Arsenal Thread 2013/14

[supercrystal7]

Ok lets break it down as I think you have a couple of things confused,


Hart, another who only started playing that same season, and Zabaleta who only established himself as a world class right back much later. Regardless you can be as fair or unfair as you want, put up the whole squad if you like, listing players is missing the point and it looks to me that's what you're basing your entire argument on.

If you want to play that game then Ramsey despite having a good end to last season was no where near the player he would become later on. You cannot count Arsenal players that took off this season and then claim Hart's rise was unexpected.

Arsenals ability to juggle European football ties in to the exact reasons they were not a 'significantly worse' team than our 2010/11 side. If you agree to them being able to do this you must also by extension agree there is something there, the ability to work as an effective team, perhaps? Something our 2010/11 was certainly no better at.

One factor in Arsenal's favour does not change all the things they had going against them. Arsenal were also competing in the much more draining CL group, where as you had the Europa league to ease you into things.

Ok so Arsenal finished 4th a point ahead of Tottenham, and City finished 5th, 3 points behind. Which one of these is supposed to be the "significantly worse" side, exactly? Narrowly indeed, margins often are at the top. Rarely are they significant, to use your word.

Yes at that point there was not much of a gap, but the difference is you brought in several top players and a couple of world class players to improve the squad. Arsenal only brought in one world class player and a couple of free transfers. Would you really think City had a better squad if they just bought in Silva and forgot about Yaya, Milner, Dzeko, Kolarov, Balotelli etc? Of course not.

So Arsenal added less players to an already better team, quelle surprise! Proves nothing other than we were still firmly in the midst of a HUGE overhaul of the first team.

Now here your logic does not follow. Arsenal added fewer players to a slightly better team. City added numerous quality players to their slightly inferior team. There was not a major overhaul at this point. Players like Kompany, De Jong, Barry, Lescott, Tevez, Johnson and Richards were already at the club. Extra quality was brought into the team with Yaya, Silva and Kolarov bought to go straight into the first team. That's no different than the signings you made this time. Are you seriously suggesting that Arsenal would be in a better situation if they did not sign the likes of Yaya and Dzeko? Give this Arsenal team Yaya and Dzeko and how much better do you think they would do?

Whether Arsenal had it or not, again, irrelevant. We didn't have it, not at the start. We bounced all over the place under Hughes despite the money, and still lost out to Spurs despite half a season of Mancini. It was only arguably the FA Cup semi against the rags that was the real corner turned for us.

No it's not irrelevant, because we are comparing the two teams. Arsenal's position mentally was a lot worse than yours. You were currently midtable without any 'winner's mentality.' Arsenal were actively 'losers'. They found a way to lose trophies they should have won. The players had mental scarring. The City squad also had players that had been very successful recently. Yaya, Balotelli, SIlva, Tevez, Dzeko had all won league tiles, world cups of champions leagues in recent times. Now this is not the same as the team having the right mentality, but it's a good start. Now compare that with Arsenal. Only Giroud had won anything of note in the last 5 years before Flamini and Ozil joined. Not only that, but the collection of players had experienced many crushing defeats and failures.

Then we can look at the managers. Mancini had won lots of trophies in the recent years. Wenger had won nothing for 8 years.

And no, the only thing that's happened here is you missing the point, again, whilst quite brilliantly helping to make mine. I have said nothing about the difficulty of accommodating new signings, nor how difficult that should be based on value. I took issue with your proclamation the Arsenal side that Ozil joined was significantly worse than the City side Silva joined, and a huge part of why I think that's a lot of bollocks and why you listing our squad does nothing to argue your corner is pretty much entirely due to how difficult it was for Mancini to take all those component parts and build a functioning team.

You want to ignore the list of players, because it shows plainly to any objective viewer that City's squad was significantly better. Yes City had other problems, but you ignore all the ones that Arsenal had. City for the most part were a team on the up with the players, staff and fans excited about the new season. Arsenal are a club that has stagnated and many fans were calling for the managers head. The team was booed in a preseason friendly and had a loser's mentality.

Ozil joined a stable and established top 4 side with an manager experienced in the league who for large parts of the season were genuine title contenders (having amassed more points in a calendar year than anyone else IIRC, clearly they weren't having too much trouble). Silva joined a comparatively unstable and certainly not established top 4 side with a manager who had been here half a season, getting to know a load of players he didn't sign and a load he did, who needed large swathes of the season just to work out the kinks. And that's without me going into another ramble about how defensive the side Silva joined was compared to how attacking the Arsenal side Ozil joined was. Do I think Silva would have done better than Ozil if he had joined Arsenal this season instead? Without a single shadow of a doubt.

Right, back to work.

WHat does an established top 4 club matter? Top 4 is only important in attracting players and gaining money. The gap between being a top 4 club and actually challenging for the league massive. Winning trophies and challenging for the league is what is gives you the winning mentality. not coming fourth.

