Arsenal Thread | 2025/26

Vieira and Keane above Rodri IMHO. Or at least level. And above anyone, untouchable on his own is Ngolo Kante who was a cheat code for having the equivalent of 12 players on the pitch.

And I know this is a City forum but LOL at having Fernandinho above Rice, Petit and Essien!
Keane above Rodri and you're telling others they don't understand football.
Rice would currently get into City's team but he's not a patch on prime Fernandinho.
 
Saka is quality but we are seeing more and more injuries hes been run into the ground with amount of football he's played, not just with Saka but other young players that have come through early with the amount of football.

Smith Rowe I really liked when he was at Arsenal he looked a very good player every time he played but Injuries especially the groin one derailed his potential abit. Seeing now Palmer has got the same problem , Yamal same issue. Odegaard started very young at Madrid now getting knocks and injury issues.

I feel like if young players are good enough they should play but the management around young players is really effecting potential. Media and fan pressure to play these young players increasing managers have to play them but at what cost.

It's definitely a hot topic of conversation currently. I remember the criticism Pep used to get over Foden, people saying he should go on loan for game time, or even leave altogether, but as usual Pep looks to have managed it perfectly.

We are currently having similar conversations around Nwaneri mostly, people complaining about his lack of game time and similar conversations that he should be going on loan etc, while those same people moan about Saka being run into the ground.

Usually it is difficult to have an adult conversation with gooners.

I tend to not try and group people and try and treat people individually. There's lost of takes I don't agree with @bridgeno1 on for instance, and I'm sure there's stuff he won't agree with me on.
 
I'd say Matt Le Tissier TBH.
He was skillful but lacked ambition and is a loon. I kind of blame him for inflicting Alan Ball on us. His brilliance in the free role that Ball gave him convinced Franny that Ball was some sort of football genius.
All's well that ends well though!
 
These history clubs always think footy was better back in the day
The lack of skillful play and amount of hoofing in the Premier League 20 years ago always shocks me when I watch it nowadays. The peak Fern, Dave and KdB midfield is the best ever imo. I would back them against any other from the Premier League era given fair refereeing.
 
It's definitely a hot topic of conversation currently. I remember the criticism Pep used to get over Foden, people saying he should go on loan for game time, or even leave altogether, but as usual Pep looks to have managed it perfectly.

We are currently having similar conversations around Nwaneri mostly, people complaining about his lack of game time and similar conversations that he should be going on loan etc, while those same people moan about Saka being run into the ground.



I tend to not try and group people and try and treat people individually. There's lost of takes I don't agree with @bridgeno1 on for instance, and I'm sure there's stuff he won't agree with me on.

Dowman as well saw Arsenal fans calling for him to thrown in because he's very good, now he's out with an ankle ligament damage this young in his career. Just think there needs to be common sense when it comes to young players he's 15 already suffered a big injury.
 
Listen, i'm not fundamentally disagreeing, we need to start winning stuff, but i think it's more the point that by having a team that actually good, competing near the top of the table and in latter stages of Champions League, is more sustainable to competing for trophies, & the big trophies especially, long term, than say the Arsenal of 5-10 years ago, or Utd just now, of winning the occasional FA Cup in otherwise fairly miserable seasons.



We have spent a fortune, but so has everyone else?



In the last 5 years, i'm afraid you have.



Totally agree with that. We are poor sellers, partly because a lot of what we had was aging, overpaid and generally shite. Much easier to sell when you have good players to sell in the first place.
GunnerGer are other Tarquins of the same opinion as you, that 2nd place and challenging is good enough. For a club that's spent well in excess of £1 billion to try to buy the league?
 
The lack of skillful play and amount of hoofing in the Premier League 20 years ago always shocks me when I watch it nowadays. The peak Fern, Dave and KdB midfield is the best ever imo. I would back them against any other from the Premier League era given fair refereeing.
Pep's role in bringing the Premier League up to the standards it's at now has been totally down played and even derided. There's probably not another manager who has changed English football (for the better) than Pep. Wenger gets more credit for trying to stop players getting pissed on a Friday night and feeding them boiled chicken than Pep gets for coaching techniques, that are copied all around the country
 
Vieira and Keane above Rodri IMHO. Or at least level. And above anyone, untouchable on his own is Ngolo Kante who was a cheat code for having the equivalent of 12 players on the pitch.

