilk who would of come at much cheaper price than players who are technically astute. Fergie was wining cups until his retirement essentially playing a 4-4-2 and sometimes even route one football(granted he had some of the best players in the league) but so did we back in 04/05/06.
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Wenger tried to emulate the Barcelona way but without the off the ball movement, pressing, intensity and coaching standard.
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With the lack of investment post Emirates we weren’t likely to win title no matter what we did. You can’t win titles breaking even on transfers every year. I mean Wenger tried to Yaya Toure but couldn’t get him a work permit and came incredibly close to landing Ibrahimovic. He got Diaby who was a powerhouse but his career was ruined.
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That’s a fair point, but a lot of it was his own making, like the weird “socialist” wage structure he had put in place that prevented us paying better players what they deserved and a bunch of shit players were being over paid.
But also Leicester were a prime example of a team who didn’t have the big bucks but played a style of football which was easily achievable and managed to win a league title.
@SRCJJ yeah I totally agree bro, but to get players who are technically very good, can press and have the intelligence and positional awareness to play that way you have to have lots of cash. Which is why we only really see the mega clubs attempt it. For me it was the wrong direction to take.
TBH though mate we weren’t that far off having a great time. We nearly added Modric, Xabi Alonso, Mata and we wanted Cazorla the season Cesc left. I don’t think anyone would be complaining if we had Modric and Alonso instead of Song and Diaby. Comparatively the powerhouses we signed were decent to shit, just look at Giroud, Welbeck, Podolski, Adebeyor, Bendtner, Diaby, Xhaka etc. Mertesacker I suppose was a good signing. If anything after Cesc left Wenger went back to having powerhouse forwards and wingers. It’s just our pacemerchants in Welbz, Theo and Gervinho were very average as were our powerhouses in Giroud and Podolski.
Leicester were a perfect storm. They had 3 top players and the best B2B midfielder of that era. But I think they were lucky teams didn’t prepare for them. Remember we beat them twice that season. So it’s not like they were a great side. I still believe if teams were as up for Leicester as they were Arsenal they wouldn’t have actually have won it. We saw the next season how teams had figured them out.
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As much as I hate to say it I can’t help but think we got what we deserved in regard to that Leicester title winning season. It was our year, but we paid the price for being reactive never proactive.
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Do we want this guy back next season? I’m not sure what he really does he isn’t a creator and he’s very naive defensively. His biggest strength is that he drives forward with the ball which isn’t always something you can back up with the Uber impressive “goals and assists stats”.
But I can’t help but feel even his ability to drive forward is overrated.
Either way he’s got 0 assists in 16 games and 2 goals. So I’d be interested to know what he’s done so well in Germany.
I feel like this move isn’t going to have added any value to him as a player and if anything might have diminished his value a bit. Would really have been better off staying here and playing ahead of an Elneny.
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He’s going to have 12 months left on his contract when he returns in the summer. Can’t see us holding onto him unfortunately.
averaging 0.8 key passes per game too
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What’s his xpasses tho?
I’d personally take any cash we can get and buy another solid midfielder. I don’t see why he would have his contract extended and play for us again.
If the coach doesn’t like him and the coach is staying then he’s got to go. You need to at least back Arteta that much.
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Decent talent and all, but the rumours about him being a childish cunt around players and staff turns me off.
if we can ship him for 10m i would say its decent business.
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Pashun merchant who flops around in midfield but contributes nothing in the final third and is a massive defensive and tactical liability, while also being a clown off the pitch.
Loaning him out was addition by subtraction. He won’t be coming back and that’s a very good thing. The real question is whether we can sucker some other club into paying 15-20m for him. Hopefully his ridiculously high opinion of himself won’t continue to be an obstacle and he won’t turn down clubs like Villarreal, as was reported last summer.
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Lmaooo this thread is full of clowns 
. Y’all didn’t listen to me about ESR and what the Huddersfield fans who watched him every week were saying, and it’s clear y’all not watching Guendo either. I mean this is OA so the general rule when the majority have an opinion on a player is to go the opposite way and you’ll probably be right more often than not 
Guendo has been playing on the left hand side of a 3 man midfield deployed predominantly as a DLP. He does what Xhaka does just exponentially better. He transformed the midfield when he arrived. I never watched ESR in the championship, but I’m watching Guendo every week, and he’s basically keeping them above the drop zone single handedly. Their fans will tell you as much too. This team is terrible, Guendo sets up a lot of great goal scoring opportunities but their forward line is like watching Gervinho and Willock waste chance after chance with bone head play.
The negative thing about his play that I’ve been frustrated with tho is his work rate defensively. It’s been bad, as it was under Mikel too. Can that be fixed? Yes under a proper manager I think so because when Guendo played under Emery it wasn’t an issue in fact it was one of his strong suits, and when Guendo plays for France he also shines in that department. He’s better than most of our midfield already, if u dislike his attitude fine, but don’t be blind to his obvious talent or at least pretend like u even know how he’s performing in Germany 
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They’re smoked out, lelelelelelelel
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I would. Especially with a more mobile player next to him like Partey who can cover more ground than Xhaka. The value of players like him lies in attracting attention from opposing players and try to force them out of position / break shape. I don’t think that is ever going to translate too statistics properly, like you said. But as a team we can use all the dynamism we can get. It feels like a waste not too try him again, but with his short contract, I reckon Arsenal will be looking to sell.
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Let’s be real here the only person that’s watched him consistently in Germany is @BigWeng_4LYFE, and all I’m reading in the last 30 off here is posts on Guen about stats from people who often dispute stats at times saying it’s a too simplistic way to look at things.
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Stats are a simplistic way of looking at things which is why I added the following in my post
His biggest strength is that he drives forward with the ball which isn’t always something you can back up with the Uber impressive “goals and assists stats”.
Because I recognise what he does in his game isn’t always going to be measured by stats.
And I also posed the question of
So I’d be interested to know what he’s done so well in Germany.
Meaning that on the face of his statistical output is poor so for those watching - what has he done well in Germany?
But having watched him play football a load of times he doesn’t do anything outstandingly well and doesn’t have any statistical strength. So the question is - why do people have such a hard on for the kid when he doesn’t really seem to offer much more than energy and drive?
I agree with you when you say you’re deeply concerned about his defensive naivety and lack of awareness when at Arsenal btw, it was also a huge concern of mine and frustrated me.