Scum

Yes

You’re judging a 3-4 year spell as failure though, when really they just hired the wrong coaches who hired the wrong players. If you look at 2012-2016 it’s a mess but if you look at 2012-2032, I bet United will be one of the top 2/3 clubs in terms of trophies.

To me it’s like saying look at Barcelona or Madrid when they had their dry spells over the last 15 years, but they’ll always come back because of who they are.

Money is the only thing that matters long term because no matter how good your coach or players are, players age, players ask to move to bigger clubs/more money and coaches too. Spurs for example look like they’re all Pochettino, but he’ll go and without tons of cash, you can’t just expect the next guy and the next guy and the next guy to improve on Pochettino’s work through just good management and responsible spending. Every now and then you need an Ozil or Hazard coming into the club. Wenger was fortunate to compete in a 2 team league, but if we were competing with Chelsea/City in the early 2000s we wouldn’t have had it so easy. We’d have probably lost out on the likes of Sol Campbell for silly wages.

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This is the key thing.

If he leaves I will feel a lot more comfortable with us competing against them.
Considering he has very few world class player and has only a few players that would get into our first team, as well as only having been there for a few seasons, Pochettino is about level with Wenger in terms of league positions.

He might decide to do what Wenger did and build a club up, and have a major say in every aspect of how that club is run, a luxury he wouldn’t have at a top European club.

I rate him as one of the best managers in the PL and as long as he is at spurs then they are going to be a constant threat to the top four places or even the PL title.

In recent seasons we have sometimes only finished above them by one place, and even depending on results on the last day of the season, on several occasions, and a few before Pochettimo went there, so there is no reason why he can’t better that.

Hopefully a big club like Real Madrid or Bayern Munich can persuade him to leave, and go to them.

You don’t hear anyone half decent around Europe saying “when I grew up I dreamed of playing for Tottenham”. Not yet anyway.

So besides our broader global appeal and considerably superior domestic history, we have that lure above and beyond Tottenham still. That’s part of Wenger’s legacy that he leaves us with. It was basically “I’d love to play for Wenger”, but it translates pretty much to “I’d love to play for Arsenal” after he’s gone and his successor should still reap the benefit of this. Obviously with the strongest part of that being the French and French-speaking African part of the football world.

Tottenham may need another half decade or decade of continued Champion League exposure and possible leagues or FA Cup success before they get elevated to the top table of Premier League clubs.

You’ll get some toe-curlingly embarrassing Tottenham supporters coming out soon and making claims that they’re the bigger club in North London once they get their first 61,000 attendance (I’m cringing right now at the thought of it) but the sensible ones will shut up and know their role until they actually have some proper evidence to back it up.

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We were a big club long before AW came along. Where were the spuds in the 1930s when we dominated them and all the rest?

The 60s, 70s, and 80s (untill Graham was appointed) were quite poor from a performance perspective though. I think Arsenal finished only three to five times in top 3 in those 30 years. Arsenal was a mid-table team pretty much during that stretch of history.

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This is true.
When I started going to matches, spurs were usually higher than us in the league and played more entertaining football.
They also had a similar fanbase, so we were about equal in terms of success and support.
It was only when George Graham came along that we pulled ahead of them and then when Wenger became manager, we pushed onto another level.

Even before Wenger and Graham we did have eight league titles to their two, unless I’m mistaken. Without checking they probably had more FA Cups though as Wenger and Graham must have won about 8 between them, and the cup was more valued then so that would have stood in their favour.

If you want it in a nutshell, Arsenal had the 30s and early 50s, Tottenham had the late 50s and 60s, Arsenal was the early 70s and both teams were perhaps level between then and the late 80s.

I’d rather walk than get on a train at that station.

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^ Haha.

Reading a little on our Arsenal/Gillespie Road tube station name change. Chapman got ours for free. ÂŁ12m haha. :wink:

Chapman, every club history insists, approached the Underground in 1932 and asked that the station be renamed. When he was met with resistance and told that the station name should reflect its location, Chapman proclaimed “Whoever heard of Gillespie Road? It’s Arsenal round here!” Which apparently settled the matter and the station was renamed shortly after, with Chapman also apparently persuading the Underground to pay for the change as well.

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I’ve only been to the shithole the once with the Rovers. Is white hart lane station the one about twenty minutes walk from the ground or has a new one opened?

*Disclaimer: I may have been drunk and it just seemed like twenty minutes. :grin:

I’d rename it Fester Square or Pickyourwilly.

It’s an absolute ball ache of a walk. Especially on the way back.

I was there for that game where the players (Podolski etc) took selfies.

I can safely say, fuck that station.

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If it’s already called White Hart Lane who gives a fuck. Absolutely pointless change, I hope they do it and it costs them millions.

LOL.

https://twitter.com/BygravesTHFC/status/787313533943967744

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What happened?

He died of a broken heart.

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They were missing the other half of their partnership last year and it didn’t hurt them that bad. We’ll see spurs will fuck it up with or without him.

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