When can we next realistically challenge for the league title?

Seen that tho was actually devastated at the full time whistle tears and everything :joy:

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I miss the days when I was still in high school before I had pay tv listening to the BBC five live on Sunday Sportsworld second half commentary whilst we had Henry, PV & Pires destroying teams.

I know itā€™s different being in Australia but I remember having to listen to some games on the radio too. We didnā€™t have sky sports growing up for so long so it was teletext and 5 live for me sometimes. God I sound like Iā€™m from an era in black and white :joy:

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Yeah I didnā€™t get pay tv until I was 18 and working so I could pay for it, until then it was BBC Saturday and Sunday sportsworld for me.

Canā€™t tell. There are some serious issues with the team. We parted ways with one of the most influential figures at football and tried to change things by doing the same old. We settled with Unai who had agreed to sign with low wages and working under the director-coach model. Guess what? Unai doesnā€™t rate the squad. The changes made at the back also werenā€™t groundbreaking enough. Say what you will but I will stand by saying that we got worse defensively (tactically) but have better players(or in form) that have hidden it(Torreira and Holding).
In summary, our club is cheap and clumsy. A club that knows what is doing will do well and it will show. City is the best example. Excellent organization from top to bottom. Almost every signing and investment they made payed off because they are calculated. Liverpool is following the same path.
Arsenal and Man Utd will continue to fall unless they get their heads out of their asses.

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The best example we can use is Liverpool. Klopp struggled big time in his first 2-3 seasons or so. It took him 3-4 transfer windows to make the desired changes in certain areas and then invested big on a defender and GK. They finally look defensively solid and most importantly consistent.

Unlike Arsenal, Liverpool actually prepared for the bad period a long time ago. 4-5 years back, they signed majority U26 players with potential. Arsenal on the other have not done this and have instead opted for experience, with Banega possibly being another player.

What Arsenal seriously need to focus on is getting rid of players on huge wage will - focus on the defence, winger and creative playmaker willing to press. Right now we have too many insects in the team that are part of the banter era.

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I didnā€™t have sky till 2009/10 only time I got to see Arsenal live was CL on itv FA Cup and PL games on Setanta haha

City are the exception dude.

Exception to what? Theyā€™re fantastically ran. A bum club outta nowhere managed to have a steady rise to the top and managed to stay there. Watch every move they made. Calculated to the detail. Their signing success ratio is insane. They were from the first teams to sign players based on statistical analysis and the first to drop them when they didnā€™t work. Those guys are miles ahead with experience in the department. Just a smart calculated investment.

Teams like United and Arsenal though are the experts of half-assing stuff. Man Utd replaced SAF with Moyes and Van Gaal. They were adamant not wasting their precious pounds but then they went and overpayed for Martial, Pogba, etc. Took Falcao off Monacoā€™s wage bill. Doing all that nonsense while leaving areas uncovered. Simply, half-assing it. They renewed with Mourinho last season promising him investment then said to him itā€™s no go in the summer.
Look at us. Every fucking season we were missing a signing or two to challenge seriously for the title. Every damn season starting with weak spots. Then they part ways with Arsene for a new start. Ok, good. They were in talks with Luis Enrique and Allegri but those bums were to cheap to invest seriously. Instead, Unai with his failed stint at PSG popped up accepting low wages and bam, outta nowhere weā€™re hearing that we signed with Unai. They had since May to organize but we are now ending up with a manager that canā€™t work with the current squad and our best assets not even making into his teams.

You make the bed you lie in.

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It would be counter productive for Emery not to want to win the league with Arsenal, even though his target from the board is probably just to achieve a top 4 finish.

Heā€™s used to winning the league, even though that was with PSG and they won it at a canter every season.

It was an underwhelming appointment given that we could have got the likes of Sarri or Allegri or Simeone (imagine our defensive shape under either of those 3!)

What would be good is if the board and the manager had frank conversations straight away. As far as Emery is concerned, he should be asked to explain todayā€™s result. Emery should present his case and ask for transfer funds this January. Then they both know where they stand. None of this pussyfooting (but still in cahoots) crap we had with Wenger and the Arsenal hierarchy

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I donā€™t think Allegri was obtainable this summer but if he fails to win the CL this season I think heā€™s out and we would be wise to do everything in our power to get him.

But I know that it was rumoured Allegri had a lot of admirers behind the scenes at Arsenal.

Allegri would never come here to work under our system and constraints

Nah Emery only won the league once at PSG, Monaco beat him to the title in his other season at PSG.

Sorry, I stand corrected

As some of you noted, emery and our defence are only part of the bigger problem, there is no real plan, we just keep improvising.
The latest case is the gazidis departure.

The fish rots from the head, and i dont see us improving drastically with Kroenke in charge.

What we need now is Vand Dijk type of signing, do you see our board splashing 70 million pounds on the likes of Koulibaly, one player who could make us better at the back instantly, i donā€™t.
And if one of Auba/Laca gets injured our second striker is Nketiah.

We need to add in January to keep fighting for the CL spot, that would make things easier in the summer.

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Yeah this is a very important point you make here. I cant accept Emery being another Wenger clone parroting the party line on transfer policy about no quality again.
Im on board till i hear any of the we have the required players.

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Iā€™ve got an ugly feeling thatā€™s the sort thing weā€™ll here from Emery and part of the reason the board was so eager to give him the job.

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Because they are up to their eyeballs with money. An operation that is so flush with money ought to be run in such a way. Ā£50M RBā€™s are nothing to them. Theyā€™re flexing theyā€™re wealth the best they can, of course thatā€™s a dream of any football fan, to support a club that can make these power moves. It helps though that theyā€™re funded by a country and one that knows how to be dodgy as fuck to manipulate the entire football market.

Liverpool are the better example Iā€™d say. They have money, largely boosted from insane player sales + their owners wealth and have made better calculated moves.

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I agree.
We need a leader as well as a great player.
Leadership is something we have lacked at the Emirates and when we had it we were successful, and the board arenā€™t going to give Emery what it takes to get a couple of players that will instantly improve our defence.

Like you say, there is no plan, we are just drifting and buying players that are no better than the ones we have.
You mentioned Gazidis and I wondered if he left because he could see our lack of ambition and he wanted to move to a club where success is measured in trophies rather than profit.

I canā€™t see us getting much in this window, certainly not enough to get us a CL place, and the longer our lack of CL football continues, the harder it will be to attract the best players.

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Yeah Iā€™m not sure a title challenge by 20/21 season is possible, think I was being a little optimistic a week or so after a huge NLD win in December.