Arsenal Thread | 2025/26

Yes but they won the league to qualify for it. Luck of the draw plays it's part but they had to win a league title to be in it.
That's certainly true and I'm not trying to belittle Liverpool's domestic record but in Europe they played fewer matches than clubs do now and there were fewer strong teams. It is true that English clubs didn't have the financial clout that the Spanish and Italians had and their spending was uncontrolled. That said, the English champions won it 7 times between 1976 and 1985 and were runners up once. What I am saying is that today there is more opportunity to have a bad quarter-, half- hour or even a poor leg against rather stronger opposition than in the 70s and 80s. Different times and hard to compare. On the other hand we can point out that Arsenal wouldn't have qualified for this year's Europen cup in the 70s or 80s if you see what I mean. And I think it fair to say that Arsenal have not had the most testing of runs to the final - not like the last English winners, who also qualified as champions.
 
That's certainly true and I'm not trying to belittle Liverpool's domestic record but in Europe they played fewer matches than clubs do now and there were fewer strong teams. It is true that English clubs didn't have the financial clout that the Spanish and Italians had and their spending was uncontrolled. That said, the English champions won it 7 times between 1976 and 1985 and were runners up once. What I am saying is that today there is more opportunity to have a bad quarter-, half- hour or even a poor leg against rather stronger opposition than in the 70s and 80s. Different times and hard to compare. On the other hand we can point out that Arsenal wouldn't have qualified for this year's Europen cup in the 70s or 80s if you see what I mean. And I think it fair to say that Arsenal have not had the most testing of runs to the final - not like the last English winners, who also qualified as champions.
Yeah it's probably fair to say that it was harder to qualify back then but easier to win. Alternatively, there was no group stage back then so one bad night (or two) and you were out. Though that's true now too when we get to the knockout rounds.

One thing I will say is that names that look like diddies now were pretty handy back then (though you could meet literal amateur teams too) Teams like St Etienne, Steaua Bucharest and Forest (who only recently got back to PL level again) were really strong. It's like the idiots amazed that Aberdeen beat Real Madrid and wanking over Purple Nose - back then Aberdeen were miles better than they are now, and Real Madrid were much worse. The gap between teams was much smaller before the satellite TV, internet and capitalist revolution. If you look at some of the teams that won European trophies back then, they're non-entities on the European stage now but were strong back then. We shouldn't look at such teams now through the prism of the present.
 
Like someone else said, Pep's City and Klopp's Liverpool are the best and second best team respectively in the history of English football, most likely.

But now we have this lot being the pioneers in dragging football back to the dark ages. I think that's part of why Pep left too - was he fuck scared of the challenge, but he knows (and already has a bit) he would have to compromise his ideals and start playing rugby football to adapt to it. He is a visionary and proponent of beautiful football and likely saw how football is going in England and thought 'fuck that'. In an alternative universe where Klopp stayed and football was still like 2019 I think he'd have relished the challenged and stayed on.
 
But now we have this lot being the pioneers in dragging football back to the dark ages. I think that's part of why Pep left too - was he fuck scared of the challenge, but he knows (and already has a bit) he would have to compromise his ideals and start playing rugby football to adapt to it.
Pep left because he'd done 10 years, nothing to do with arsenal.
 
Like someone else said, Pep's City and Klopp's Liverpool are the best and second best team respectively in the history of English football, most likely.

But now we have this lot being the pioneers in dragging football back to the dark ages. I think that's part of why Pep left too - was he fuck scared of the challenge, but he knows (and already has a bit) he would have to compromise his ideals and start playing rugby football to adapt to it. He is a visionary and proponent of beautiful football and likely saw how football is going in England and thought 'fuck that'. In an alternative universe where Klopp stayed and football was still like 2019 I think he'd have relished the challenged and stayed on.
Klopp's Liverpool were under-achievers... mainly because of us!
 
Yeah it's probably fair to say that it was harder to qualify back then but easier to win. Alternatively, there was no group stage back then so one bad night (or two) and you were out. Though that's true now too when we get to the knockout rounds.

One thing I will say is that names that look like diddies now were pretty handy back then (though you could meet literal amateur teams too) Teams like St Etienne, Steaua Bucharest and Forest (who only recently got back to PL level again) were really strong. It's like the idiots amazed that Aberdeen beat Real Madrid and wanking over Purple Nose - back then Aberdeen were miles better than they are now, and Real Madrid were much worse. The gap between teams was much smaller before the satellite TV, internet and capitalist revolution. If you look at some of the teams that won European trophies back then, they're non-entities on the European stage now but were strong back then. We shouldn't look at such teams now through the prism of the present.

Liverpool got a by in one round on the way to winning it one year! Also played the champions of ireland. Wow
Think villa played 5 rounds? First round against spartak washing machine!
 
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