Ozil joined a club that had stagnated and had lost their best player every season for the last 8 or so years. They had won nothing for the last 8 or so years, managed to throw away golden chances to win things and the fans were unhappy. Ozil was the lone star in this new team and expected to carry others.

Silva joined a team on the up and as everyone can see with significantly better players. The moral of the fans and the staff was on the rise. If the Arsenal players were boosted by the signing of Silva how much more were the City players boosted by the signing of Dzeko, Yaya and Balotelli. They had a manager fresh from winning leagues. Mancini was also a better tactician than Wenger. Still the season is not over and Ozil may be lifting the cup in May and he still may get them fourth.

 

[Frank the Yank]

I wonder what Gooners want (if they can only have one that is), an FA Cup win or 4th place and Chimps league football?? I think they would prefer to get the trophy monkey off its back, take the EuroDisney, hope to make it back in the Chimps League while accumulating UEFA points in the process.....

 

[Stoned Rose]

Ok lets break it down as I think you have a couple of things confused,


Hart, another who only started playing that same season, and Zabaleta who only established himself as a world class right back much later. Regardless you can be as fair or unfair as you want, put up the whole squad if you like, listing players is missing the point and it looks to me that's what you're basing your entire argument on.

If you want to play that game then Ramsey despite having a good end to last season was no where near the player he would become later on. You cannot count Arsenal players that took off this season and then claim Hart's rise was unexpected.

Arsenals ability to juggle European football ties in to the exact reasons they were not a 'significantly worse' team than our 2010/11 side. If you agree to them being able to do this you must also by extension agree there is something there, the ability to work as an effective team, perhaps? Something our 2010/11 was certainly no better at.

One factor in Arsenal's favour does not change all the things they had going against them. Arsenal were also competing in the much more draining CL group, where as you had the Europa league to ease you into things.

Ok so Arsenal finished 4th a point ahead of Tottenham, and City finished 5th, 3 points behind. Which one of these is supposed to be the "significantly worse" side, exactly? Narrowly indeed, margins often are at the top. Rarely are they significant, to use your word.

Yes at that point there was not much of a gap, but the difference is you brought in several top players and a couple of world class players to improve the squad. Arsenal only brought in one world class player and a couple of free transfers. Would you really think City had a better squad if they just bought in Silva and forgot about Yaya, Milner, Dzeko, Kolarov, Balotelli etc? Of course not.

So Arsenal added less players to an already better team, quelle surprise! Proves nothing other than we were still firmly in the midst of a HUGE overhaul of the first team.

Now here your logic does not follow. Arsenal added fewer players to a slightly better team. City added numerous quality players to their slightly inferior team. There was not a major overhaul at this point. Players like Kompany, De Jong, Barry, Lescott, Tevez, Johnson and Richards were already at the club. Extra quality was brought into the team with Yaya, Silva and Kolarov bought to go straight into the first team. That's no different than the signings you made this time. Are you seriously suggesting that Arsenal would be in a better situation if they did not sign the likes of Yaya and Dzeko? Give this Arsenal team Yaya and Dzeko and how much better do you think they would do?

Whether Arsenal had it or not, again, irrelevant. We didn't have it, not at the start. We bounced all over the place under Hughes despite the money, and still lost out to Spurs despite half a season of Mancini. It was only arguably the FA Cup semi against the rags that was the real corner turned for us.

No it's not irrelevant, because we are comparing the two teams. Arsenal's position mentally was a lot worse than yours. You were currently midtable without any 'winner's mentality.' Arsenal were actively 'losers'. They found a way to lose trophies they should have won. The players had mental scarring. The City squad also had players that had been very successful recently. Yaya, Balotelli, SIlva, Tevez, Dzeko had all won league tiles, world cups of champions leagues in recent times. Now this is not the same as the team having the right mentality, but it's a good start. Now compare that with Arsenal. Only Giroud had won anything of note in the last 5 years before Flamini and Ozil joined. Not only that, but the collection of players had experienced many crushing defeats and failures.

Then we can look at the managers. Mancini had won lots of trophies in the recent years. Wenger had won nothing for 8 years.

And no, the only thing that's happened here is you missing the point, again, whilst quite brilliantly helping to make mine. I have said nothing about the difficulty of accommodating new signings, nor how difficult that should be based on value. I took issue with your proclamation the Arsenal side that Ozil joined was significantly worse than the City side Silva joined, and a huge part of why I think that's a lot of bollocks and why you listing our squad does nothing to argue your corner is pretty much entirely due to how difficult it was for Mancini to take all those component parts and build a functioning team.

