What a load of shit. We were trying to shift Kola and Sok right down to the wire, had they left he was in and no decision to make. Arteta was hardly gonna tell him a week out if we didn’t shift the shitters he was out.
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Yeah we pretty much achieved par that season. Probably lacked a real dominate figure in CM and and an elite striker.
Had lots of neat players like Özil, Cazorla, Ramsey, Wilshere and Ramsey.
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We achieved par in terms of our league placement but that was the season that really underlined how mentally weak we had become as a squad under Wenger. That combined score of 17-4 in the away defeats to City, Chelsea, and Liverpool is hard to believe even today. Up there with the 10-2 aggregate against Bayern as most embarrassing moments of the last decade.
People talk about the 8-2 at United a few seasons beforehand but in my mind these defeats were much worse because we were supposedly real contenders, no longer in the banter era, and we just let every other big club bend us over without putting up the least bit of a fight.
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That failure was as much on the club failing to surround him with a better tier of talent.
It was basically Alexis and nobody else. The summer we only signed Cech was the real killer.
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Yeah, it’s funny that people are so hell bent on defending Wenger in those years but the manner in which we were getting eaten alive was unforgivable.
Wengers record against the other big teams in the league was frankly embarrassing and it’s funny some of the mental gymnastics people do to try and defend that. We couldn’t even be LVG’s kids at Old Trafford and made a superstar of Rashford that day.
We lost to Liverpool and Chelsea teams that should never have put 6 goals past us. We were just so poor for so long and it’s a miracle Wenger lasted so long.
People talk about our post Wenger decline but it doesn’t ever change the fact that Wenger absolutely needed to go and the clubs poor decisions in the subsequent years will never change the fact he needed to leave.
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In the grand scheme of things Wenger only had 1 season where he underperformed dramatically and we should have still won the Europa league in that season. Even in the 2nd last season we managed 75 points and an FA Cup. Things have gone drastically downhill since.
That is not to say we should have persisted with him longer. I personally gave up on him when we lost the title to Leicester in 2016. But people were saying at the end of his tenure that no matter who we appointed, we couldn’t be possibly worse. That’s proven to be flat out wrong.
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It has definitely proven to be wrong but the cause is only partly due to the managers themselves being worse than Wenger. We were always going to decline after the 16-17 season because the best players on that team were allowed to run down their contracts and the young “talents” were the likes of Holding, Chambers, Iwobi, Ox, and Xhaka.
Management has been awful since, don’t get me wrong. But Wenger left a complete mess.
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Absolutely correct. You also have to factor in how big the strength at the top of the League has become. It’s simply become more competitive.
Liverpool have sailed away from us and Tottenham and Leicester have become direct rivals and bettering our League positions. This has not happened overnight. There improvements started on the Wenger/Gazidis watch.
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Pires co-sign. 
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Ffs Bobby, I put my faith in you re Pepe comments, but you’re testing the limits of my unquestioning loyalty.
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Embrace it Jakey. Pires is the truth.
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I agree with this sentiment to a degree, Walcott/Giroud/Podolski needed replacement before signing Ozil, but on the other hand I wonder if another signing could have given the same reputational (?) boost Ozil had given us at that time. I don’t think another signing would have meant as much for Arsenal as he did in that regard.
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Thread officially going on mute, can’t wait to never hear about this cunt again.
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Mate your 32 not 16. That the best you’ve got.
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Nr 67?! Can’t stand leagues who allow these ridiculous numbers. I remember when Jon Sheffield wore nr 40 for Swindon in 1993. The highest number ever worn until then. There was dislike among fans and pundits alike 
What a performance!
Still better than Xhaka, who would have passed it backwards.
2mins vid for one pass. I love this type of fandom :ozil:
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