And I know this is a City forum but LOL at having Fernandinho above Rice, Petit and Essien!

I may be late to this and others may have done the job, but remind me of when Vieira or Keane won the Balon d'Or?

And Fernandinho won 5 PLs. How many has Rice won? Essien got 2. Petit one.

Even Kante was great, but 2 PLs?

I think people don't realise how good and important Fernandinho was, because he was the water-carrier, as it were, but for most PL sides he could have played as a number 10.
 
The lack of skillful play and amount of hoofing in the Premier League 20 years ago always shocks me when I watch it nowadays. The peak Fern, Dave and KdB midfield is the best ever imo. I would back them against any other from the Premier League era given fair refereeing.
This being an important consideration.
 
GunnerGer are other Tarquins of the same opinion as you, that 2nd place and challenging is good enough. For a club that's spent well in excess of £1 billion to try to buy the league?

A wide range of spectrums mate. Some don't like Arteta at all and would sack him tomorrow if they could. Others would sack him if he finished empty handed after the season end. For others, he needs to win the Premier League or Champions League specifically.

Listen, I certainly don't think Arteta is without fault. If a Luis Enrique or a Pep, or a Klopp even decided for some reason they wanted to learn some blud fam type lingo and move to N5 then I'd be all for it. But there's not a lot of others out there I look at and say, yeah for definite, that guy is a definite upgrade, would fit culturally, and would guarantee that he could get us 85-90pts+ needed to win this league.

I know Liverpool managed it with Slot last season, but to me that shows that timing and luck mean a lot as well. City and Arsenal both having off seasons, Salah having a Balon D'or contender type season, lucky with injuries etc.

I think people often forget that you guys are actually quite good, and that you have the best manager on the planet and the best gunman on the planet. Getting to be a 80 point team is difficult itself, as the likes of Spurs, Utd, Newcastle, Chelsea and Villa are showing. Getting that extra 10% needed to be first, that's just as or even maybe more difficult. But maybe it would be time to give someone else a shot, I'm not saying my view is the right view.
 
GunnerGer are other Tarquins of the same opinion as you, that 2nd place and challenging is good enough. For a club that's spent well in excess of £1 billion to try to buy the league?
Not this season. Have to win the league as we have the best overall squad. CL would be nice but it's also a bit of a lottery whereas the best team always wins the league.

If we don't win it serious questions need to be asked.
 
I remember the criticism Pep used to get over Foden, people saying he should go on loan for game time, or even leave altogether,
I’m not sure you read any City fans or City backing media, that ever said Foden should be loaned out or sold.

You will have read umpteen articles/tweets (including the finest example of media stupidity - a large field to win against), that wanted Foden out (by any means) of City.

Each fanbase has its own knowledge about their own team, which generally far exceeds other fans.
And it far exceeds the vast majority of the media reporting, and the repeating of that by know-nowt fans.

Saying that, I’ve found that red cartel fans on the whole have serious gaps in the historical knowledge about their own clubs.

Eg United: 2x sugar daddy, gifted stadium, gifted stadium rebuild, gifted overhaul. Match fixing. Despicable treatment of the Munich victim families. Milking Munich - eg Cantona payouts, advertising. Bribery of young nonUnited footballers families to join. Referee and rules ‘oversight’ and corruption - eg THAT Arsenal game. Coronavirus PSR dispensation far in excess of all other PL clubs combined. Scruffy buyout costs PSR dispensation. PL rule waivers on stadium standards. No action on match postponement due to stadium invasion. No detailed info about ‘small breach’ of UEFA PSR. Signing letter to demand to get City thrown out, before CAS verdict.
Edit: just off the top of my head

Some of those also involve Arsenal & Liverpool… who both have a full list of dubious issues that their supporters seem to know little about.
 
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