You want to ignore the list of players, because it shows plainly to any objective viewer that City's squad was significantly better. Yes City had other problems, but you ignore all the ones that Arsenal had. City for the most part were a team on the up with the players, staff and fans excited about the new season. Arsenal are a club that has stagnated and many fans were calling for the managers head. The team was booed in a preseason friendly and had a loser's mentality.

Ozil joined a stable and established top 4 side with an manager experienced in the league who for large parts of the season were genuine title contenders (having amassed more points in a calendar year than anyone else IIRC, clearly they weren't having too much trouble). Silva joined a comparatively unstable and certainly not established top 4 side with a manager who had been here half a season, getting to know a load of players he didn't sign and a load he did, who needed large swathes of the season just to work out the kinks. And that's without me going into another ramble about how defensive the side Silva joined was compared to how attacking the Arsenal side Ozil joined was. Do I think Silva would have done better than Ozil if he had joined Arsenal this season instead? Without a single shadow of a doubt.

Right, back to work.

WHat does an established top 4 club matter? Top 4 is only important in attracting players and gaining money. The gap between being a top 4 club and actually challenging for the league massive. Winning trophies and challenging for the league is what is gives you the winning mentality. not coming fourth.

Ozil joined a club that had stagnated and had lost their best player every season for the last 8 or so years. They had won nothing for the last 8 or so years, managed to throw away golden chances to win things and the fans were unhappy. Ozil was the lone star in this new team and expected to carry others.

Silva joined a team on the up and as everyone can see with significantly better players. The moral of the fans and the staff was on the rise. If the Arsenal players were boosted by the signing of Silva how much more were the City players boosted by the signing of Dzeko, Yaya and Balotelli. They had a manager fresh from winning leagues. Mancini was also a better tactician than Wenger. Still the season is not over and Ozil may be lifting the cup in May and he still may get them fourth.

The gap between being a top 4 club and actually challenging for the league massive

Really? The fact that there's 4 points currently separating the top 3 and the 4th place club are only 8 points off top spot, says you're wrong.


Winning trophies and challenging for the league is what is gives you the winning mentality. not coming fourth.

Yes re winning trophies, but how does 'challenging for the league' (and then not actually winning it) give you a 'winning mentality'?

Ozil joined a club that had stagnated and had lost their best player every season for the last 8 or so years

Silva joined a team who'd won fuck all for over 30 years and had gone so far past 'stagnation' that stagnation was actually an attractive proposition.


Mancini was also a better tactician than Wenger

Really? How can you be sure that Mancini's success wasn't due simply to all those 'better players' he signed that poor old Wenger couldn't buy rather than him being a better tactician?

I can also hazard a well informed guess that not many of the players would have been 'boosted' by the signing of Balotelli. Balotelli was actually a massive bellend who actually had a negative effect, hence the fact he was fucked off to Italy at the soonest opportunity once the 2 Spanish kids came on board.

 

[prestonibbo_mcfc]

Arsenal look less and less like a team as every game goes by. This club should still be up there challenging
no matter whether we like them or not. FA Cup win or not, I think Wegner has stagnated and it's time to go.

 

[Big-P]

Bent team, bent manager and most of all the MOST bent set of fans in the premier league. I think that little ginger kid summed up them lot shaking a FA cup trophy! Hate them, hope Hull absolutely rape them. Despicable club. Osama bin laden was a supporter, I think that says it all about them.

 

[Crouchinho]

Bent team, bent manager and most of all the MOST bent set of fans in the premier league. I think that little ginger kid summed up them lot shaking a FA cup trophy! Hate them, hope Hull absolutely rape them. Despicable club. Osama bin laden was a supporter, I think that says it all about them.

One of their ex players is also part of the taliban too :D

Just like Almunia, Fabianski comes 5 yards off his line for penalty saves. Ref turns a blind eye

Almost as bad as the corruption last week when the Swansea player was clean through and the ref blew the final whistle. Strangely enough nothing mentioned in the press, a bit like when they bribed their way into the division, rarely talked about.

 

[Normalbloke]

City = League cup
Arsenal = FA CUP

Successful season? definitely Arsenal's

 

[Bodicoteblue]

City = League cup
Arsenal = FA CUP

Successful season? definitely Arsenal's

City - league cup and 1st or 2nd in league -guaranteed CL football
Arsenal - FA cup and 4th ( qualifier against FC nevereardofem in July )
Or5th -Thursday night ITV 4
Definitely arsenal's
Er and you haven't actually won the FA cup

 

[JoeMercer'sWay]

thread quiet when Arse are doing poorly, one jackpot win on penalties against a Championship team and boom, the wums are back. Similar trend to all visiting fans 2bh.

 

[Jazzy.ba]

Bent team, bent manager and most of all the MOST bent set of fans in the premier league. I think that little ginger kid summed up them lot shaking a FA cup trophy! Hate them, hope Hull absolutely rape them. Despicable club. Osama bin laden was a supporter, I think that says it all about them.

Take a pill.